Room 131

7

This is the seventh part of a serialized memoir. Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6.

I remember my first visit to the room. It was dim, lit only by the afternoon light, which was silvery or grey, as if strained through a cloud. That light raced in thin lines up the legs of an upturned chair, then turned sharply to highlight the seat’s lip. There was a broad wooden desk, beige or light brown but for rectangles of cool light, dissolving as they traveled away from the window. Metal grates and bars, a radiator, wooden closet doors, fading poster paper and tattered border, all palely illuminated.

I opened one of the closets. It was almost completely full, piled high with books and papers. I slid a note off the top and read it.

What - Teacher hit in face with a fruit

How - Hit in the face with a Pear thrown thru the window

When - 11-12-02 2:10pm

Where - In Class Room 131

Why - Playing outside classroom during school hour.

These words were written in large letters across a full sheet of white paper. Setting it aside, I pulled down a second sheet. It had the same handwriting, and presented the same facts, this time in paragraph form. Here, the author indulged in a more subjective tone, emphasizing that the pear hit the teacher’s face, eyes, and hair. I put both papers into my backpack.

That was Wednesday. Since our summer professional development had started, I’d been initiated into the new paradigm for teaching reading and writing, learned how to fill out a time card, and done what I could to get the room ready. On Thursday, I had even managed to procure some textbooks, having ventured out with the mission of meeting each department head.

Math was a no-go; I was told that I needed a class roster before I could have textbooks. We didn’t yet know what grade my students were in–it could be 6th, 7th, or 8th. As a special education teacher, I might even have mixed grades in my class. I pleaded for at least one book, of any kind, that I could study over the long weekend. I had no idea what middle school math looked like. You could download a list of the New York State Standards, but I could not translate those documents, written in a technical, abstract language that reliably made me drowsy, into speech or action.

Out of kindness, the department head, his face a shifting mosaic of skin and glasses, allowed me to borrow one student copy of Impact Math. Then he directed me to the office of the science department head, before which I should wait, as she was very busy but would eventually return. She did, and though her face, too, is hard for me to picture, I can access dangling earrings and a breathless enthusiasm for my cause. She took me into an unmarked room full of tall metal shelves that held hundreds of textbooks in neat piles. She disappeared into an aisle and then returned with a stack of slim blue and white books. “These are 6th grade science,” she said; I made my arms a forklift and accepted them. She had to get going, but she had two more gifts. The first was a globe, which she placed carefully atop the books. (She also managed social studies). The second gift she would deliver when she could. “What room are you in?”

(I would speak to this person only once more. I had heard she kept a full-sized skeleton on hand, and I wanted to borrow it for a lesson on evolutionary adaptations. She let me, again exhibiting an infectious enthusiasm for the lesson I was planning. I returned it the following day, and that was the last time I saw her. I remain grateful for her help during that confusing time, and I regret that I don’t remember her name).

All that was missing now were several boxes of trade books for a class library. The library was not mere decoration; it was the load-bearing support for the city’s new approach to teaching reading. Students were supposed to spend as much as 45 minutes of a 90 minute block reading books that they had chosen from our class library. My job, according to Mrs. Morrison, was to be as much a librarian as a teacher, ensuring that every student had a book that they were interested in and, crucially, could read fluently. To do that, I would need to be familiar with every title.

On Friday afternoon, I still didn’t have these books. I remember planning to stay there for hours, however long it took. I wanted to be ready. I stood in the silvery light.

There was a knock on the door: Mrs. Morrison. She told me that the books were delayed. In the meantime, she did have one thing for me. It was a rug, rolled into a cylinder and wrapped in plastic. She did not make apologies or excuses. She left.

I opened up the rug, stuffing the plastic into the trash. It made a broad, navy blue oval. I placed it in the back, where the library would be.

A primary message imparted by our summer training was that we should expect challenges, and we should suck it up. Without a library, I would simply teach lessons that did not require its use. That wasn’t so hard for the first week; we would get to know each other, cover classroom norms, learn how to write the school heading. (Name and “CJHS 145” on the top left. Date and “Mr. Mackert” on the top right). As long as we had looseleaf paper, and the occasional photocopied text (I had purchased an at-home printer-copier that worked very well, as it did not require any complex pairing; you simply installed the drivers, via a CD that came with the printer, and connected all relevant machines with a cable), we would be fine. Educators across the world made do with nothing but a chalkboard, didn’t they? Having these kinds of thoughts was part of sucking it up.

I was excited to meet my students. I could not picture them. I had been told it was a requirement for special education teachers to have studied their students’ files beforehand, in order to design lessons and an environment that met their needs and accommodated their disabilities. I wasn’t sure what I would do with that information, but I wanted to at least know their names and grade levels. With a roster, I would also be able to procure the math textbooks. I felt involved in a grand puzzle.

Shortly before three o’clock, a voice came on the loudspeaker. “All special education teachers please report to the office.” I assumed our class rosters were ready, and we were being called to pick them up. Instead, I have a memory of filling a very small room. Inside, Ms. Aj, the assistant principal in charge of special education, sat in an office chair, carefully wiping tears away from her eyes. “I know some of you don’t like me,” she said. “But please pray for me. They’re sending me I don’t know where.” If anything else was said, I don’t remember it.

Walking through the hall, I forgot the entirety of this moment, only remembering it much later after seeing the sentence “I know some of you don’t like me” in my journal. Later, I would learn that the school was undergoing structural change that year, one of many large middle schools that would be broken up into smaller ones as part of a reform initiative. But at the time, I could not make sense of it.

Back in Room 131, the light was different. The windows faced west, and the sun now shot through the clouds, sending in pale yellow beams. They illuminated the wood grain of the closet and warmed the side of the desk that had once been cool grey. All the chairs were down, the desks arranged in two neat rows. On the board, next Tuesday’s date and my name were written in neat letters. And on my desk, in a small plastic tub, swam a goldfish.