I’m drinking coffee and doing some tidying before the holiday night, and find myself subsumed by this daydream.
Books. Everywhere. On every rag-tag shelf, well loved and bruised, 2000 or more. A stuffed magazine rack. And an overflowing collection of superlative DVDs with attached writing prompts, from BBC Planet Earth to Kurosawa, in a glass case.
Like the New York City Library, there are enough stand-alone lamps that the flickering fluorescents would never be turned on.
There is a wall of honor, a six foot dripping collage with clippings, pictures, articles, publications, and celebrations; opposite that, the gallery of framed, student-created figurative language heroes, representing the effort of generations on a single assignment.
From the ceiling lights (now unused and perfectly suited for floating art), a rotating display of six or seven bright, art-deco type mobiles with key English concepts. (These are also created by students and no doubt covered with asphyxiating amounts of glitter.)
Plants in every nook and cranny, the bird feeder just outside where we collect and send data to the Cornell Orinthology Laboratory, a pile of bean bags, and the tech corner (an as-yet fictitous 4-6 wi-fi laptops, collection of digital voice recorders, Kindles, Ipods, and the digital projector) complete the scene.
There’s no teacher desk. There isn’t now. I got rid of it in August, which I consider one of the small successes of this school year. I sit (when I do sit) at the writing conference table or among the kids, which is astonishing– astonishing– in its simple power to help me communicate with and manage the class. More on that later, I think.
But mainly, I realize, that this dream is completely contingent upon one factor: years, and years, and years, in the classroom.
If I hadn’t lost my hard copy of my 1996 GRE scores in a basement flood several years ago, my potential graduate school of choice informs me, I could have sent it. But as it stands, I ponied up my $140 to demonstrate my general intelligence on a test whose predictive validity for success has been given lukewarm confirmation at best, and downright contradicted at worst. Oh and by the way, screw you, Howard Gardner.
The room was no bigger than my kitchen, set up into tiny cubicles. Its leader was Marlene. Marlene looked like a very nice lady, actually– yeasty, with kind, small eyes– someone who makes peanut butter cookies with crossed hashmarks using a fork. She chatted eagerly about the weather, as if she hadn’t seen it for awhile.
“Please copy the information disclaimer here in some form of cursive,” she directed me and the disheveled undergrad next to me. Her tone on the phrase “in some form of cursive” suggested that she had amended the original directions to reflect the realities of her day job.
“Cursive??” the young man blurted out, appalled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The GRE has been substantially revised since I took it twelve years ago. In particular, it has been computerized, and a writing section has been added: in one prompt, to defend your opinion upon a given statement; and in another, to analyze the logic and rhetoric of a given passage. I started the first section three times before typing in frustration, “An honest response? This prompt is ridiculous.”– and then actually kept the sentence in. In the second task I dared further, doing all the analysis the test was requiring within a fictitious context I constructed of a young man in Arizona, besotted with a diffident woman from Alaska he met at a cactus-breeding conference.
I’d talk to you more about the questions, but there’s a special level of Guantanamo Bay reserved for people who reveal the contents of the GRE, along with folks who rip the tags off of mattresses and try makeup in the pharmacy using tubes that are not marked “SAMPLER.”
This sense of silliness probably did not serve me well, but was not entirely my fault. I blame the video and audio-taped room, the tiny locker into which I placed all my possessions prior to entering my cubicle, the fact that I was not allowed to hang my sweater over the back of my chair– and that the exam is produced in exactly the same font as is used by the computer Joshua in “Wargames.”
~~~~~~~
As I signed out, Marlene’s kind eyes turned into marbles. “Your results will be mailed to you within 10-15 business days,” she intoned, and then hoped I would have a nice holiday. I caught a glimpse of the work schedule behind her desk: Marlene, it said, penciled onto today’s date. And then, through the month: Marlene. Marlene. Marlene. Marlene.
But luckily for this story, this was not the day’s final word.
Leaving the strip mall where the testing center was located, I stumbled on a tiny hidden photography exhibit. The artist apparently takes all his spare time to find small portraits in nature and take time-lapse pictures of them.
I walked slowly from picture to picture, peeling my forbidden orange, reading the captions. Stones in the river. Ice from the Lake. Sunset at the bluffs. Beechwood.
Because you dismiss nearly everything I believe in with a wave of your hand. Because you divide skills from substance with a razor which I don’t believe exists. Because I think I am perpetually lying to myself about how effective I am, and you know it.
I trust you.
Because you answer 95,000 emails in a year. Because I believe your husband when he says that you will never let anything compromise your commitment to kids. Because you would never let my smarmy sentimentality get in the way of needing to prove my excellence.
I don’t trust you.
Because pinning achievement on test scores is easy– and wrong. Because assuming the worst of people is easy– and wrong. Because hierarchical, top-down, “I don’t give a crap” change is easy– and wrong. Not wrong in its essence, necessarily, but wrong in its implementation. It never sticks in the long run. Never.
I think I know you.
I think I know something of how your criticism of schools sits with you, because I taught in the Korean public schools for over a year. Astounding in their rigor. Inspiring in their commitment to a higher purpose. Terrifying in their inhumanity.
You remind me of Seoul, actually.
Seoul is stunning, as you might know. You find parks there, filled with ancient temples laced with lapis blue and gold, graceful trees, that could make you weep. And they are ringed with five-lane highways with bumper to bumper traffic, stinking of diesel fuel and fumes; modern buildings put up so fast they collapse and kill.
Where are you, Michelle, in all of that beauty and ugliness? I’m calling your Blackberry, but I can’t see your face.
The writing, uploaded or embedded material, material linked to via this blog, and any other content whatsoever on or linked to this blog, is content approved by and/or representative of myself alone. It is not representative of my district, its employees, or my students or students' families.
