Boys

I’m writing about Echo Glen, the place where “bad” kids get locked up. Supposedly bad kids.  They’re not, though, I’m learning about that. I work in schools and schools are where you learn.

               They tell me I’m with lower campus boys today, the maximum-security area. Am I nervous? No. People here are happy. The other teachers are making copies, chatting, piling their things in golf carts. That’s how we travel here. How can you be scared when you arrive in a golf cart?

               True, we do unlock a twelve-foot high gate and lock it behind us. Put on a necklace I don’t realize until later is a panic button.  But the room is a classroom, full of desks and worksheets, and school is a place I love.

               Soon the boys arrive. Some of them do look tough. Some are tattooed, some have hair greased back. Others have tiny braids. Some are only thirteen, little boys with soft skin and long eyelashes. We have nine or ten of them, in all. Some look sullen but they all are quiet. They sit down and wait.

               I pass out folders with their work for the day and one pencil to each. We count pencils at the beginning and end because you can hurt someone with a pencil.

               They begin working, most of them, and I wonder what they’re doing.

I walk up to one, a slender boy with big dark eyes.

               “What’re you workin’ on?” I say.

               He turns his worksheet so I can see. He’s on a problem that’s part geometry, part algebra. The perimeter of a rectangle is sixteen. One side is 3, the other is x - 4. What’s x?

               My last algebra class was forty-five years ago.

               “Let’s give it a shot,” I say.  Then I laugh. “Oops! Bad metaphor.”

               He gives me a small smile.

               “Do you remember the formula for the perimeter of a rectangle?”

               He does.

               I lay out the equation.

               “Mm, hmm,” he says.

               “You want to get the x alone on one side and a number on the other side, and to get there you always have to do the same thing to both sides of the equation.”

               Yes, he knows that.

               I hope I can still do this. So many ways to get lost in the algebra wilderness.

               “What do you think we do next?” I ask.

               “Add four to both sides?”

               “Yes!”

               He is catching on.

               At last we emerge from our forest of numbers with an x on one side and a nine on the other.

               “That’s cool. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I could do this,” I say, and I’m rewarded with another smile.

               Next I go to Jack at the computer.

               “Hey, how’s it going?”

               “I fuckin’ hate this!” he says.

               “First of all, please speak politely,” I say.

               “OK,” he says.

               “Now, what’s wrong?”

               “I don’t understand any of this!”

               In a flash I see. This app doesn’t teach, it only tests. Not ‘til you get it wrong does it tell you how to do the problem. These boys are outside the mainstream. They might have been in trouble for years and not in school much. They have every reason to think everyone else knows what they don’t.

The world has told them they’re bad or stupid.

I look at him.

“You’re not supposed to know this already,” I say. “It’s learning.”

He sinks back into his chair.

“Let’s look. This is about percentage increase in sales. You might need this if you ever want to have your own business. I did for a long time.”

“You did? What did you do?”
               “Photography,” I say.

And then we do math.

On break we’re out in an asphalt yard in the rain. Jack is standing next to me, shivering.

By way of nothing he says, “I smoke.”

“Oh yeah? I used to be a quit smoking coach.”

“You can’t make me quit!” he says.

“No, I only talk to people who want to quit.”

“I do want to quit,” he says.

And then we’re off. Set a date, mini-quits, change your habits and your environment, shift your thinking.

He’s leaning in, so I tell him about the guy who thought he only had two choices: hard drugs or a cigarette, so he chose the lesser of two evils. I’d asked him, Is that all there is? Two evils? What about choosing something good?

By then we’re back at the classroom. Jack doesn’t say anything but he’s got this look in his eyes like a seed has been planted.

These boys are not stupid and I don’t think they’re bad. I’m starting to love them already.

*     *     *

Weeks go by and there’s more.

The one who said when I leaned on his cubicle, “May I please have my personal space?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Good job asking.”

From then on he smiles at me.

The one who chooses to finish four math worksheets and skip computer games.

The time we’re making paper snowflakes and the one who seems the toughest asks me, “How do you make a heart?”

*     *     *

               After three weeks my sub gig is ending. I won’t leave without saying goodbye, but I don’t know how this will go. Will they ignore me? Make smart remarks? Laugh?

               “I’m not coming back after break,” I say. “I’ll miss you. I have so enjoyed working with you.”

               And what do they do, these supposedly tough, bad boys? They clap. They applaud me.

               To keep from crying, I talk. “Of all the schools I work in, you guys are my favorite.”

               Instantly Jeremy pipes up. “Is this a school?”

Anne Herman1 Comment