pavomag.com

In almost four decades of observing and pondering, one of the few sure things I’ve come up with is that there’s a pattern that exists throughout the living world. If you’ve ever stared at a fan coral from behind goggles or the windows of a glass-bottom boat, you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve ever marveled at the veins in a leaf or the intricacies of just a drawing of your own blood vessels, you know what I’m getting at. If you’ve ever looked at a tree – family, evolutionary, or wood – you know what I mean. It’s that pattern of one thick central trunk, which splits into smaller branches, each of which splits into smaller-than-that branches, and so on. That this pattern exists all around the living universe is interesting enough. It sort of makes sense: it’s the manifestation of a need – often the transportation of something – being met in the physical world in an efficient way. But what really caught my mind about it years ago was the fact that, besides being everywhere physically, it’s everywhere figuratively. If you think about choices and their repercussions, about actions and their consequences or even just their physical reactions, the pattern shows itself again. Existence starts to look like an overlapping of those patterns – one for every being, agent, force, and object.  

Transformation is not only possible, it’s unavoidable.

Just one of those intertwined patterns goes something like this: You were born (there’s the central trunk). A moment later, the doctor either dropped you on your head or she didn’t (there’s the first branch). A few moments after that, you were either placed on your mom’s (or dad’s) warm skin or you weren’t. A while after that ... you get the point. As we get older, we have more say over the branch we’re on, and the number of choices – the forks in the wood, so to speak – per length of wood/time increases. So does the number of potential consequence-branches at each of those forks. When we look at, say, our own immediate family, it gets pretty intricate – like the bird’s nest on your reel when something goes horribly wrong fishing, or better yet, like a neural map of the brain – but the pattern is in there, multiplied and interwoven into an impossibly confounding and vital jumble. All you need to see it is enough imagination to ponder what might have been at any (and therefore at every) moment. The sheer number of opportunities for change, minor or major, for new paths, subtle or sudden, is staggering. The is, though more important, is far outnumbered by the could.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now walk backwards along a path with me for a moment. Not long before writing this, I heard that the theme of this issue of Pavo was to be “transformations.” Now walk back a little further to a story in the Sept. 23 Birmingham News. A convict named Emmitt Arlee Harris with a long rap sheet had climbed a 14-foot fence topped with razor wire and escaped from the DeKalb County jail. What hit me about the story wasn’t the story, several versions of which I’d written myself as a crime reporter. What hit me was the man’s mug shot. Really it was his beard: it was turning gray, and unexpectedly, that crushed me. It was as if some random thing had triggered a stinging memory of something I’d left behind, except I hadn’t left anything relevant behind; the pain was strictly in the here-and-now. When I’d first skimmed the text, I unconsciously assumed the story was about a young man. I guess that initial misconception made the impact of the picture more sudden, more sharp: For how long had this man’s life been messed up? For just how long had he lived like that? Frustratingly, violently, in prison, and who knows what else. I know nothing about how his life started out or who he was early on. I know nothing of his victims, nothing of his friends. Nothing. But I know he was caught two days later, and that wasted potential is as big as all the seven deadly sins put together. My heart went out to him – and to the people around him – from my comfy living room.

Seeing so much gray on his face really hurt me, the way a hammer hurts, and that’s partly because I once played a role in creating an Emmitt Harris. Or maybe I should say I didn’t do anything to stop the molding, the warping, the misguiding when I had the chance. I could let myself off the hook (which I will do later) because I’ve helped prevent a few Emmitt Arlee Harris trajectories, but there’s an Emmitt in my past just the same. In my case, his name is (was?) William Cordell.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the fall of 1996, William Cordell was a fourth grader at Clark Street Elementary School in Henderson, North Carolina. Proof that Henderson was a struggling community was that Teach For America sent me there. Henderson is the seat of Vance County, which probably still boasts state-leading rates of child abuse and neglect, teen pregnancy, drug use, HIV incidence, unemployment, etc. Vance County even led the state in the amount of marijuana grown, which is pretty amazing because it’s a tiny county and a good portion of it is under a manmade lake. The place was home to quite a buffet of statistics, and I saw many flesh-and-blood manifestations of them. I was working in the oldest school building in the county, in an overcrowded, racially and economically segregated school where slightly older roughnecks slung crack and weed on a corner a few hundred feet away. Where I once explained to a “math teacher” that you didn’t need a plastic Sounds like things might be moving down a positive path, right? Nope.sliding grading tool to figure out quiz grades, that you could use a calculator to divine those magic numbers. A school where there were several terrific teachers, but where the blind leading the blind was probably the norm. A school where two of my 28 all-day, all-subject, “self-contained-class” of fourth-graders were already involved in the criminal justice system, and at least two others had suffered abuse so severe and regular that even the overwhelmed county social services department had removed them from their “homes” and put them in foster care. (Please note here that anyone who grew up comfortable and trumpets the “bootstraps” mantra has probably never spent a week – much less an academic year – in a ghetto elementary school). William was the worst of the worst, and he came in to this green, do-gooder, first-year teacher’s classroom knowing it.

