Mr. Martin's Final Lesson

I’ve wanted to write this post for several days now, but it’s been a struggle trying to figure out how to begin or exactly what I needed to say. It starts with this, I suppose: My friend Wendell, someone I had known and taught with for decades, has died.

He retired a couple of years ago. I didn't see him very often after that; sometimes lives veer off in different directions. We’d be in touch occasionally to catch up, but it was never anything like it had been when we were in the same building every day. I know I’ll carry residual guilt about that for awhile, and I hope someday I’ll find a way to reconcile it. But I was privileged enough to visit with him in his final days, and he knew I was there. I’ll always be grateful for that. 

Even though the news of his passing wasn’t unexpected in the end, actually knowing he was gone still affected me. More than one of my evenings in the following days was spent at home with all the lights off, listening to blaring and pounding music to block out my capacity to think. I bounced back and forth between binge-watching TV shows or getting lost in any number of books so I could mentally be somewhere else. I examined my own life in the cold spotlight of proximate mortality, second-guessing the decisions and indecisions that have led me to the life I’ve made and the person I am, for better or worse, and usually finding ways to feed the worse. I was early to bed, trying to escape having to think or feel, and then early to rise, to avoid lying in bed and overthinking myself into a downward spiral before the day even began. 

But I knew all of this was wrong. Even as I grieved for my friend in such self-indulgent ways, I could hear the concern that would be in his voice if he were here telling me not to beat myself up this way. I knew it wasn’t how he’d want to be remembered, so I had to fight it off. I needed better ways to serve his memory.

I think a step in that process is letting people know about him. I could list hundreds of vivid memories I shared with him, both at school and away from it, things that would provide telling examples of the man he was for those who didn’t know him and would reinforce the idea of him for those who did.

*When my sister was sick and dying, Wendell and his wife Ruth invited me to dinner at their home on a Friday night, saying they’d rather see me having a home-cooked meal with them instead of going home to start my weekend alone and staring at the walls. I brought a movie to watch and brought my dog Spencer to play with their dog Penny while we ate and talked and decompressed. This evolved into our regular Friday night routine for over a year and a half. In my time of greatest need, this simple gesture provided the exact respite I craved.

*We had once kept a running joke going for years when we told dozens of students that I lived in the basement of his house. We sold it so convincingly it would not surprise me if, to this very day, there were still former students out there unsure of the truth. 

*When he made the difficult decision to take a year of medical leave, I gathered as many people as I could to help pack up his classroom since he couldn’t do it himself. More than a dozen volunteers came together and boxed up everything he had, which I kept in storage in my garage for a year until he was ready to reclaim it and return to school. Being able to earn clearance from his doctors to go back to teaching after that year off was the main thing that motivated him to get better. In the end he reached that goal. 

*When a student gave me a pair of Timberwolves tickets for Christmas one year, I brought him to the game.

*He was a Harry Potter fanatic, having read and listened to all of the books several times over, to say nothing of seeing the movies. When my oldest nephew and I twice waited in line at the bookstore to buy the last two books in the series, Wendell and Ruth were right there in line with us. 

My experiences with him barely scratch the surface of all that made up the rest of his life: His time spent in the Navy working on submarines. His love for fishing. The truly amazing number of skip days he took when he was in high school. The fact that he could make one hell of a homemade cheesecake. How he was more concerned about Ruth than himself when he knew his time was running short. 

To any of his students who might read this someday: You were everything to him. You were never just data points buried in standardized test results, or alphabetized names listed on any number of blindingly redundant spreadsheets. You were his life’s work. You were the reason he spent so much time building the science fair into such an event. He gave so many of you nicknames to show some humorous affection because he wanted you to feel included. He voluntarily stayed after school to help so many of you individually because he wanted to see you succeed, and he wanted you to know he believed you could. He went to so many of your games and recitals and events to demonstrate how important you were.

When I’m left wondering what would he do in this situation, if our roles were reversed and I had been the one to die too early, the answer always comes easily: He would own his loss, accept how things were and let it become a part of his life, then make peace with it and continue his work, likely with a renewed sense of purpose. He’d feel his sadness, share it when appropriate, but would never complain. Because regardless of any issues or problems he had that would have given him just cause to complain, he never did. He was unfailingly positive.

Even though he was able to end his career on his terms, something which was immeasurably important to him, he would still be teaching in a perfect world. This thing, this job, this career that meant so much to him, was something I had the chance to do today, and will have the chance to do again when the weekend is over. As frustrating as so many things about the job are, and believe me when I say that is absolutely not a short list, I need to look for how I can carry on the importance he saw, and find ways to fill the holes his absence leaves behind. 

If I learned anything from the time my life intersected with Wendell Martin’s, it would be how much simple kindness can matter, and the difference it can make in the lives of people to know they have someone who values who they are. 

What Happens November 9th

The school where I teach has been an Election Day polling place for as long as I've been there. I even voted there one year. It always makes for an unusual day, filling the building with a different kind of energy that the students absolutely notice. Since the security measures of the last few years have changed the climate of our school, voters only had the front entrance to use. They were directed through the cafeteria and into the gym, sometimes having to queue up in the hallway before they're allowed to go forward. I never saw a huge line waiting, but I did have other things occupying my time during the hours of the school day. My guess is it's probably busy over there right now.

