I was subbing somewhere in San Jose—Anne Darling maybe—when I had a very curious encounter with a Giant Shadow in the Doorway. The back story is this: the grade was fourth, as I recall; they were mostly Hispanic students with a sprinkling of other ethnicities. There was one black student, in particular, who caught my attention from the opening bell and he didn’t stop ringing it until the end of the day.
He was talking rapidly and making up rather outlandish and reckless stories in a creative performance sort of manner. He was witty and quick so while on the one hand it was funny and charming, on the other hand his antics meant that it was going to a long hard day for dealing with classroom management and his group of friends—and this one child in particular.
It was hard to keep him in his seat. When something wasn’t quite right with the class’ behavior (especially in his area) he would start spinning out stories and excuses faster than spider lets out silk. I thought at first I was being put on—it felt like I was meeting a science fiction writer of great renown like Jules Verne or H.G. Wells while listening to them spin a yarn.
The first problem I had to deal with was the boy’s nickname. I heard several of his classmates call the African-American boy “chocolate” (pronounced the Spanish way with four syllables choc o – la –te). I tried to adapt but I couldn’t get rid of the strong impression that it contained a hidden racial insult, even if the students themselves did not fully see it.
I thus intruded myself forward intending to teach them something about the subtlety of prejudice (for what else could I call it?) For one of the few times in my dignified life as a teacher, I put my nose where it didn’t belong. In short, I became the problem and I got a well-deserved lesson from the boys’ friends.
One of them took issue with my attitude as he carefully explained that the African-American boy was his friend. He meant nothing disrespectful by the word “Chocolate” and in point of fact the black kid liked the nickname and was quite accepting of it—at which point the black kid jumped in with a suspiciously well-timed confirming affirmation. I privately thought he had shrewdly sized up the situation and calculated something that went beyond the nickname issue—a contest of character and will power that was shaping up between him and me.
I admit that I bit off more than I could chew but I did not relax my attention to his antics, of which there were many more. Sometimes he sat and worked a few minutes at a time but mostly he kept up a running conversation with everybody and nobody, which was when he appeared to be talking to himself. He got out of his seat frequently and could be found all around the room at different parts of the day—but often he just jumped straight up and remained only two or three steps away from his chair, but always moving and prancing like Muhammad Ali in his prime about to give the ol’ KO to some brave opponent moving a little too slow.
In retrospect I think of the kid as a champion, as a prince, as a poet, as a performer. Of course, notwithstanding such moments of begrudging admiration for the boy’s creativity and spontaneity, most of the time I thought he was nutty as a fruitcake. He must have caught on to my private attitude for pretty soon, in his rambling speechifying, he began to embed particularly sharp and insightful remarks, some rather negative, about the shape of the day.
There were so many different aspects to his personality he was almost impossible to get hold off—but I have an eye for the truth: he was making up stories and telling lies. The rest I could have put up with—subbing had forced me to learn patience—but dishonesty in the classroom is something no self-respecting teacher can let pass and, as for me, never!
Besides our running feud and petty squabbles, I had to do serious battle with him on several occasions and, when necessary, I invoked my authority and punished him. Not unexpectedly, he began to show a dislike toward me. I realized my name would probably be dragged through the mud in one of his future outbursts.
As quickly as he made up stories, I could track his infractions and cite chapter and verse regarding exactly what he said and did and where his fast-flowing speech included a lie or two. He didn’t like it but I can be a hard case myself when I wish. I call them the way I see them; true, he had a fantastic imagination and he was crazily creative in a way a teacher seldom sees, but he was also developing a bad habit of skillfully of “rewriting” a situation faster than you could blink an eye. After the last battle of the wills between us near the end of the day, I talked to him honestly and gave him some friendly advice, as I recall.
The bell rang, the day ended, and all the students in a flash were gone out the door into the bright sunshine. Some of them went running home and no doubt were eager to tell a story or two of their own about what happened that day and the epic battle the teacher and the kid had engaged in throughout the day.
I suppose I was in over my head in trying to tame the kid when he was on his home ground and surrounded by his friends; some of the friendships cooled, however, as students began enjoying my teaching and were eager to learn more. Whereas before they had encouraged and laughed at Chocolate’s antics, now they came to see him as more of a disrupter than an amusing entertainer. He was losing his fan base and I did all in my power to keep it that way.
Finally the day ended and he had gone running out with long streams of words flowing behind, few of which I could understand. I had finished another challenging day as a substitute teacher; there was nothing left for me to do but go back to my desk to organize student assignments and tidy up the desk.
That’s when a great foreboding came over me.
It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. At the risk of being melodramatic, it was like the phantom of death had appeared: a SHADOW was blocking the doorway! I could feel the anger before I could see his full size and muscular build; I looked up and saw a 6’3” man looming in the entrance, blocking the doorway from side to side and top to bottom.
You need not ask who it was: it was the boy’s father, angry as all get out and he was looking for me. “Are you Mr. Rosenberg?” Luckily, I didn’t panic—I thought to myself, the only reason this man could be this angry with me must be because his son went home and told his father some really mean whoppers about me–and invested them with the anger, bitterness, and resentment he had shown me whenever I disciplined him during the day.
I identified myself in the affirmative and invited him to come in so we could discuss his son’s behavior. As angry as he was, he did me the courtesy of walking and taking a chair near my desk. The moment of truth was at hand as I quietly said to him: “Before we begin, may I ask you one question? Have you ever had a problem with your son not telling the truth?”
The question just hung there in timeless suspension and then I saw the most amazing transformation take place! The angry face disappeared as the widest broadest smile lit up his good- natured face. I saw two rows of strong gleaming white teeth as he threw back his head and laughed. He replied: “I take it I did not get the whole story of what happened today?”
I looked at him and answered: “Well, I don’t know what stories your son may have told you but I will tell you my side of the story, and then you can decide for yourself.” I have a god memory for detail, especially with events so fresh in my mind, and so I gave the father a good idea of the mischief his son had caused that day.
Before long we were talking amicably and from there we shared our genuine concern over his son’s future. We both recognized that his son was displaying a remarkable talent if in a hard-to-define manner, but that this talent was leading to outbursts of speech and behavior that were unacceptable.
Whether parent or teacher, the adult dealing with his son would need to be both patient and tolerant–able to encourage the boy’s creativity and careful not to crush his rambunctious spirit, while not sacrificing utterly the rules of restraint.
We ended up smiling and laughing as I walked the father to the door. We shared a hearty handshake before wishing each other luck, him home to his one-of-a-kind son and me moving another step along the vagaries and vicissitudes of a slow-moving teaching career, the final path of which I could not yet see.
I was not sure how to evaluate my performance when, as a teacher, I felt compelled to try and handle that “typhoon” . . . but I was reasonably certain that I had handled the father quite well. The thought made me smile and even entertain the notion (however briefly) that the time I had spent with the boy’s father made the whole day’s travail worthwhile.
This story is from my series
MOMENTS
“The Shadow in the Doorway” ��F�x�d
