I read the email which just popped up on my screen. ‘I was still sick on April 19th. Here’s my request for an absence form. I’ve already entered my time in the data base. Thank you’. I sit back and think for a moment. Obviously, this email went to the wrong person. I’m sorry this person was ill. I don’t know who this person is. I have no authority to grant anyone their sick or personal days. I have no control over the data base. I consider whether or not I should respond to this. I take the cowardly way out and delete the email. Problem solved. The person will find the right authority. The data base will be satisfied. This not the hill on which I am willing to die.
Someone requests that I come downstairs to what I call ‘the holding bin’; the room where students who arrive late are confined until they are picked up for testing make-ups. I enter the room cautiously and call out three names. The room erupts into a cacophony of viciously nasty and threatening language. The one girl in my group stands up quietly and makes her way over to the door where she stands behind me. The two boys summoned rear up, jump and twist themselves, making threatening gestures, each trying to outdo the other with some of the most awful language, specifically directed against several of the girls. To the girl’s credit, they don’t back down and make equally threatening gestures, adding filthy language for good measure and tell the boys ‘we’ll see you in the parking lot’. The two boys burst out of the room and careen down the hallway. So we’re off to a good start.
This is a hill on which I am willing to die. I will not take these two cretins into my office space along with the gentle girl who waits patiently by the door. I shrug my shoulders as I explain to the rough and tumble guy monitoring this room. ‘I have no tolerance for this sort of language and behavior. I’m taking the girl. Someone else will have to test them’. He nods, looking severely disappointed that he is not able to shed these two like so much wounded flotsam. Unfortunately, this is the job he has chosen. I wonder how long he might stay.
She and I exit the room, enter the elevator and one of the boys, who has come running back, tries to jump on with me. I push him back and say, ‘No!’. The doors close. I turn to her and say, ‘Don’t you ever let anyone speak to you that way. Don’t ever let a boy or a man treat you that way’. She looks at me and nods. I want more than anything to transfer strength to her at this moment; to give her the ability in the most effective manner to handle people like this; personalities such as these two boys; types of persons I am sure she will meet again in high school and beyond in the larger world. She chuckles when I tell her what I think would happen if those boys spoke to my husband that way. She nods and smiles. She maintains her calm demeanor and her poise, but I worry.
‘Help me’…pause. The small child looks at me. ‘I don’t know letters’. I look at his test. I consider the insanity of all this testing. ‘It’s okay’ I respond casually. ‘Just draw pictures, okay? You’re a good artist’. He looks down. He picks up his number two pencil and with pudgy fingers, draws a circle around letter B of the multiple choice question. Then he draws ears and a face in the circle. ‘That’s a cat’ he states and looks up at me for approval. ‘Yup. I see that. Nice cat. I told you that you were a good artist’. I sit back and watch him do the rest of the test in this manner. There is a dinosaur and another cat and a few shapes I am not clear on. But every shape has eyes and ears and a genuinely charming face. ‘Best test ever’ I think. I’d like to know how many of these 4,000 plus tests end up in Albany with characters drawn all around the multiple choice letters. I hope most of them do…and on that hill, I will willingly place my flag.
690 Saint Paul 