|
(And let me just say that teaching middle school has become much easier than reading something I've written to a big roomful of people...)
After Seven Years, the First Day
“So, do you have any children?”
“What do you do?”
When the grownups discover I teach middle school,
small talkers roll their eyes groaning, “I’m sorry,”
but the more curious ask, “What are sixth graders like?”
I could say that between August and May
each child runs the gamut from tame to wild.
Together, they comprise a menagerie:
vulnerable lambs,
cantankerous goats,
eerie salamanders,
skittish lizards,
effusive dolphins,
feral cats,
awkward black-tied penguins waddling
on shorelines before finally finding their elegance
as they dive from sight toward seventh grade.
On the first day, I hand down a dry erase board assignment;
they must write me a question. Forget language arts:
what do they want to know of me? Many of them wonder,
“What’s your favorite animal?” I think I’ll answer,
“elephants,” pacifists chewing grass piles,
swinging huge cowtails, wearing broad, meek smiles,
but God help you should you choose to stand in their path
as they walk like warriors inheriting the earth.
I want to prophesy to them all, there will be
at least one elephant among you this year,
so who will it be? Or maybe I
will be your elephant this year.
Some days I’m Noah’s wife, suckered into tending
an ark not of my own making. Some days I’m just
a weary keeper shaking cage bars in my overtime,
and I feel sorry for wild swimmers trapped inside
fifty-seven minute periods and brick walls.
Some days I become Mary Poppins, singing
as I’m courted by landlocked, enchanted penguins.
Some precious days I’m Dr. Doolittle,
strangely multilingual, knowing
I’ve somehow spoken to them, I’ve somehow arrived
after only a series of nervous words on the first day
after which they hazard to write:
“Do you have children?”
“Why are you so nice?”
“Ms. Bradley, are you a kid inside?”
August 2005 |
