So, I was reminded by Anne of a second grade boy I taught in the early years. This was in an inner-city school in Virginia. The school had nearly 600 youngins and most of them were living below the poverty level. This kid was bright. I mean smart as a tack. And he had a way with adults. He was funny, cute, conversational, and in the blink of an eye, mean as a striped snake. Oh, I don't think he wanted to be mean. He was groomed for it, I think. A nurture vs. nature thing.
I mean, this kid (I'll call him James, since I've never taught a James who didn't have this proclivity for stubbornness.) would be fine and dandy till you asked him to do something he wasn't in the mood to do.
"James, would you please put your writing folder away and come to the rug with us?"
"I AIN'T DOIN' JACK, MISS RICHERT!"
"James, writing workshop is over. We're having a meeting on the rug. Let's go."
GLARE GLARE GLARE
MEAN TEACHER LOOK
MEAN TEACHER LOOK
MEAN TEACHER LOOK
No use. James wasn't budging. He wasn't doin' jack.
Nevermind the implications there. Nevermind that I wasn't even a miss at the time.
And yet in all these years, James goes down as one of my favorites. In retrospect, I think that James was probably gifted. I mean that in the education sense of the word. He was bright, able to think about things in abstract ways. He could interact with his friends, teachers, and still keep his toes firmly entrenched in his hood. This was ultimately, I am afraid, his downfall.
You see, if you're gifted, and you don't use your "giftedness", you are in danger of losing it.
It's like practicing for anything. If I don't practice my taekwondo form, I forget how to do it. If Camden doesn't practice his soccer moves, he forgets them. If James didn't work out his thinking muscles, he'd forget how to use them. By the time James was in second grade, it just wasn't cool for him to get good grades. I was told that his uncles were all in jail and they had told him that he'd one day wind up there, too. Grades were a waste fo time. And so his grades dropped a bit every quarter. A self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever saw one.
Still, James taught me an important lesson in that year. He taught me that some subjects are OK to write about. I was a new teacher - I think this was my 2nd or 3rd year. I was really into writing workshop where kids write short picture books on subjects of their choosing. I tended to push kids to write about their own experiences because those were the ones they knew best. But James insisted on writing about his hero - Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Here is the hero cracking open a beer.James was an avid wrastling fan. He knew all the big players. All their girlfriends. All the winning moves guaranteed to award WWF stardom (or WWE or WWWhatever). The only time his writing came alive with voice and excitement was when he wrote about his beloved wrastling hero. And so I gave in and let him at it.
Through the stories James wrote, I acquired a hefty knowledge of wrestling, albeit ONLY through his writings. I could talk trash with the best of them. I could tell you that Stone Cold and The Rock were rivals at least once. Stone Cold liked to finish off opponents with his signature Stone Cold Stunner. In fact, he once almost had the Undertaker under his Stunner control when suddenly the tables turned and Austin was nailed with a Piledrive of some sort. Of course, Austin did the piledrive, too, at times. This just wasn't his turn. Apparently, too, Stone Cold liked to say things like, "And that's the bottom line, cause Stone Cold said so!"
Well then.
I have to tell ya, I felt cool in those days when I could toss out terms like piledrive and stunner and Royal Rumble. Guys dig chicks who can talk wrastling.
Cause Stone Cold says so.
James transferred to another school after his second grade year; we never heard how he was doing. I think about him every year as I get to know a new class and then say goodbye to them in the spring. I wonder if I have any James in my charge. I wonder if I have any kids whose peeps think jail is more suitable than home. And I wonder if James is at home now. Wherever you are, James, thank you for keeping it real. For being true to yourself most of the time. I pray you are the James God meant for you to be.
