Out of Respect for the Dead

On the Friday before Halloween, as my kids were finishing up a math problem that had something to do with least common multiples and pumpkins, I quietly lowered the blinds. When I turned out the lights, because it was overcast outside, it became remarkably dark in the classroom.

I wheeled my old, wooden chair to the front of the room and sat down with a squeek. All eyes were on me.

“You gonna tell us a scary story?” A little girl asked.

“Well, sort of.”

Kids started sliding their chairs closer, surrounding me. “Is it scary?” “Did somebody die?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“I need to tell you about something that happened in this school years ago, because it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t know. There was a math teacher here named… well, I should change his name. Let’s call him Mr. Fitzer, out of respect for the dead.”

You could here a pin drop.

“Actually, he taught right here in this room, before I came to this school. He was a very brilliant man, but a little strange. Sometimes, as he wrote solutions on the board, he would trail off and stare into space, just pondering mathematics. His students would look around and nudge each other, like, ‘What’s his deal?’. Sometimes he would notice the way a leaf was turning in the wind outside those windows there, and it would make him think about some complicated formula, and he would just stare off into space for minutes on end.

And he was like a robot. Have any of you ever seen the old Star Trek?”

Hands go up.

“Well, he was like Spock– he never showed his feelings. But there was one thing he felt very strongly about. He had this pet peeve. He couldn’t stand it when kids didn’t do their homework. His blood would boil, he’d get so mad. He developed high blood pressure and hypertension and all sorts of problems because of his bottled up rage.

“One time, when half of the class hadn’t done their homework, he was trembling with fury. He stormed out of the room; out that door right there into hall. And you know what? He kicked that wall so hard that he broke…every…bone…in his foot.”

Gasping.

“The doctors couldn’t even fix it. He had to get it amputated. Do you know what that means?”

“What’s ‘amputated’?”

“They cut it off!” a boy answered.

“That’s right… and they gave him a prosthetic foot, which is an artificial foot. But the ankle didn’t work right, so he kind of dragged his foot and stomped when he walked. It sounded like this: shhhhhh… thump!….shhhhhh…. thump!…. shhhhhh… thump!

“Another time, he assigned this major report to the class, and gave them a whole week to complete it. But not one student did. Not one. He was so furious, he couldn’t speak. He turned as white as a ghost and his eyes burned and he clenched his fists and tried to shout but…

“His heart exploded.”

“Ew! Gross! What do you mean? Did it come out?”

“He had a massive heart attack and dropped dead… right… here… on this floor.”

I pointed at the floor. They starred.

“Years later, something strange happened. A boy in the sixth grade decided that it would be cute to hide out in one of those closets over there at dismissal time. While he was in there laughing that no one found him, they lined the kids up and marched them out. And school safety locked up the building and went home.

“When the boy came out an hour later, all the lights were off, and he found himself locked inside! He was locked in. Alone.

“He tried to use the phone, but couldn’t get a hold of anyone. He thought about lowering himself out of one of the windows, but it’s way too far of a drop. So in the end, he came back up to this room to spend the night. He closed the door and pulled some chairs together for a ‘bed’ and actually managed to sleep.

“That is, until he heard the noise. He sat up with a start and found himself alone in this classroom in the dark. The clock read midnight.

“There it was again! Off in the distance… faintly… he could here a sound like the wind blowing a branch against the side of the building:

“Shhhhh…. thump!….shhhh…. thump!”

You should have seen how wide their eyes were. I almost broke character. Had to bite the inside of my mouth not the smile.

“Then he heard it much louder. Unmistakably, it was in the hallway out side. Shhhh!…. Thump!….Shhhhh!…. Thump!”

“He ran to the door and popped the latch on the side to lock it, then closed it as quietly as he could. He could still hear it coming down the hall. Shhhhh!…. Thump!….Shhhhh!…. Thump! He thought about jumping out of the window, but knew he’d never survive the fall, so he ran to the closet and shut himself in.

“Hiding back in the dark, he heard the sound coming closer. Shhhh!…. Thump!….Shhhhh!… Thump! And it stopped right outside that door!

“He waited, holding his breath, hoping that the door was strong enough to keep out whoever– whatever– it was.

“He never heard the door open. But he definitely heard the sound inside the room.”

This time I made the sound by dragging my own foot across the floor and stomping it. Shhhh!… THUMP!… Shhhh… THUMP!…. SHHHHH!… THUMP!!!

“And it stopped right outside the closet door!