We have a lot of voters who wouldn't have any other reason to enter an elementary school coming through on Election Day, but we also see a lot of familiar faces. Some parents will come in during the day, and even some older parents from the past who occasionally greet the teachers like old friends if they have a chance to talk. Some former students still living in the area will as well, which is always interesting: I can see these almost-familiar millennials recognizing me when they walk by, even if I don't always know who they are right away.

The thing that strikes me each year is that no matter how contentious the election had been in the rallies, or on the news, or in the debates, or even on social media, everyone behaves when they show up to vote. I suspect that might have something to do with being back in an elementary school as a lot of people reflexively remember there are rules to follow, but it goes beyond that. I've always seen the same thing at any polling place I've been to, and I've gotten bounced around to several of them over the past two decades. I know that isn't the case everywhere, but it generally seems to be the rule that people show up to vote and are able to set aside or restrain their differences long enough to participate. 

My great hope is that at the end of this election, which has been the most openly combative in recent memory, everyone will be able to keep that sense of polite community. 

 

New Life, New World

I’d like to tell you about something that's happened in my classroom during the past two weeks.

It started with the news I’d be getting a new student. Actually it was two new students, since my teaching partner was getting one as well. A pair of brothers, with a younger sister in a primary class. When teachers learn we're getting new students, we always try to learn as much about them as we can. Are they a boy or a girl? Are they coming from within the school district? Are they coming from out of state? Do they have any special needs? Does the family have a different home language than English? What kind of ability do they have? Do we have any standardized test scores to review before they arrive?

Everything I needed to know this time I found out in just a few sentences: The family is originally from a country in the middle east. They’ve been living in a different country in the middle east for three years, and the kids haven’t had much as far as consistent schooling. They’ve been in America for less than a month and don’t have any English.

This is the kind of scouting report that makes a teacher think, “All right, here we go. Time to roll out the ‘A’ game.”

The kids in class knew enough about the situation ahead of time to be ready for his arrival, and were legitimately excited to meet him. One boy talked about how a new kid had joined his class at his old school, and the class had all worked together to help him learn words in English. Our new student didn’t come to class right away on the first day, since the family first met with building administration, an Arabic interpreter I’ve worked with a few times, and our exceptionally hard-working ESL teacher. Luckily for us each homeroom already had one Arabic-speaking student we could rely on for quick translations, but we all began communicating in simple words and hand motions. The other students were friendly and welcoming, guiding this new boy through the routines of the day the best they could. 

During dismissal, the two brothers quickly found each other as the bus lines started for the office. We made sure we knew which bus to get them on. One of my other boys, who rode the same bus, told me he’d seen their family moving in and knew which stop was theirs. When people tried to escort the boys onto the bus, they opened up in obvious panic, scanning the crowd for their little sister, refusing to get on until she was with them. I went to the front door and waited. She was easy to spot, dressed in the same slightly formal way as her brothers, looking for them with the same panicked expression, and holding hands with her teacher. I crouched down by her, clearly said the names of her bothers, and had her follow me to join them. The boys surrounded her when they saw her, and the three of them got on the bus holding each other. It occurred to me then they had probably been living for three years with a near constant fear of being separated if they didn’t keep close watch of each other. I choked up a little as their bus left, quietly reminding myself that even if I couldn’t teach them everything the same way I was teaching the rest of the class, I could at least be a part of their day when they would feel happy, comfortable, and fed. They would be able to work and play with other kids, they could learn the boundaries they were probably craving, and they could feel safe.

As the days continued, our new fourth grader made some extraordinary leaps in his language acquisition, going from asking other students a pre-coached “What’s your name?” to picking up school-specific vocabulary and useful expressive phrases. He learned how to do things and where to go by observantly emulating his classmates. I went from being someone he would walk up to and stare at with unspoken questions to “Teacher.” As he found that comfort level and made new friends, he turned out to be a little spitfire. During the afternoon of our fall party, he laughed and screamed and played games and danced. The last kids to be dismissed in my room sometimes crawl under the desks and call them forts while they wait for the bell. When he crawled under with them and accidentally farted, the other kids started laughing and he laughed right along with them. 

We kept teaching him with hand motions paired with words the best we could. If he got too excited and had to be corrected, I used simple language with my motions and tone of voice: “No running in here.” “Don’t pinch. That’s wrong.” “Good job!” He picked up on these cues and would nod his understanding, then would stop doing whatever it was as temporarily as any other nine-year-old would. 

We had a math test yesterday that took some kids close to two hours. He didn’t take it. He looked at a picture book for awhile, then I gave him some colored pencils and paper: “You can draw.” He smiled and picked up the pencils, then came up with these two masterpieces: A truck and a happy warrior defending the American flag, and a group of friends in a swimming pool with the American flag hanging overhead.

Based on his pictures, I'd say he thinks America is already pretty great the way it is. 

Today during dismissal, he stood by the door waiting for the bell. Out of nowhere he began quietly singing to himself, some song in Arabic. He looked up, saw me listening, and smiled.

I thought of how much his life had changed in only a month and smiled back, feeling a little privileged that I had the chance to help him transition into a whole new life.