Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind (13 page)

The following day, I discussed my plan with Ellen. She thought it was a great idea. I knew that Max couldn’t come into the
classroom. It would be too distracting. So Ellen and I decided that Rebecca would visit Max in the office. Things are pretty
quiet there after lunch. Ellen volunteered to keep an eye on Rebecca.

When I first told Rebecca about the idea, I thought she’d be excited, but she wasn’t. Rebecca knew Max, of course, but said
that she didn’t want to leave the classroom. I could tell that she was nervous. But I also had a hunch that after one visit
with Max, she’d be hooked.

I knelt down beside her desk. “Rebecca, Max likes to be read to, but Ellen is too busy.”

She hesitated.

“You’ll be helping Max. And if you don’t like it, you don’t have to go back. Will you give it a try?”

She nodded.

“That’s a girl.”

The next day, I sent Rebecca to the office with a book. Ellen introduced her to Max. He raised his paw and shook Rebecca’s
hand. Then she sat down next to Max, opened her book, and started reading. Max hunkered down beside her. Ellen went about
her work, pretending not to listen. After a few minutes Rebecca was petting Max with one hand while she followed the words
in her book with the other. Max never moved. He never interrupted. He was the perfect audience.

After about twenty minutes, Ellen said it was time to go. She let Rebecca give Max a treat from her bottom desk drawer then
sent her back to the classroom.

“How’d it go?” I asked Rebecca when she returned.

“Great!” she replied, enthusiastically. “Can I go again tomorrow?”

“Well,” I said, smiling, “I was thinking that you could read to Max once or twice a week.”

“But I think I should see him soon.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t finish the story.”

From then on, Rebecca visited Max every Monday and Wednesday. She never needed to be reminded. When we had a Monday holiday,
she asked if she could make up the time.

Rebecca became Max’s teacher. She picked out books that she thought he would like — often about dogs. When we studied rocks,
she took a book about rocks. Since we were just past Halloween, she taught Max all about bones. Once when she couldn’t find
the right book, I grabbed one off the shelf titled
The Christmas Cat.
“How ’bout this?”

Rebecca put her hands on her hips. “Mr. Done, Max is a
dog
!”

Ellen took good care of Rebecca. For each book Rebecca read to her new student, Ellen gave her a dog sticker. And for every
ten stickers, Rebecca received a new book that Max autographed with his paw. If Ellen heard Rebecca struggling to read a word,
she’d help her pronounce it. If Rebecca came to a word that Ellen thought she didn’t understand, Ellen would say, “I don’t
think Max knows that word.” Then Ellen would tell Max what it meant.

One afternoon while Rebecca was reading, Max fell asleep.

“His eyes are closed,” Rebecca pouted.

Ellen swiveled around in her chair. Sure enough, Max was sound asleep. Ellen set her hands on her knees and said, “Oh, he’s
just concentrating so he can understand better.”

As the weeks went by, I started to notice small changes in Rebecca. Her attendance improved. She wasn’t tardy as often. She
complained less about other children, and she got into less trouble on the blacktop. She smiled more.

One day I was sitting in the classroom with all my students reading
The Story of Helen Keller.
Every child held a copy of the book, including Rebecca. I walked to the whiteboard and wrote the word
obstacle
in large letters. I knew it was a new word for the children.

“Helen Keller faced enormous obstacles,” I explained, tapping the new word on the board as I said it. “An obstacle is something
that gets in our way.” I grabbed the back of my chair and rolled it into the aisle. “See this chair. If I want to walk down
the aisle, this chair is in my way. It’s an obstacle. It’s preventing me from getting to the other side of the room.”

I took a few steps and purposefully ran into the chair. The kids laughed. I took a seat in the chair and continued.

“Helen Keller wanted to read and write just like you and I do, but she faced enormous obstacles. Who can tell me what some
of them were?”

“She was blind,” said David.

I pointed at him. “Yes.”

“And she was deaf,” Jennifer added.

“That’s correct,” I answered. Then I popped up and wrote
overcame
on the board. I pointed to the word. “Boys and girls, Helen
overcame
her obstacles. That means that even though she couldn’t see or hear, she still accomplished what she wanted to do.” I stepped
out among the students. “Do you think it was easy for her to overcome her obstacles?”

