A Terrible Beauty: What Teachers Know but Seldom Tell outside the Staff Room (11 page)

They weren’t happy, but they wrote it.

“Next is hydrogen.” From a cupboard he took a large
balloon.

“What will happen if we use a match to provide
activation energy for hydrogen in the presence of oxygen? Sally
surprised Solange by throwing up a plump arm. “It’ll bond?” He
smiled over Sally’s head at Solange. “So, you’ve been listening.”
O’Connel waved her up, “Okay, come on up here.” This balloon, big
as a beach ball, went up in a ball of orange fire three feet across
to flatten against the high ceiling, leaving no smoke at all and
twenty-four thirteen-year-olds yelled with one voice.

Sally’s face lit up in rapture—now this was more like
it! When he had them quiet, he mentioned the Hindenberg, and said
that there was now some water vapor up near the ceiling that hadn’t
been there before.

As they predicted, the noble gases merely made a
small raspberry sound when touched by the burning match. This
caused several imitations. The mushroom cloud of flame forgotten,
they were again bored.

He took a balloon the size of a grapefruit down from
a high cabinet. “Now what we have is a mix of acetylene and
oxygen.”

“The gas they use for welding?” Sally said.

Again Solange was impressed.

“That’s right. Now the hydrogen we burned wasn’t
mixed with oxygen.”

“Just when it burned, right?”

“Yeah, well this gas is, and when fuel is mixed with
oxygen burns very quickly. Very dangerous. Very good bombs.”
Groans. The balloon was too small, they all agreed. It wouldn’t do
anything but fart, anyway. They shut their journals, chins cupped
in open palms. The period was nearly over. They watched the second
hand on the clock as it ticked down taking them nearer the
break.

He called for a volunteer. Sally’s was the only hand
raised.

The small balloon went off like a bomb in the closed
room, leaving Solange’s ears ringing. Chalk dust blown from the
chalk tray by the concussion hung in the air like a fog. It was
dead quiet, now.

Sally stood by the lab table, frozen, open mouth
slack, stick held under the empty ring stand. Slowly, a smile grew
on her face, tiny pig-eyes wide. “Wow.”

O’Connel took the bamboo pole out of her hand. “Well,
you always said you wanted to blow something up. Now you have. I’ll
let you go a minute early for break, go get some fresh air.” He
opened several windows, as the class filed out in stunned
silence.

Solange worked her finger in her ear. “That was
loud!” He smiled. “Yeah, I think it woke them up.” Lott stuck his
head in the door, frowning at the pall of dust.

“What the hell’d you do, blow the place up?”

“I blew up your best student.”

“Oh, Lord, not Sally! Who’s going to take roll for
me? You got her to do any work in your class, yet?”

“It’s only November. Today she came dangerously close
to writing her name, though,” O’Connel said.

“What’s your secret? That gal can tell you where
anybody in the school is at anyone time—you pick the period—but it
takes her all period to open her binder! Explain that, will you?”
He went out.

O’Connel wedged the door open to air out the
room.

Solange watched him, thinking. “You know the decision
whether or not to return a student to class is the VP’s. Why would
you say what you did to the boy you sent out?”

“I’ve kicked too many horse’s hind ends out of class
just to have them come back five minutes later with a big grin on
their face, bragging that nothing happened, that’s why. As far as
most administrators are concerned, you see a problem, you made it;
it’s your fault. After a while even teachers get the message.”

What he thought of her shouldn’t matter, but it did.
It did matter. “You hate all of us, don’t you?”

“I’m not talking about you,” he said, tearing open a
pack of gum and offering her a piece. “I don’t even hate the
gutless wonders. They’re just trying to keep their jobs. Their
hands are tied—the courts have seen to that. An administrator’s job
now is to avoid lawsuits. I’ve even seen principals called on the
carpet because of too many kids expelled for drugs and alcohol. You
see, we want it both ways, Drug Free keep the stats low, we
tolerate just about any behavior the kids dish out. I’m not saying
they’re the heavies, I just see it from a teacher’s point of view,
that’s all. Things look different from down here.”

She blew against a pane, breath fogging the glass.
“What if —” She hesitated, afraid she had said too much. Afraid he
would laugh…not wanting him to.

