Is This What I Signed Up For?

Today, in class to those who were listening or to those who could hear me I said FUCK IT.  I stopped teaching, said nothing, walked around my desk and took a seat.  I stopped responding to my name.  I stopped.  Instead of walking out and never returning, I stopped.  And then I looked at them.  I saw their mouths moving, but I didn’t hear anything coming out of them.  Then they all stopped.  They stopped talking, cursing, laughing, and lolly-gagging.  And, suddenly, without warning I had a captive audience I no longer desired.I hate my job most days.  Walking into a room with mismatched furniture and dirty floors every morning bothers me.  Room 336, my room, houses a stove, sink, and counter.  I teach History. 

The floor is dirty.  The conspicuous black marks on the floor greet me proudly every morning and afternoon.  They’re about the only things in this place with perfect attendance.  The blue, yellow and orange mismatched chairs are the filthy group homes for orphaned pieces of chewing gum.  The room is too cold or too hot never just right.  The coziness of the room may be elusive to most but not to some.  The comfort of a wooden desk and plastic chair is an inviting place to nap in the afternoon, especially to Derell and Dante in 8^th period.  These descendants of Einstein place a textbook in front of their faces and nod.  Somehow, though, the coziness of the room remains a mystery to me. And, because I’m lucky enough to have windows, I also have mini-blinds.  Some days when I can’t stomach my room I pass the time by guessing the day’s weather by looking at the windows not out but at and, surprisingly, the sunny, rainy and snowy days all look the same—dingy white.  The dingy window coverings can’t be opened, the cord is missing.  The walls are littered with graffiti.  GD this…BD that.  I’ve gathered that the acronyms and symbols tattooed on the walls and desks are gang insignias.  Great.  I’m certain passers-by believe that teaching and learning go on in the big three-floor brick dirty brown edifice.  I am also certain that the builder’s blue prints might have had SCHOOL written somewhere on it.  The Board might have appropriated money for the construction of a school but the building’s actual purpose is questionable.   

There are three floors in the building.  Rooms 336 and 330 are right next door to each other on the east side of the building and rooms 335 and 334 are on the west side of the building.  It took me a minute to grow accustomed to this highly organized system of numbering.  

I try to start each morning out prepared and cautiously optimistic.  I think about my impending day in the car as I navigate traffic on the Southside.  Should I say Dubois and Washington are two leaders that helped shape African-American popular thought during the first portion of the twentieth century?  Or, should I say we are going to study two well-renowned black leaders today?  Probably the second one—remember, Stacy, keep it simple.   I try and center my thoughts before entering the building. Before I venture outside of the safe, secure and familiar confines of my automobile I pray.  Lord, help me do my job.  Lord, help me maintain a positive attitude.  Lord, keep me from leaving before June.  I look outside the car and think that the same bystanders who might guess the building is a school might also deduce that these teen-agers are students.  At first glance they sure seem to be.  They’re clothed in their black Dickie pants and white shirts.  The students walk, run, and lolly-gag their way inside like teenagers do.  I sigh and walk inside, slowly.  There are two congested lines by the front door.  There’s one for the girls’ and one for the boys’.  They take their backpacks off their backs, remove purses from their shoulders, and place their materials on the conveyor belt to be analyzed by the x-ray machine.  While the bags are being spotlighted, the students walk through metal detectors.  Every third or fourth student is waved to the side and manually felt up by security personnel.  O’Hare International has nothing on our school.  The  mystery in this futile morning exercise is how one of the school’s top students was able to weld a kitchen knife at another student during a fight after being x-rayed herself.  I guess when there’s a will there’s also a way. The warning bell rings.  I scurry to the attendance office to retrieve my attendance sheets, to the elevator and, finally, to my door before the tardy bell rings.  

Good Morning All, I say to the two students sitting in class, prepared for class on time.  As the clock continues to tick my students trickle in by ones and twos, some asking loudly “what we doin’!”  Others walk in demurely giving me their passes and shrinking to the back of the room understanding the unspoken rules of being late to class.  By the time the bell rings to end first period I have 12 of my 26 students in attendance—most of them have gotten the benefit of 15-20 minutes of a 45 minute class period. The two girls sitting right in front of my desk during fourth period talk, incessantly. They talk as if the quiz in fifteen minutes has been cancelled.  They talk as if I have not given them time to review for fifteen minutes before the quiz.  They talk and curse.  “Bitch, bullshit, and fuck ‘dat” float around the classroom effortlessly although the occasional “motherfuckha” kind of hangs in the air awaiting an awkward laugh from a classmate or scolding from the adult—the supposed authority figure in the classroom. They speak and act without discretion or shame.  I wonder what their mom or grandmothers might say if they heard the languague.  Would they reprimand their offsprings, would they say nothing behave like they’ve heard nothing, or would they empower me—their offspring’s teacher to check their child’s behavior?The tardy bell rings every 49 minutes like clock work.  This goes on hour after hour until the bell for eighth period rings at 1:05 pm.  Jesse strolls in at 1:10 pm.  His quiet, lazy stroll into class prompts me to wonder if the tardy bell had even rung.  His quiet descent to a seat in the middle of the room makes me think that he knows he’s late but then again I could be wrong.  He unloads his backpack and takes his seat.  He sits.  He sits for about fifteen minutes. He sits without a piece of paper, textbook, pen or pencil.   And for the next five minutes he continues to sit without embarrassment, ambition or motivation.  I walk his way, bend down and quietly ask him if he has anything to do.  He looks at me.   I sigh, walk away and resolve quietly, if he’s not motivated to do the work, I’m not motivated to make him do the work.  Maybe he’s tired.  I’m tired, too.  Tired of begging, tired of asking, tired of trying to prove the worthiness of education.  Finally, though, the clock reads 1:55 pm. He rises from his seat, initiates a conversation with his “boys” and when the bell rings a few minutes later he’s the first one outta room 336.Finally it’s ninth period the last period of the day.  I wonder if they know that I’m probably happier than they are about eventual, almost here end to the day.  Four minutes after Jesse leaves and a second after the tardy bell rings in walks Sherry.  She takes a seat in the back and buries her head into the fat of her arms.  And for some reason I dare to ask her if she came to do schoolwork, pay attention and be a student.  She lifts her head, laughs as if I was Chris Rock, looks at me and says, “Nope.”  After answering she gathers her belonging and leaves.   I guess if I cared enough today I would have tried to talk her out of her departure but then, again, this is the same girl who says that an F in my class wouldn’t stand in her way of graduating or lower her grade point average.  Interesting.  The bell finally rings.  The remaining students file out of the room like people escaping a fire.  I sit at my desk inhale oxygen, exhale carbon, gather my belongings, and venture to the social studies office.  There I bid adieu to my colleagues, exit the office, walk down three flights of stairs, swipe out and reclaim serenity in my automobile.  Teaching was not supposed to look or feel like this.  Or was it?