“No,” several answered.

The kids turned in their chairs as I walked down the center aisle.

“Do you think she got frustrated?” I asked.

“Yeah,” most responded.

“Sure she got frustrated,” I said, leaning on the table in the back of the room. “I’m sure there were times when she wanted
to give up. But she didn’t. She learned to read and write
despite
her obstacles. When Helen got older, she went to college. And she even wrote a book.”

“She did?” Chloe blurted out, surprised.

“Yes,” I replied. “She was a courageous young woman.” I walked back to my desk, picked up the book, and flipped through the
pages to find where we had left off. Rebecca raised her hand halfway.

“Rebecca, do you have a question?”

She nodded as her eyes studied the page in front of her. My heart made a little flip. Suddenly I realized why her hand was
up. Rebecca wanted to read. She was volunteering to read aloud.

“Would you like to read for the class, honey?” I asked, gently.

She nodded again.

At that moment, I wanted to jump up and wrap my arms around her and give her a hug and announce, “Yes, yes, yes!!” But of
course I didn’t. The best thing to do when a child is taking a risk is to act like what she is about to do is the most normal
thing in the world. I looked into her nervous eyes and smiled encouragingly. “Okay, sweetheart. Why don’t you start at the
top of the page.”

Soon the classroom was quiet except for one soft voice sounding out words — carefully, one word at a time. Her index finger
moved slowly from left to right down the page.

I helped her when she stumbled or stopped in front of an unknown word or came to one that I knew she’d have trouble getting
through. I praised her under my breath. Each word read was a victory. Each sentence completed was a win.

Rebecca flipped the page. Twenty pages turned along with her. No one read ahead. No one giggled. No one said hurry up. Robbie
helped her pronounce a word. Melanie jumped in to help, too. They knew what was going on. Children can tell when something
important is happening.

Finally, Rebecca reached the end of the paragraph. She stopped reading and looked up at me. A huge smile stretched between
her cheeks. She had made it. She had overcome her obstacle. Some of the other children looked up at me and smiled, too. I
reached over and squeezed Rebecca’s arm. “Nice job.” Then I pretended to rub my eyes, but really I was wiping away a tear.

Later that day when Rebecca went to see Max, he got up and wagged his tail. While Ellen typed on her computer, Rebecca curled
up beside him and opened her book. “Oh, Max,” she said excitedly, “I have a story that you are just going to
love.
Have you ever heard of Helen Keller?”

A
sk any kid what his favorite subject in school is and he’ll say recess. Ask any teacher what his
least
favorite subject is and he’ll say recess — especially when he has yard duty. Yard duty is right up there with rainy days,
writing report cards, and being serenaded by three boys singing “A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall” while driving on a
field trip.

The first recess at our school begins at ten o’clock. When the bell rings, five hundred children run outside at the same time
with rubber balls and ropes and snacks. Three or four teachers patrol the blacktop, where they dodge basketballs that missed
the hoop and spatula first-grade girls off their legs who have decided that the grown-up is base. At ten twenty the five hundred
children run back inside their classrooms with dew and sand and dirt and gravel and mud and tanbark and half the grass from
the newly mowed lawn on their shoes. The playground and field are cluttered with forgotten sweaters and abandoned balls all
carefully labeled with permanent marker.

I have yard duty twice a week. That means on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have no chance to use the bathroom from 8:00
AM
till lunch. That means on these days, if I don’t want to explode, I limit my liquids.

One Tuesday at the beginning of recess, I grab my whistle and my coffee and walk outside. I start at the corner of the blacktop.
Joshua and Kevin are standing ten feet apart. They have just stuffed red rubber balls into their shirts.

“Hey, you two,” I say. “What are you doing?”

“We’re playing Sumo!” Joshua shouts. “Watch!”

Kevin counts off. “On your mark. Get set. Go!” The two boys run at full speed toward each other.
Bam!
Their stomachs collide. They go flying. It is bumper cars without the cars.

Joshua gets up first. “Mr. Done, watch again!”

“No,” I reply, shaking my head. “I have to do yard duty.”

I walk on. Soon I stop at a group of kids digging a hole next to the bike racks. Brian and five other boys have been working
on this hole for a week.