“What?” he said, guessing her thought. “If an
administrator cared about more than keeping her job? if she had
scruples? if she had the guts to stand firm on standards, to stand
up to parents and board members?”

“Yeah,” she said, more than a little surprised by his
guess.

He shrugged. “They might last six, eight weeks. The
thing you’ve got to remember is, the moment you try to do what’s
right, you make enemies, because everybody wants something from the
system. Good grades, free babysitting, a cushy job—everybody wants
something, but nobody wants any trouble.”

The halls were silent, now, the wind filtering in
around the icy panes.

She could think of nothing more to say. “You’re
probably right.”

He passed out some dog-eared math workbooks. “Wait
until you meet this bunch.”

“Isn’t it time for History?” He shook his head.
“Bonehead Math. We operate on a variable schedule—we call it zoo
schedule. We shuffle the class order every day—I say Parnell tosses
dice, Helvey says it’s darts. It’s supposed to keep the kiddies
from getting bored. It’s just something we do to make sure that no
one really knows what’s coming next. Can’t have things getting too
predictable, can we?”

She set her laptop out on the desk, opened it. “So
what’s so special about this group?” He made a face. “I won’t spoil
it for you.” The bell rang and she mentioned that it was quieter
here than in the hallway below.

“It used to knock me out of my socks every time it
went off. I got up in the attic and cut the hot wire. No one’s
noticed, so I guess it didn’t hurt anything.”

Her laptop she switched on.

“Oops.” He winced. “Just gave you one, didn’t I?”

“Yup,” she said, hands moving over the keyboard as
she met his eye. “Don’t forget I’m the enemy…I won’t.”

They scared her. From her seat in the back of the
room she watched boys file in, many wearing earphones and baseball
caps turned bill to the back.

O’Connel stood guard at the door and they slapped
them on the counter as they came. A tough looking blond with an
earring slammed down his binder and, for no reason she could see,
took a shorter boy in a head lock. O’Connel barked and they
sat.

The room filled and still she had seen no girls. How
odd to have a class with only boys—with this group, how
nightmarish.

The blond turned to stare at her with the eyes of an
unfriendly dog. “Who’s she?”

“Miss Gonsalvas is the assistant superintendent.”

She didn’t like his eyes. There was no intelligence
there, only conniving malevolence. The thoughts of an animal seemed
to dart behind them. How much ugliness the boy must have seen in
his short life to have eyes like these.

Sensing weakness, his eyes narrowed. “You mean she’s
your boss, O’Connel?”

“My name’s Mr. O’Connel, Lyle. If you don’t want to
write it, you’ll say it.” He swiveled slowly around. “Mr.
O’Connel…Is she?”

“She is.” This he found incredibly funny. “What’s she
here for?” he asked, guileless as a child.

“She’s here to see if I’m doing a good job.” He
turned to face her once more, mouth twisted into a crooked smile,
and Solange was relieved they were not alone.

“Then if we screw around, you get in trouble, huh,
Mr. O’Connel?”

“If you’re not busy and quiet when the bell rings,
you’ll be down in the office, and you’ll miss it if I do. Wouldn’t
that be a shame? Now, turn around, please, Lyle.”

Lyle swiveled around slowly. “Aw, no way I’d want to
miss that.”

The bell rang and after a couple reminders, they
settled down to work, looking up every so of ten to see if he was
watching. He was, so they went back to work. The tension in the
room was palpable, a presence, like sitting on the lid of an
overheated pressure cooker. She’d never been in a classroom like
it. The boys made it obvious they would rather be anywhere else.
They said it with their postures, their faces, their entire
bodies.

Too tense to sit, she peeked over their shoulders at
their papers.

Slumped down in their desks, they wrote in an
indecipherable scribble. Although they had just begun, their papers
were somehow already wrinkled and torn. Determined to fail, they
left nothing to chance. Glaring up at her as she passed, they dared
her to criticize.

She could feel the hostility in their eyes. They
radiated animus the way a bulb gave off light.

A big boy with eyes set too close together set down
his pencil and leaned back in his chair, looking around the room
for something to interest him. From the way he held his face, she
guessed he must be learning disabled. O’Connel went over and
pointed out what he had missed; with a disappointed groan, he went
back to work.

