It’s the first day of school and everyones seems to be slightly uncomfortable with the new schedule. The kids survive the surface level conversations and barely get through the beginning of the year morning announcements. Eventually it’s time for our first class and I wonder into the classroom where I’m told to sit in and wait to assist kids for when they “blow up”. The teacher in this middle school classroom of six students is also new. He fits the features and outfit of the rest of the staff. He’s from colorado and sports a large red beard and a leather looking face from windy cold outdoor explorations.
Mr. Colorado begins the class by talking about the word “SAFE”. Not long into breaking down the important word he takes a second to ask one of the students to put some sort of gadget back into his pocket. The seventh grader responds with some very adult like obscenities without making eye contact with anyone and attempts to shove something into his pocket. Teaching continues. About a minute later Mr. Colorado pauses to address the same distracted child about his gadget. In what seemed to be a split second this little dude responded with some extra impressive obscenities and stormed out of the room mumbling about how he will refuse to be embarrassed about the situation.
I recognized my cue, although I was slightly startled. I thought to myself, “this must be the ‘blow up’ they were informing me about.” I walked out into the common area to see the short fused little man crying with his hat covering the front of his face and the bill down below his chin. I caught a glimpse of his face and his permanently damaged eye that hung hallow and trailed after his good eye when changing glances. I sat with him for what seemed about twenty minutes or so without saying a word.
Eventually I asked him some simple questions and he answered. We talked about super hero’s and his siblings. I pulled out connect four and we played as many games as I could think to play with the light checkers sliding through the plastic slots. He laughed and we stacked chips for a long time.
By the end of the day the same kid lost his mind over not being able to put a small tricky wooden structure together. Each moment with the kids was an experience. Each one has their own specific issues and set backs. Each one takes medication designed to calm them down and their fuses are different lengths. The school is in a dry climate and fire danger is always pointing towards “extreme” as it is with these children. Their specific issues combine to create a tornado effect of madness making me feel like an object observing something unnatural.
It’s the first day and I’m happy that I am here. The staff congratulates one another at the end of the day and say, “first day down!” They stay afterwards and talk about specific kids and their families and plenty of things that I don’t understand. I understand enough of the conversations to know that these people care about these kids. The kids may look them in the face and say some awful stuff and refuse to show any growth but these older people will prevail. They have very long fuses and act as if they are from the wet and humid cost where gasoline is required to ignite a fire.
Day one down.
