Backstage

I feel like, if all this had happened with N-- two years ago, or even last year, I'd have reacted differently. I think two years ago I would've been a quivering, quaking mass of guilt and sadness, sizzling with bitter rage and dripping with heartbreak; a crumpled heap of disillusionment collapsed under the weight of flagrant injustice and powerlessness.

But that's not how I feel, not how I felt this time around. I felt dry. I felt hard. I felt removed.

I don't mean that what happened doesn't make me angry and sad. I'm not saying it doesn't squeeze my soul and shake me to my core.

But one thing I've learned from teaching: when shit goes down, and bad things happen, you grab your shovel and start digging like mad, so you can bury it as fast as you can. Get it out of your head and do everything you can not to think about it until it is a safe distance away, where the Bad Thing can't get to you with its spikes and claws and tentacles. Eyes forward, full speed ahead so you can put it behind you as quickly as possible. File it away under "Those Fucking Bastards," but don't take the time to dwell on the details.

Your skin grows thick. I've seen things like this happen before in my school, with Corky's A-- expelled last year in May, with the attempt to throw C-- out of school earlier this year. The truth is, I've accepted that this is really the way they do things here. And each successive time I see it happen, it becomes a bit less shocking. (I think that type of thinking is how genocides gather steam, no?)

What bothers me the most about it all is not that they never consulted me (in a just world they would've). And it's not that they didn't give him a second chance, (which they easily could've). And it's not that I never got to meet with N--'s mom myself (I should've)... It's that the decision to expell N-- was made without regard to the best interests of the child. N--'s expulsion was a ruse, and not really meant to teach him any kind of lesson, or even send a message to the other fifth graders. He was discharged on grounds of excessive lateness and not being "zoned" for the school.

The truth is that the administration has a witch hunt, a pogrom going on for "unzoned" kids - kids whose addresses don't match the catchment area of the school. If you lay low and don't stir up trouble, they'll let you stay. But the minute you get sent to the principal's office, or you have too many absences, or your test scores are too low, you're out. The administration's agenda is not to further the well-being of each individual child. In fact, I believe their agenda is directly at odds with the well-being of the children.

The Administration is not beholden to the students or the parents or the staff of the school. Their bottom line is the maintenance of the Institution. The Institution is the master, and we are all the weary slaves, scuttling to feed the fiery furnace what it demands.

What the Institution demands, in order to perpetuate itself in this political climate, is numbers: data, percentage points, statistics, test scores, and student-teacher ratios.

And it is a fact that right now, our Institution is busting at the seems: classrooms full to brim, teaching in the hallways, closets converted into offices, offices converted into classrooms, basement converted into sorry, half-assed "gyms" with no room to run around, and not enough space for recess or an art room or a computer lab. The Institution is just too big. It has simply outgrown itself.

So it seems the administration, in service of the Institution, has taken the tack of tossing kids out whenever the opportunity presents itself. Too many kids? Get rid of some, whichever ones are easiest to pick off the herd. All predators know the tired and the weak are easy targets, and the ones with the lowest test-scores, and the ones that are wrecking the attendance record, and the ones whose parents don't speak much English.

Admin looks out for the Institution as a whole, at the expense of the individuals that make up that whole. They're trying to distort our huddled masses into a Lake Wobegone scenario, where all the kids are above average. They're polishing a turd. It's all a numbers game.

But N-- wasn't a number, not to me, and not to 5-315. He was a student, a classmate, a kid. He was a moody kid, and and angry kid with no impulse control, and he needed more attention than I was able to provide. But he was ours. He was also an actor and phenomenally smart and had a great sense of humor and a great vocabulary and a really good heart. He was the smallest but had the biggest mouth. He would give me his signature waist-high hugs even when he was being bad. He told me on two separate occassions that he felt happy because of the way the sun was shining in the window.

(It makes me sad that I already talk about him in the past tense.)

N--- wasn't theirs to take away. I never consented to giving him up to be a Sacrificial lamb to the Data Deity. I never consented to giving up on him at all.

I worry for him because he's too smart. He's too smart for his own good and too smart for school. Dangerous if your mind doesn't fit the mold of mediocrity. Too smart or not smart enough, you're S.O.L. School wasn't made for you.