He had a horrible rep. His placement in my class showed that I was at the low end of the teacher totem pole. The first day of school, as I tried to quell a fight that broke out in the threshold of my dilapidated classroom as the kids walked in, tall, dark-eyed, left-back-twice-already William slithered in unseen, sat in the back, and began looking around. He was smart and streetwise enough to check things out before doing anything, to case the joint, so to speak. A little later, after I told the class that everyone in the room was “starting fresh,” he told me, skeptically, that he was “hateful.” When I asked him why, he said matter-of-factly that all of his past teachers and his family had said so. I told him I didn’t think it was true. He replied, “We’ll see.”

The first few days of class were actually decent, at least as far as William went. Although my inexperience – especially at being a disciplinarian – was beginning to show in the behavior of many of the other kids, William – though loud and sometimes threatening to his classmates – seemed to be restraining his worst impulses and even raising his hand and getting involved in my weak attempts to teach. Partly to appease the student who was becoming what educationese speakers call “the second locus of power” in the room, and partly out of compassion, I called on William more than I called on other students (mistake number 562-a). I had learned that he was being raised by an unemployed father who was on disability and mentally ill, possibly schizophrenic. I also learned, as a few weeks went by, that William was telling people that I was the first teacher he ever liked. One day at recess, out of the blue, he even gave me a spontaneous hug.

By late September, the class was pretty much out of control.

Sounds like things might be moving down a positive path, right? Nope. I dropped the ball. I dropped the ball. Partly because I spent so much of my energy and attention on keeping William invested and engaged, but mainly because I wanted to love the kids before establishing an orderly environment instead of vice-versa. Within three weeks, many of the smaller players in my rogue’s gallery – having realized that this nice deer-in-the-headlights was slow to punish – began acting the same way they did when they’d run wild in their neighborhoods at night. On top of that, I was constantly addressing arguments and fights, and so had no time to offer anything positive or interesting.

By late September, the class was pretty much out of control. Very little academic teaching was going on in the lives kids who needed it the most. My roommate and coworker, who taught what was occasionally described as “the worst second-grade class in America,” began joining me over dark breakfasts at 5:30 a.m. in making hopeful statements like, “Maybe we’ll get into a car wreck on the way to work today.” Oh, the longing. Of course, in a chaotic class environment, one so bad that even the teacher didn’t want to be there, William’s ingrained habits began rising back to the surface and eventually showing themselves full force. He’d come in smelling like weed, or carrying a knife (at least it wasn’t a gun). After my initial shock and disappointment wore off, I began thinking well, at least he’ll be suspended for a while. (I don’t know where I would have been if our principal hadn’t been supportive).

Once William told me, loudly, that he’d, quote, “beat my skinny ass.” At that point, I was so worn down and frustrated and notably not eager to keep my job that I stupidly called him on it. I walked over to his desk and said “go ahead.” I think something in my eyes told him he’d better stay in his chair. Anyway, by that point, I’d basically lost William, and it was simply and truly because I didn’t have my shit together as a teacher. I’d been so shell-shocked that when the kids left for the day, I would just get the hell out of there – didn’t stay to work on my room or my lesson plans or to talk to the few decent teachers in the building about my problems. By winter, as I was selfishly, indulgently licking my wounds, trying not to think of the disaster that was my classroom William was in the county’s juvenile group home. I limped into Christmas break, knowing I’d lost William in several senses. 

I began cutting off their heads if they so much as farted.