“The boy was so scared that he couldn’t breath. He watched in horror as the closet doors slowly began to open! He covered his eyes with his hands and peeked through his fingers when to his horror…”

At this point I jumped out of my chair towards them, waving my arms, and screamed.

You should have seen it.

Kids jumped back, sending chairs and desks scooting across the floor. Two kids actually fell backwards out of their chairs. They screamed in frequencies only dogs can hear.

And their faces! Oh my gosh, I laughed so hard! It was the funniest thing ever. 12-year-olds were holding their hearts and panting, then smiling, then laughing along with me. We laughed so hard.

After all the “Mr. Travis you play too much!” and “Oh my God you SCARRED me!” and “Did that really happen?” I finished the tale.

“There was nothing there. It was just the wind– a weird vacuum from one of the window’s being open had pulled the closet doors open. And he was just imagining the sounds in his fright. It probably was just a branch hitting the side of the building somewhere. But I tell you what, from then on, that kid was the first to line up at dismissal time.

“No, there wasn’t anything there. But sometimes, if you find yourself alone in one of these hallways, when the wind is blowing, you’ll hear strange things.

“Oooooooo….orrrrrrr…..ohhhhme….errrrrrrrrr….

“Oooooooo….orrrrrrr….ohhhme…errrrrrrrrk.”

“Oooooooo…yorrrrrrr…ohme…erk.”

“Doooooo….yourrrr….hoooome…. werrrrrrk.”

They all rolled their eyes, and I deserved it.

Happy Halloween.

Pinching Myself

I learned some things about my school. Things I knew from experience, but now also statistically. In our meetings the day before the students arrived, I learned that we were the lowest performing school in Manhattan in terms of academics. I learned that we had the highest number of student injuries per capita. And I learned that the school had one more year to turn itself around or it would be phased out.

And if it doesn’t turn around, it should.

Summertime…

…and the livin’ is easy.

I am six weeks into summer vacation, and I am beginning to feel a bit like a human being again. It’s wonderful.

I want to apologize for being such a slacker about posting. A number of you have been asking about my plans for next year, and its time for an update.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

That’s the bell.

The end.

Round 10

When I came back from Spring break, there were ten weeks left to the school year. To me, these were like ten rounds of a boxing match. I just needed to knock them out, one at a time.

From the comfort of a day off, ten weeks doesn’t sound like much. Of course, neither does a three-minute round.

Children

“Shantel! Shantel!”

But she just keeps walking (an experience that every parent alive has had). Funny thing is, this time I was calling her because I had some Starburst and I was gonna give her some. Her loss.

I could’ve made her obey, I suppose.

Named

There are a few students who help me do stuff around my room– take down bulletin boards or file student work– and I look for little ways to repay them. At some point earlier in the year, I made a drawing of one girl’s name, with the letters colorfully done to look like a rainbow, and gave it to her to say, “thanks.”

Wow, it was a hit.

I Quit Friday

It started first thing in the morning. I had a really bad interaction with one of my 8th-graders as we were coming up from the gym to first period, and it was downhill from there.

This class of 8th-graders is notorious– the nastiest in the school. If you’ve been reading since the beginning of the school year, you’re already familiar with some of them. You read about the one who was arrested for slamming me against the wall when the class rushed the door. You read about “Bill,” who has since been involuntarily transferred out of the school for threatening my wife. You read about the kid who slapped my clip board out of my hand.

Still Alive

I’ve been a terrible “poster” recently. Things have been insane. Some things have smoothed out a bit; others have been extra stressful. And there’s so much to share, every time I sit down to write I just give up. I feel like I’ve lived about 6 years these last 6 months.

I’d like to let you know about the home visits I’ve made to some of the most notorious projects in Harlem. I want to tell you about the time I came upon one of my students being dragged by the store manager back into the drug store he just shoplifted from. I want to tell you about the big “gun” scare we had at school (turned out being a pellet gun, but still kind of serious).

They weren’t lying…

…when they said teaching in this context was an emotional roller coaster. I believed it when I heard it. But believing it and feeling it are different altogether. Please be advised that you are entering a ‘no judgement’ zone. Feeling it is altogether different. And I’ve actually said worse things than I’m willing to share here.

Discouragement

I’m in the stairwell, and another teacher is covering my class for moment (having walked by at just the right moment, when I either had to leave class or weep in front of them). And I can’t fight it back. I stand, head bowed, clenching and unclenching my fists, silently weeping, breathing through my teeth, “I can’t… I can’t… I just can’t… I can’t…”