The proscenium classroom

I don't really want to write this but I feel I must.

So, the world didn't quite spin off its axis while I was absent. But it did kind of fall off its hinges.

N-- was expelled yesterday. After being called into the Assistant Principal's office on Tuesday for fighting, on Wednesday he had Sh-- in a headlock, right there in the classroom, 10 feet away from me. (Arguing over some stupid book.) I sent them straight back to the AP.

An hour later, AP comes back into the room with N--, tells him in front of all the kids to pack his bag with all his things and say good-bye to his friends because he's going to another school. His face was red and puffy from crying. He mumbled an apology to me, prompted by the AP, as the class looked on in disbelief. And that's the last we saw of him.

After the whirlwind exited I was left with 10 minutes to go in Reader's Workshop, and 28 expectant kids with their eyes pinned on me, waiting for me to tell them what to do, silently asking me for an explanation, some interpretation of what had just transpired. I had nothing. I was blank. "I guess just read." I said, shaking my head. "Just read." I wandered emptily from one end of the room to the other. My eyes were open but I couldn't see, couldn't think, couldn't wrap my mind around what had just happened, couldn't figure out where to go from there. Finally I said, "I don't really know what to say, so I'm not going to say anything. Sometimes when things happen, you just have to keep going. There's nothing else to do." So we did our spelling words, read from Holes (though my heart wasn't in it, and few were probably paying much attention) and then packed up to go home.

That's such a weird part of being a teacher: there's really no room for you to react to anything in a personal way, no place to step away for a moment, go splash some water on your face and regain your composure. If you need a moment, you're gonna take it right there under the piercing gaze of two dozen impressionable children. If you're fighting back tears, it will be mere seconds before some town crier will announce "I think Ms. D's crying!"

***
That's like the morning when I pulled J-- aside because I could tell he was acting strangely, with his head down on his desk, and he told me he just found out his uncle had died in a motorcycle accident. How do you respond? How could I respond? "I'm very sorry to hear that, J..." (sideways shoulder-hug, hand him a tissue, grab one for myself) "All right class, let's do homophones!"

Or the time last year when one of my first graders came back to class, traumatized after having just been interrogated about possibly being abused by her bus driver (she hadn't been, thank goodness, but I didn't know so at the time). She sat at her desk, tears streaming down her face, and I sat in my teacher chair in front of the class, swallowing the lump in my throat so I could go on reading "What Lives in a Shell..." to the others. Kind of a disconnect.

All this is to say, while you're teaching, you can't have real emotions like a real person. You have to save them for later when it is safe to come out, when you're backstage and the audience can't see you. You can let them see a sliver of yourself, but more than that invites disaster. Best not to let them penetrate the mask.

***

Anyway, for lack of other options, the class returned to their regularly scheduled programming, though quieter than usual, and more subdued, with half of them in tears.

Final tally: one expulsion, one suspension, three pissed-off administrators, 27 solemn, expectant faces, one dumbfounded teacher. One example made, though I think the message might've gotten garbled in the delivery.