By Erica J. Ringelspaugh

“Ms. Ringelspaugh, this is so gay!” Rick throws his pencil down and slams both hands into his head, propping his elbows up on the desk.

“Sweetheart, I hate to break this to you, but as an inanimate object, your homework cannot have a sexual preference.”

“It’s stupid,” he growls.

“Why is it stupid?” I’ve had this conversation so many times in the last two years, it’s automatic. I don’t even have to look up from my grading, repeating admonitions not to use derogatory slang and endless variations of “You can do it” almost involuntarily. I draw purple arrows in the margins of an essay.

“Because I can’t do it! It’s too hard,” he yells.

“Well, then.” I put down my pen and move to the desk next to Rick’s, slide it closer and bend over the paper. “What’s hard about it?”

Later, I stalled Mark, my co-teacher, in the hallway. “Why do they complain so much?” I whine. “Why do they always have to moan and groan before they go on to just do it anyway? Can’t we just skip the whining?” I snapped.

“Erica,” he said, “Calm down.” He smiled indulgently. “They’re sixteen. They’re insecure. Watch what they do, not what they say.” He addressed my real, unspoken question without me asking. “You are a good teacher,” he reassured.

That Friday, after school, I rushed the hour to my hometown to climb onto a blazing hot roof to help my father, a retired teacher turned local handyman, shingle a neighbor’s home. This was my first roof. When I stepped off the ladder, Dad handed me a hammer and told me to go “old nail” hunting on the clean plywood. Throughout the day, Dad patiently explained each next step, where and how to line up each shingle to ensure accuracy, and why we used the methods we used. Eventually, we fell into a rhythm: me, trying not to burn my butt through my old blue jeans while tossing shingles at him, and him, running along the shingles with the nail gun. At the end of the first group of rows, I stayed to cut the remaining shingles to length while he got the tarpaper ready for the next line across. “So, do you trust me with this nail gun,” I shouted at him, “or do you want to come here again to nail this?”

“I trust you,” he shouted back.

“Okay,” I shrugged, and nervously hefted the nail gun.

On Saturday, one side of the roof completed, we stripped the shingles off the other side of the house, a hot, brutal job that seemingly lasted forever. My attitude dropped so fast I actually heard it hit the bottom of the yellow dumpster, tossed off the side of the house along with the armload of shingles I had just winged. I reapplied sunscreen onto my fair skin four times and cut up the inside of my arms on the sandpaper surface of the old shingles, carrying them back and forth across the steep surface, slipping on the old tar paper and watching my imaginary self break multiple bones as I bounced on the lawn below.

“This is so stupid. I cannot believe I’m here,” I thought, “I volunteered for this gig? Who invented shingles anyway? Who does this for a living?” Out loud, I called, “Water break,” to my Dad and stalked down.

“I feel like Sisyphus,” I groaned, “That Greek king sentenced to eternally roll a boulder up a hill over and over again, and just as he gets it to the top, it slides back down again.”

Dad raised one eyebrow. “We’re almost done, Erica.”

“Oh,” I moaned, “I feel like we’ve been doing this forever.” I looked at my watch. “Or an hour. Whichever.”

“It’s hard work,” Dad commiserated.

“I just feel like we’re not getting anywhere. And it’s so hot.” I whined. “I can’t do that stuff that you do. I’m not strong enough. I’m not prying anything off the roof. I’m just ‘grunt girl,’ carting crap from one end to the other.” I waved my index finger back and forth in an imitation of my forlorn self.

Dad patiently set down his water glass. “We’ll start laying tar paper on that end,” he said, and walked around the house to climb back up the ladder.

That weekend, my Dad taught me how to shingle a roof and modeled good teaching practice as well. Where I came unsure of how to shingle, he started me with a familiar task I’ve done before. Then, he led me through the steps, giving me examples and relevancy for each action he expected, letting me practice and then trusting me to go out on my own. He encouraged me through the hard, crappy labor, but made sure my skills were intact for the long haul. By Sunday morning, when my brother showed up to help, my imaginary superhero name was Nail Gun Girl, and I ruled the roof.

The Monday after I pronounced myself Nail Gun Girl, I sailed into the high school weight and cardio room to meet my friends. Half an hour later, I crouched on the floor, curled in a ball, trying desperately not to throw up from running too hard. Mark stood on the treadmill next to me after I pulled myself back standing on the treadmill railing and limped along slowly, trying to maintain some semblance of form.

“I can’t do it, Mark;” I said, “It’s too hard. I’m OK being a failure.”

“Yes, you can,” he encouraged. “It’s really hard. It takes a long time to learn how to run. Six months ago, you couldn’t run a quarter mile.”

“I know, Mark,” I growled, “It’s just really hard to keep setting goals and not achieving them. Then I scale the goals back to what I think is doable, and then not making that either. It’s masochism, doing this for fun,” I complained.

“Erica,” he shook his head at me, “you looked like a runner just now.”

My eyes shot darts, “Well, I didn’t run,” I shouted, slammed the emergency stop, and stormed out of the room.

Over and over again, I remember myself as a student, and conveniently edit out all the parts I’m not proud of. I edit out Algebra II, which was so hard I cried every day that entire school year. I edit out Economics; I hated that teacher so much that I swore when recounting my stories to my mother in the kitchen at night, every night, for that entire semester. While I know that I eventually achieved, I edit out all the trials to get there, stubbornly persisting in the delusion that it all came easily and I was a polite and diligent student the whole time.

It didn’t and I wasn’t.

Now, as a teacher, it’s easy to think that my kids don’t need to complain, don’t need to be encouraged, don’t need to be told twice. Why can’t they come in, sit down, be quiet, and get it right the first time?

I try new things because I like trying new things, because I have to grow or I will shut down. But now, I need to try new things in order to know what it’s like to try new things, to learn when I am insecure, to push myself when I think that I can’t, and to learn and remember how my students feel. So that, in addition to pedagogical knowledge of how students learn, I will design my lessons to build student confidence and ensure student success. So that when my students are frustrated, or confused, or insecure, I will listen. I will listen instead of responding automatically.

Alicia snarls at me. “I just don’t want to do it, Ms. R. I can’t concentrate.” She hangs her head, looking down at the hemp bracelet she’s weaving instead of completing her work.

I shift from leaning over her, and reach behind me to pull the next desk over so I can whisper in her ear.

“Well,” I say, “I see two choices for you.” I look her in the eye. “I’m going to assume you want to graduate. Is that a safe assumption?”

A tiny nod.

“Then, you can keep working on this packet, get it done, make me proud, and get out of summer school. Or, you can not finish this packet, take this class for the third time again next year, and sit through American Literature all over again.”

She grimaces. “I’m tired,” she starts, then, in a fit of frustration, spits out the heart of her complaint. “I’ve read the book three times. I watched the movie twice. And I still don’t get it.” She picks up the packet and drops it back onto the desk.

“Alicia, you can do this. I read the stuff you wrote for the last unit. You have the skills.” I keep eye contact. “Okay, I hate running. I hate it. But I force myself to do it twice a week because I want to be able to do it. I actually go to the gym, tie my shoes, step onto the treadmill, and repeat to myself the whole time, ‘I hate this. I really hate this.’ I use the hate to fuel me forward. And I run. I ran two miles yesterday.”

She smiles. “Okay, Ms. R. I see where you’re going.” She swivels back forward in her chair, slouches down and sighs. “I’ll keep working.”

I smile, and offer, “Let’s do it together.”

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Posted September 11, 2007