“Have you hit water yet?” I ask.

“No,” one of them answers without looking up.

“Mr. Done,” Brian says excitedly, “we’re digging a tunnel!”

“Where to?”

“Under the fence.”

My eyes survey the dirt. “Just like Alcatraz.”

“Yeah!” the boys cheer. They dig faster.

I leave the great escape and am nearly run over by three girls walking backward. I almost spill my coffee.

“Hey, be careful!”

“Mr. Done,” one of them proclaims, happily. “We’re in reverse!”

“I can see that. Watch the speed limit.”

Moments later I stop at a basketball pole. Angela and Emily are just finishing up tying Michael with a jump rope.

“Hey, Mr. Done, you want to play?” asks Laura.

“No, thanks.”

Nearby, I spot a group of children hopping around in a circle. “What are you all up to?”

“We’re doing a rain dance,” one of them answers.

I look up. There isn’t a cloud in the sky. “Keep dancing.”

As I make my way down the blacktop, I come to a game of Helicopter. You remember Helicopter? One person holds the jump rope
and twirls it around in a circle on the cement while everyone else jumps over it. The person holding the rope keeps spinning
until it hits someone’s feet.

“Mr. Done, will you play with us?” Jennifer begs. “Will you play?”

“Yeah!” the others join her. “Play!”

I look at the kids. I look at the rope. I look back at them.

“Please!” Jennifer cajoles.

I think about it. Seven faces look up at me waiting for an answer: chins ducked, heads tilted, eyes wide, and pouty lips out.

“Oh, all right.”

“Yeah!” they scream.

I set my coffee mug down on the picnic table, and Dylan hands me the rope. I begin twirling it around on the blacktop.

“Boys!” I call first.

All the boys jump in.

I continue to spin.

“Girls!” I holler next.

The girls join them.

Pretty soon the children are all a blur and I feel like I am in one of those circular carnival rides that spins one hundred
miles per hour and everyone is pressed against the wall trying not to throw up. I stop.

“That’s enough,” I stammer, trying not to fall over.

“No!” they shout.

“Yes… that’s all.”

I hand the rope to Jennifer and stagger off.

As I walk away, several kids come running over to me. One little girl is in a panic.

“Mr. Done! Mr. Done!” she pants out. “Sam is hurt. Hurry!”

I follow her quickly over to the edge of the tanbark where students are standing in a huddle.

“Okay,” I say, breaking through. “Let me in. Let me in.”

I reach the center of the crowd. And there is Sam.

“This is Sam?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. Sam is a caterpillar.

“Yeah,” someone answers. “He’s dying!”

Everyone starts chattering at once.

“He fell out of the tree.”

“He’ll get squashed!”

“What do we do?”

“Okay. Okay. Don’t worry,” I say as I crouch down and scoop Sam up with a leaf. “I’ve got it under control.” I hand the caterpillar
off to one of the kids. “Here. Take Sam over to the bushes. He’ll be safe there. Got it?”

“Got it!” they answer. And they all scurry off. The boy in the back wails like an ambulance siren.

As I stand up, Robbie and Dylan sprint up to me.

“Mr. Done! Mr. Done!” they shout.

“What?”

“Why did the chicken cross the playground?” Robbie asks, out of breath. Both look like they are nanoseconds from exploding.

I scratch my head, pretending to be stumped. “I give up. Why did the chicken cross the playground?”

They explode. “To get to the other slide!”

I laugh as though I’ve never heard it. “That’s pretty good.” Before they can tell me another one, I point to the yard duty
teacher at the other end of the play structure. “Hey, go tell Mrs. Wilson. She loves jokes.”

After they bolt off, I look around the yard. All looks normal. The fifth-grade boys are playing basketball. Several girls
are turning cartwheels on the grass. Others are hanging upside down from the monkey bars. The picnic tables are crowded with
children eating snacks. Three kids are writing words on the blacktop with their water bottles. Two are scaling the basketball
poles. A couple of my students are walking around with banana peels on their heads. (Chloe started The Banana Peel Club.)
And a line of second-grade boys is crouched down as low as possible with their shirts stretched over their knees following
one another along the grass quacking. I put my hand up like a crossing guard and wave them on. “Make way for ducklings!” They
waddle by.