Saturday, February 2, 2008

Foul Ball

His name was John, and his hair was a bright red flag waving in the West Texas wind. They pointed him out to me as he chased his football-carrying brother on the paved recess playground.
“There they are, those two brothers. Pray that you don’t get them in your class.”
“Why not?” I asked, in all of my first year innocence, looking around at the other teachers in our private staff dining room off the cafeteria.
“They’re real trouble, I hear."
"Last week they were sent to the office for bringing beer to school in their lunches.”
“James was in a fight last week, and John’s a flat-out mess!”
"James and John--Sons of Thunder", I thought, and I knew they’d probably be in my class when they entered seventh grade the next year. As the new teacher, I taught two “basic” English classes, and kids in trouble were usually there.
Sure enough, the next year when I saw my class lists I recognized a name. It was John's. They had put his brother in another class at least, but in keeping with my last year’s resolve to get a firm handle on the class from the first, I determined to let this John kid know that his English teacher was formidable. On the first day of classes, I put the students in a predetermined seating order. John was "front and center", right in front of my desk. When I went over rules I spoke to him. When I checked to see if the students were doing the assignment right, his was the first I looked at. I watched him closely and I waited for trouble.
It never came. He smiled sometimes, a secretive little plotting smile, but nothing ever came of it. Other students got sent to the office for digging fresh glue out of the newly replaced window panes and trying to sniff it, for refusing to sit when the bell rang, for hopping around the room with their white gym shorts on their heads shouting, “I’m Chef Boy Ardee!”, but John was as good as a teacher-loving, apple-bearing, curled and perfumed, straight-A-making, little girl—except he was none of those things. He just never gave me any trouble.
So I softened. I smiled at him. He stayed good.
All year. It amazed me, and I would have thought that I had misunderstood the teachers’ dire warnings the year before, but for the fact that every now and then I heard grumblings about the boys at recess, and those “brothers were raising Cain again.”
In the spring, I took my two-year-old daughter to the park, and we played in the early sunshine and the first warm wind. It was while I was watching her pink-ribboned ponytails fly back in the swing that I caught sight of John.
He was running down the grassy hill, out of class, celebrating the freedom of Saturday, or so I thought. Then I saw the man behind him. Huge, rugged and unkept. They ran right by me, and I smelled alcohol, or sour vomit from it. Between breaths he was cursing and panting, and would probably have never caught John, but for that little slip on the new grass as the boy turned to see me watching. For a brief moment I though he would help the boy to his feet, but he didn’t. He kicked him, and cursed again. My “sons of Thunder” appellation had been strangely appropriate for those two.
If I hadn’t been holding my baby, I would have run down there and confronted the storming man—despite all my training to the contrary. This was just wrong. There was a bright red flag down on the field.
I stood there frozen, holding my child tightly, her little brown pony-tails flapping against my face. And the angry man turned and lumbered off, climbing into an old rusted car at the curb and driving away.
John, jumped up, flashed me a grin, and ran off in the other direction.
The next day at school, he was quieter than ever. I helped him with his English.
“Are you ok? Is everything alright”
He nodded, smiled, and said, ever so quietly, “My dad, well, he’s… I’ll be fine”.
Nobody else heard him. They were all talking about the football game that evening.





12 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I first joined teaching, I was told that there was a girl in my class who was a trouble maker. I should not pay her much attention and ignore her. It was eight grade. The previous class teacher teacher warned me about her. I was fresh out of college with no teaching experience prior to this unless you counted the mandatory teaching periods which we had to take, to get the teaching degree.

I made her sit in the front desk right in front of me. I was very kind of very formidable. After a while, I started dealing with her differently. I was more affectionate, I kind of made sure to involve her in the class-room activities.

I saw her visibly thawing. She interacted,mixed with others in a positive way.

For a girl who had flunked the previous year and was considered good for nothing, she topped the class. I taught her for three years upto 10 grade. She completed her +2, went to college, did very well.

Your post reminded me of her. After 16 years.

Thanks.

Barbara said...

I too, have had those kids others tell me are big trouble, only to have something very different happen.
The really hard thing about teaching is the the kids you just never reach... the really wonderful thing about teaching is those few that for some reason you touch and make their lives better.

We do not know how powerful we are nor the battles those kids wage at home.

Thanks for a wonderful post.

aftergrace said...

I've had boys just like the "sons of Thunder" in my classes.
It's such a trust issue with them, how can they trust another person, when all they have felt is abuse, especially from the very adults that are supposed to love them? I had a boy named Alex one year who came to school filthy, his body, and clothes were gritty, and dirty. He was so thin that the wind could blow him away. He used to hide beneath his hoodie, with his head on his desk, wishing to be invisible. He told me he wanted to be a crab, so he could hide in his shell, and not be seen.
I just was patient with him, always quiet around him. I never pushed him, but consoled, and encouraged. By the end of the year the hoodie was gone, and Alex actually smiled now ,and then.
In the end, kindness, and love are all that matters.
We have been given a very powerful job to do.

The Literary Prostitute said...

Hopefully, you made a difference in young John's life. So often, boys who are abused as children grow up to be abusers themselves. Teachers like you can change the tides, so I'm glad he was in your class.

Carina said...

I don't remember the event, of course, but now that I have my own little two year old with brown ponytails I can imagine how a Mommy's heart would break.

Shari said...

How frustrating it must be for you, seeing the injustice taking place. That father is raising his sons to be abusers. It's very upsetting, a good story for "Foul".

paisley said...

most things in this life are related in some way to cause and effect... it was eyeopening i am sure to see what the cause was behind the brothers behavior's... more often than not,, there is someone or some thing chasing those students... its just finding out what it is that is the tough part....

Anonymous said...

"Bad" boys and girls usually have a role model. Great that you observed Johns and could understand him more than any other previous teacher had. Glad you didn't approach the maniac.

Anonymous said...

I didn't mean to be anonymous. Hit the wrong button.

Linda Jacobs said...

As a teacher this pulled me right in and made me think of similar experiences.

As an English teacher I love your style of writing! The descriptions are simple and beautiful. The details are vivid.

A lovely heart-warming story!

Forgetfulone said...

I am faced with situations such as that in my teaching as well. It's not easy, and sometimes we want to fix things, but we can't. It's just so sad that society can let it continue.

Linda May said...

Thanks for posting this, I could write heaps on this subject. My son was one of those boys at school but it came from bullying in the playground I believe, which was something that the teaching staff chose to turn a blind eye to. I still think he was naughty in class because he wasn't getting on in the playground but in the class room he had a captive audience to try to i9mpress with his antics.As the school years went by he kept slipping further behind but when he started school he was top of the class for the first 4 years or so. I so wish I knew what I do now, and could go back and fix it but know I can't. Later he suffered depression and anxiety for many years and is still well behind where he should have been if things were different back then.Since we moved to a new town 2 years ago he has continued to move forwards and get stronger. He is 28 now .....but those wasted years tear my heart out.
Sorry about my rant but I am just trying to put a different spin on the view that parents are always at fault.