A Moment in Time

By Cindy Reitzi,
Madison substitute teacher

October 1999

Ripple effect may have lasting repercussions

In the play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” the main character loves the beautiful Roxanne. Although Cyrano is a gifted poet and feared swordsman, his main obstacle to love is a very large nose. He feels ugly and is terrified that Roxanne will see him as ugly, too, and reject him. In one dramatic scene, Cyrano gets his chance. Pretending to be someone else, in the safety of darkness, Cyrano at last feels he can express his “heart’s true essence.” It is the first time and the last time he can speak freely to her. Recognizing the moment, Cyrano sighs, “Now I can gladly die, knowing it is my words that make you tremble.” He never stops loving Roxanne although she remains ignorant of his “true heart.” Cyrano’s moment lasts a lifetime.

• • •

We gauge time and measure its value in very individual ways, but we can also feel units of time determine us. As a substitute teacher, my time is temporary and nomadic in nature. I used to believe that the high school block of 50-90 minutes, on a given day, was too short to do anything of value. I was merely ‘babysitting.’ I was wrong. Signifi-cance can be forged in a moment. We never really know. A given mo-ment can be as fleeting as a fraction of thought or can last years.

One experience changed my mind about my concepts of time. I was subbing in a special ed class, and the teacher’s note informed

me that I had a new student that day. It was his first day in a new school, and a new class, and his teacher wasn’t there. He could be anxious. Fortunately, it was a small class and the students looked mild-mannered and friendly. I introduced James* to the class and tried to make him feel welcome. Then we went to the lesson for the day.

We began a discussion about feelings: identifying them, expressing them, maybe even controlling them. Most students discussed feelings appropriately, but James began posturing. He described how he beat up one guy, faced down another, and even took on two 2 or three thugs at a time.

Some of the students were looking worried. So I tried to redirect his expressions of violence. First, I tried humor, “Well, if three guys were coming at me, I’d rather look like a coward than get beat up. I’d run.”

Humor didn’t work. Clearly, he had something else at stake. He was not toning down the verbal violence and was getting agitated.

It was clear I had to resort to Spontaneous Plan B.

“You know, James, it sounds like you’ve been in some pretty tough situations and that you’ve had to fight your way out of them.” I got his attention. He nodded. Then I gestured toward a student.

“Look at Joe, here. He looks like a friendly guy. And Sue’s got a great smile. Jenny seems like a nice person. And it looks like you know Sam already. You’ve got some really friendly classmates around you.” Then, in a quieter tone, “Do you feel like you have to fight in here?”

He looked at me and at his classmates. “No,” he said mildly. The other students smiled nervously. James relaxed and even smiled.

“Good. I’m glad.”

I saw James again years later in a different class. He looked at me intently, then smiled broadly.

“I know you!” He couldn’t recall the circumstance, but he remembered how I treated him. A moment that had lasted for years.

“I remember,” I said and smiled back.

A moment is a pebble. It falls in the water, and ripples fan outward. Usually I don’t know the ripple effect. Usually, no one comes up to me years later, and says that he “knows” me from a moment in time and that I am familiar to him. For some students, familiarity is comforting.

One high school student walked up to me and said, “I don’t like you.” There was no hostility in his voice or in his eyes, so I was curious.

“You mean, you don’t know me,” I said. “Yeah, that’s right,” he agreed. To him, it was the same thing.

Still, he looked oddly relieved, even happy. Maybe I clarified a feeling he had no language for. Or maybe I didn’t react the way he expected. How many people, who hadn’t read his face, retorted, “I don’t like you either?”

It is a short moment and then he is gone. Then my worry nerve kicks in and starts a chain of questions.

I wonder why “I don’t know you” means “I don’t like you.” Has he moved so constantly that he is always a stranger in an unfamiliar place? Was he abused?

I think about what psychoanalyst Alice Miller has said about abused children. For abused children to rescue themselves (and not grow up to harm others) one condition must exist: “at least one person in our childhood … affirmed our true feelings, and thus let us know that our true self could be seen by others and did exist.”1

Most of the time we don’t know our own influence, but any moment could be one in which we impact a child’s life.

* Names of all students have been changed.
1. “Revolution from Within,” Gloria Steinem, p.82

Posted September 30, 1999