Four years later, I ran across him in downtown Henderson. About a foot taller, he was “sagging” (wearing his pants off his butt), shirtless, and wild-eyed. We had a long talk, from which I ascertained he had dropped out of school, been in and out of various institutions, and realized he had problems with “decision-making and anger” (clearly he’d gotten some counseling). We had a real talk there on the corner. I told him he was still young and anything could happen, and that he should call me if he ever needed help with anything. I gave him my phone number and never heard from him again. Predictably, a few years after that, I saw his name online in the local daily paper. He was, shall we say, featured prominently in a story about an armed robbery. After that, not another word, not another whisper. I’d call his chances of being alive right now about 50-50. Free, even less.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
    
Now for the transformations (you didn’t really want to end on such a depressing note, did you?).  As many do, these transformations started separately but became very much entwined. The first was my own. That winter break in the Year of William, I drove eight hours home to New York with my head down. It would never have occurred to me to voluntarily leave the job – to quit what I had started and committed to. But really, what the fuck was I doing back there in my classroom? Couldn’t some other teacher – or maybe a border collie or a cabbage – step in and do a better job for those kids? What was I accomplishing? Not much. So what could I change? My gut told me “also not much,” but my brain told me I at least had to try. So I did.

I decided that come hell or high water, 1) I was not going to continue to have my ass handed to me by a bunch of fourth-graders (obviously this was not high-minded “for the children” stuff – this was simple self-preservation), and 2) even if they ended up despising me, they damn well were going to learn something in the second half of the school year. I drove back and started that January with a completely different approach. Basically, it was to stick rigidly, ridiculously to the multi-step discipline plan that teachers were required to post in the room. Put more colorfully, I began cutting off their heads if they so much as farted.

The first few days, several surprised students ended up at the principal’s office much more quickly than they had come to expect, but – here’s the amazing part – with William no longer in the room, the kids began falling in line quickly, voluntarily, even happily. Turns out that an orderly environment was much safer and less stressful for them, not just for me (duh). So in other words, being a hard-ass gave me the chance to teach it off. My students actually began learning, and they even seemed to like it. Long story short, the class ended up with not only the best scores in the building on the state end-of-grade tests (the be-all and end-all of modern American education), but also the most improvement over their previous year’s scores. All from less than a half-year’s learning. One girl who’d been classified as EMH – educable, mentally handicapped – scored at grade level in math and in reading for the first time. Earlier in the year, my roommate and I had started a chess club and team. Thanks to the 180-degree turnaround in my classroom, I had much more energy and love and optimism to put into the club, even though a boy from my class named Shontwan Herder, who couldn’t write and could barely read, would regularly school me. He’d also spank my roommate, who was a much better player than I was. Shontwan went on to win a U. S. Chess Federation tournament in affluent Carrboro, beating kids who were reading the New York Times at lunch break. Through the club, Shontwan got a rep in his housing project not for fighting, but for slicing and dicing anyone foolish enough to play chess against him. He was actually something of a genius, a true natural talent, and his name was on the loudspeaker so often for his winning ways (again, supportive principal) that all the little girls wanted to go to the school dance with him.

Hmm. Turns out that the rogue’s gallery had held some powerful little brains, some real potential. I know now through the wonders of the Internet (being Googled is sometimes a good thing) that several of them actually made it to college – firsts in their families.

Obviously, the transformation of that chaotic, negative, unproductive classroom transformed me. It was like realizing you don’t have to choose between jobs and a clean environment: the either-or myth of discipline versus positive feelings was just that, a myth. I took all that I had learned and pledged to start Year Number Two the right way.  Obviously, the transformation of that chaotic, negative, unproductive classroom transformed me.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In Year Two I started out very consciously, very purposefully scaring the crap out of them. I had, after all, gone to a little ghetto school myself – I knew how to talk the talk, how to front like I was hard and a little bit crazy (which by then I was). I wanted them to know that I cared about them, that if they held up their end of the bargain we’d have plenty of fun, but mainly that I didn’t have time for nonsense and that there were 25 other kids who needed to learn and that no one would be getting in the way. And I wasn’t bluffing. I’d been beaten down already. It wasn’t going to happen again. Small amounts of gas were passed and heads were therefore removed. An orderly (and therefore conducive to learning) environment was established from the get-go. But I had at least one serious, long-term test still to come. His name was Charleston Anderson.