Lyle threw a crumpled paper overhead where it bounced
off the board next to O’Connel, and he continued taking roll
without looking up. “No basket. Pick it up, Lyle.”

“It wasn’t me!”

“No big deal,” O’Connel said. “Just pick it up, and
go back to work.”

“I didn’t throw it, and I ain’t picking it up,” Lyle
said, arms crossed.

She had seen him throw it with her own eyes, but his
performance made her doubt herself. He was that good.

Sounding bored, O’Connel sighed. “That’s open
defiance, Lyle. I’m going to have to send you down to the office.”
He wrote up a referral and set it in front of Lyle on the desk. His
manner told her this was how the game was played. It was nothing to
get excited about.

“Go on down to the office and tell Mr. Parnell your
sad story of persecution. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Lyle got up to
leave, and as he passed by O’Connel, he leaned close, hissing
something vilely obscene.

O’Connel slammed him up against the wall hard enough
to rattle the glass in the cabinets. Tennis shoes just off the
floor, the boy hung, mouth agape with fear and surprise, the only
sound rain against the windows.

“You know what they do to teachers who touch
students, Lyle?” O’Connel said, voice quiet, deadly calm. “They
fire them.” Lyle said nothing. “You know something else, Lyle? If
they were paying me a hundred times what they are, it wouldn’t be
worth letting you say that to me. Say it again, and they can have
the job. I’ll put you right through this wall. You got that,
Lyle?”

Lyle got it.

O’Connel set him down, keeping him pressed to the
wall. “Now go on down and tell the counselor you want out of my
class. And, Lyle, when you pass me in the hall, don’t smile. I
might think you thought this was funny.” O’Connell him go, and he
went out, slamming the door, screaming obscenities as he went.

O’Connel sat at his desk and seemed to calm himself.
The class worked silently in the book the rest of the period while
O’Connel graded papers. No one had to be reminded to work, to be
quiet, to finish the assignment. The tension was gone.

It was a different class.

That was it—she had all she needed. He had just hung
himself. It was exactly what she wanted, exactly what she
needed.

She had won.

Then why was she disappointed? Looking over what she
had written, she realized how much she had been shaken by it.
Laying hands on a student was grounds for dismissal. Period. She
frowned. Then why, at least on a gut level, had she been glad he’d
done it? And why had the class worked so annoyingly well the rest
of the period? Violence wasn’t the answer, she knew that, but,
then, what was? Just how much crap did we expect teachers to take?
When at last the bell sounded, they filed out, voices hushed.

O’Connel got up to stretch, wiping his face with both
hands. “Guess I blew it.”

“That’s quite a class,” she said.

He stood at the windows, looking out. “Not five will
ever graduate. We’re just warehousing them, keeping them off the
streets, collecting our twenty-five bucks a head every day they
warm the chair. They don’t learn anything, but the sad part is,
nobody anywhere near them does either. They’re together in math
class, but the rest of the time they’re out there mixed in with
everybody else. Most read at about a third grade level. Some have
failed every class since sixth grade, yet here they are until
they’re twenty-one.”

“Okay,” she said, “so where do we put them? They’re
at risk. They need whatever help we can give.”

“Spare me, will you? At risk? They’re at risk? Those
kids aren’t at risk, we’ve lost them. It’s everybody else who’s at
risk—from them. I mean, what, a super teacher’s going to bring them
back? Not me, I can’t do it.” The bell rang. Kids drifted in.

From the first, Solange could feel this class was
different. Chelsea took roll as the tardy bell rang. Moses read the
answers to Tuesday’s assignment. No scowls or backward baseball
caps here. Geometry would make them a group that was on its way, if
not to college, at least to graduation.

O’Connel assigned the class an investigation to
determine whether two triangles with side-angle-side, and
angle-side-side congruence were always themselves congruent.
Solange watched, fascinated, as they split into small groups, and
began working.

When a student asked O’Connel for help, he didn’t
give the answer. Instead he asked a question that allowed the
student to find the answer for himself Classic Socratic method—he
made it work for him. Not stilted. Not put on. He made it seem the
most natural thing in the world to answer one question with
another. His students weren’t merely doing calculations, they were
discovering theorems for themselves. He didn’t dole out
knowledge—he described the problem and simply got out of the way.
It was teaching at its best—teacher as facilitator, students as
active participants in their own growth.