| SEARCH OnWEAC |
|---|
By Cindy Reitzi
While I might agree with Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy that, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world," he probably never taught high school. There are simply times in life where no verbal contrivances suffice and we are left with mute action. Students often remember how you treated them more than what you taught them or, at least, those two are inextricably linked. In teaching (and probably parenting), action is a language in itself.
Back when I was teaching English long-term, I started the year with new desk-chairs. They were gorgeous. Pristine, unmarked by pencil, pen or marker, formica-like surfaces and polished chrome legs positively gleamed and winked at me. The surface area of the desk plane was actually large enough to hold an open textbook and still leave room to write in a notebook.
The seats were ample for large students. "How did I get this lucky?" I wondered.
Trouble was, I was in a small room that used to be a physical therapy space. It wasn't so bad with my 11th and 12th graders, but with my 9th graders, well, it was hard for them to keep their hands to themselves. They were so close, they were practically hugging each other. This only added to all the social excitement of being with each other in a classroom. There was very little aisle room, so I also had trouble circulating to the back. But, I thought, the new desks were worth it.
Somehow, despite the tough surface of the desks, students still managed to "doodle" on them (i.e., "vandalize" them). I have nothing against drawing; I even suggested that if they wanted to draw, they should do it on a piece of paper. No dice.
Pretty soon, these nice new desks were all marked up with swear words, anatomical stick figures, and graphite rings around the pencil wells that came off on clothes. Often, my clothes. Not to mention, the bottom metal shelves on several were coming loose off welded joints due to teen handling worse than Timex watch trials. A typical posture was to crank back on the chair legs, hook their feet on the grill and push down hard like they were accelerating on a go-kart.
It made me mad because the chief culprits would be the first students to whine, "This school is a pit," and bemoan that everything was old or that nothing worked or that we didn't have the latest technologies. No matter how much I complained that if They were the ones trashing desks and other equipment, nothing was going to stay new-looking and in good condition; no matter how much I lectured consideration of the next class, the next classmate, this verbiage was met with rolled eyes and glazed, "What, the world doesn't revolve around me?" expressions. When I gave them squirt bottles with rags for clean-up, "That's the janitor's job," was the snotty response.
Still, the scratchings wouldn't stop.
So one day I was feeling offended by the furniture carnage and closed in by the size of the room. The defaced desks stared at me, accusingly, as if to say, in a Darth Vader voice, "You have failed me for the last time."
"You're right," I answered. So I strategized with the janitor about what to do.
"Well, you could switch desks. The math room down the hall is bigger and they have smaller desks." So we scoped out the math room.
Compared to my closet, the math room was a veritable sports field. You could have played soccer in there. My large, now defaced, desks would fit nicely.
So I spoke to the math teacher and asked if he wanted to swap desks since I needed the space. When he saw my desks, he started salivating.
"They're huge!"
"They're yours if you want them." So the next day after school, the obliging janitors made the switch. My students walked into a changed room and I heard the buzz:
"What happened to our desks?"
"Why do we have the old, (expletive) desks?"
"I hate these desks, they're so small!"
I waited for the buzz to subside and for the first time that year my students were dead silent at the beginning of class. I felt centered, serene, dare I say . Zen-like. In a quiet voice, because they were actually listening to my voice and my words, I said simply (with emphasis on italicized words),
"You didn't want new desks. You didn't take care of new desks. Now, you have old desks." Out of approximately 100 students in five classes, I heard not one word of protest.
Action is a language unto itself.
March 8, 2006