Like William, Charleston came in with a horrible reputation. He’d been quite a handful in third grade, even in the room of the most feared teacher at Clark Street, an old-school battleaxe who’d taught many of the kids’ parents and even some of their grandparents (remember, very early pregnancies) and thus had “whoopin’ permission.” Mrs. Francine Glover was known for breaking out the ruler and going to town on unruly kids, who’d probably be whooped when they got home, too. Tyrannosaurus Gloverus generally had a very orderly class as her aide passed out worksheets while she drank coffee at her desk. But Charleston had, as they say, “gotten on her last nerve” many a time. If Charleston could rattle a veteran disciplinarian like Mrs. Glover, what would he do to my attempts to teach?

Though there was no fighting on the first day, Charleston slunk in much the same way William had. You could tell he’d also had an adversarial relationship with school. But, like William a year earlier, Charleston had tired of being on the receiving end of 60 percent of his teacher’s disciplining. He seemed willing to give the new guy a whirl. There were certainly some rogues in the room, but for the most part, the agents of disorder were quickly dealt with or removed, so curiosity and I-get-it lightbulbs were more common that fights, shouting, hurt feelings, anger, and fear. There was no chaos to divert or inspire Charleston, only learning. Just as importantly, I think, from Charleston’s perspective, he realized that asking tough questions was something good, not something that might earn him a metric imprint on his butt. It quickly became clear that Charleston was not a “hateful” kid after all: he’d just been bored out of his fucking mind in previous years. It turns out that he was really – scarily, freakishly – smart. The kid could remember anything you told him and anything he read, for any length of time, and – here’s where he got into so much trouble – he was actually passionate about knowledge and learning. He was curious and energetic and a little hyper in general, but never more so than when he had an answer and wanted to share it, or wanted to teach something to a classmate, or when he had just learned something new that he just had to discuss for as long as possible. My biggest discipline “problem” with Charleston was that he literally couldn’t keep his rear on his seat when he was raising his hand. He did beautifully in my class and aced his standardized tests. His family had me and my fiancée (now wife) over to their house for dinner. Like the old beer commercial goes, it doesn’t get much better than that, does it? I’m still in touch with him through Facebook. What a difference a few months and a lot of lucky variables made.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By virtue of marrying into their tribe, I happen to know a fair number of neurologists. But somehow, after many years and many conversations with them, I’d never heard the phrase “dendritic arbor” (note the tree-related root – there’s another one! – of the phrase). It refers to the part of the neuron peripheral to the axon, peripheral to the central trunk. In other words, the dendritic arbor is what it sounds like: it’s the “branches” of the neuron. Now here’s the thing: The shape of the dendritic arbor plays a huge role in determining how the cell connects and interacts with others around it. That shape basically determines the function of the cell, or, in other words, what it does. Hmm. The shape, the reality of that branching pattern determines what something does....

So the branches are important. Not just the trunk (the birth, the circumstances over which we have little control), but the branches (all the actions and reactions over which we have increasing control and ownership). This fact, this potential antidote to the deadening effects of all the depressing news about Birmingham, is good to know in many senses. You don’t have to be a historian to know that Birmingham is at a critical point right now.  Each of countless moments of interaction can nudge someone – including ourselves – onto a different branch. These instants of near-infinite possibility collectively make up the city’s instants, and even when they seem small, they probably count for something. Often the moments are unknowable until after the fact, like when spilling coffee and stopping to clean it up before leaving the house kept you out of (or got you into) a car wreck. But many times, we can at least guess when they’ll make a difference and act accordingly. And if there’s any doubt, assume it matters.  Call it “mindfulness with a branching pattern in mind,” literally and figuratively. 

Transformation is not only possible, it’s unavoidable. The only question is one of direction. How many kids (or adults) in our community are in the process of being shoved onto deadening or dead-end paths right now? How much potential is being lost in this corner of Alabama each moment? Those are hard questions to answer, or at least to answer precisely. But how many of us (my lazy ass included) could complain less and do more? How many of us could volunteer, mentor, run for office, whatever, to at least try to insure that better paths end up underfoot, that the various intersection points are earlier and fruitful, versus too-little-too-late and worse? That question, I think, is much easier to answer. We all know what to do, or at least where our abilities could allow us to start. You don’t have to be a historian to know that Birmingham is at a critical point right now, or that with so many talented, caring people around, there’s no reason we can’t put it – meaning us – on a path to be proud of. Fewer Williams, more Charlestons.

More Images: 

Comments