Benjamin Franklin Math and Science Elementary Magnet School (Dreaming Part One) Ch. 11

Chapter 11
New Orleans, LA, 1988

Benjamin Franklin Math and Science Elementary Magnet School

I have a new school.  For weeks I listened to my Mom arguing with someone, explaining we needed to go there, first on the phone and then later in person.  On our first day she drove us to the front steps while security guards stood watch over the cars.  “Why?” I asked. I was answered, “They make sure no one cuts the tires”.  Other adults met us outside with signs.  They stood in the way.  I couldn't read the signs but they were very angry we were there.  A teacher met us at the stairs and walked us in.  My sister and I hold hands.  We two are the only ones with sunny hair here.

There isn't air conditioning and the building is old, very very old.  “One of the oldest in the city” my math teacher smiled down to me.  Scarred wooden floors squeak under our feet, threatening to snap under a misplaced step.  Fans roar in every room, in every corner, soothingly loud.

The high fence around the recess yard is lined with the scent of wild onions, trees  and sunflowers.  I would learn not to stand under the towering trees but if I forgot, I also learned how to pull the bright gorgeous caterpillar’s stingers out by rubbing the stingers with masking tape and ripping it off as hard and fast as possible.  If you step on them, their guts are florescent green, blue and orange, making the side walk look painted.

All teacher ladies have long fingernails.  They carefully tap key boards and registers with the pads of their fingers so as not to break the riot of colors.  There are giant pickles and suckers for sale for only twenty five cents.  I eat them until I am sick.

“We do things differently here.” The principle assured me on my first day when she met with me.  She is smaller than every adult here; shorter than some of the kids.  She always wears a neat suit with a crazy pin attached to the collar.  She is stillness, quietness; she is old and young.  Her skin is dark and her smile calm; I think of her as midnight.  I brought ropes and knots of fear, anger and anxiety in my stomach that first morning but standing near her settled me.  Her eyes relaxed me.  I can breathe even if I am still too nervous to answer her questions.

Every day, first thing in the morning, we pack into the tiny oven of cafeteria down stairs.  The principle leads us in patriotic songs and quotes. She tells a story of something that happened that day in history.  She gives announcements of who is sick or who has a birthday.  Last she talks to us about the coming day and asks us to be very quiet, with our eyes closed, heads held up and to think about what we would like to learn or do with our day.    She tells us we are safe here and to leave home at the door because this is a place of learning.

Afterwards we separate into classes.  My class has math first thing.  I hate math but I love class.  The math teacher is so skinny you can see right through him. 

Then there is history.  We are memorizing the Emancipation Proclamation.  Every day we learn a new sentence and we break apart what that sentence means.  At the end of class we recite the part we know adding the new part we learned.  We act out people who lead up to that speech.  A younger class shares the history classroom with us.  So on one side of the room they recite their ABC’s and our side we are Abraham Lincoln. 

After recess, sometimes we have art.  Mr. Lamb usually comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  These are my favorite days.  His favorite artists are all dead. 

He teaches in a story telling voice and tells me to be a dragonfly when I get into, and lose, my regular fights with other kids. He says I may be the smallest but I must be the fiercest of warriors.  He looks and sounds a lot like Jared, my dream guide.  Mr. Lamb took us to the French Quarter once.  We sat on the grass and drew the St Louis cathedral.  He bought us each our own scone from the street cart.  There are musicians, clowns and venders selling sunflowers.  I love to draw; it feels like water coming out of my hands.  

Mr. Lamb told me about chalks and bought me a set that was to be my own.  Mr. Lamb says I must never stop creating with my hands.  He says my hands will speak for my soul.  He promised that someday, all of the mix-matched stories about God and everyone’s anger will make sense.

Mr. Lamb gave me my first journal with the advice, “Thoughts out loud are too loud.  Thoughts unsaid are cluttered.  Thoughts written down are inspired.”

The last class is Religion.  This is also my favorite class.  We make and dress up in costumes; we act out the roles of warlords, preachers, witches, elves, and nuns.  Did you know Christ had one church and then it became different one, no women to be in charge and then it became two churches and today there are thousands?  It is interesting to think about. For the month of December, we all dress either as pagans with flowers in our hair or as Christians in stern hats. We march into other classes and tell them how we celebrate Christmas. I wish to be a pagan.

Religion at home is fairly boring, inflexible and generally a mix of dread and rules.  Think of the kite, my Sunday school teacher said.  Without the string holding it back, it would never fly.  I told her that was ridiculous.  It is without the Wind Woman that the kite wouldn't fly, (My answer meant I got to escape and sit in the hall).

Then there is Reading class… it is the second to last class and it is on the third floor.  I am terrorized by my own insecurities all day on the first day by just thinking about this class…After the first week I realized that, luckily, no one else in the class can read too. 

One day the teacher handed each of us a copy of a book.  Some tapped the worn covers with nervous fingers. I spun mine in a circle; ready to close my ears and escape into my fantastic imagination.

After we all had a book he asked us to open them and then he read the title and author aloud.  I didn't hear the title; I couldn't hear over the blood thumping in my hands.  Then he called on the first person in the front row.  He asked her to stand.  Her chair dragged across the floor loudly as she stood.  He asked her to open her book to the first page and to read the first paragraph. 

Someone dropped their book and we all jumped at the loud bang.  The girl began to hysterically cry.  

The teacher walked over to stand next to her and smiled at her.   When her tears turned to hiccups he put his finger in the book. “Look at the words and repeat them after me.  I will pause before each word so if you know it, read it.  If you don’t know it I will tell you it.”

The brave creature repeated each word of the first sentence after him, “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy…”

Each stood and ‘read’ a paragraph every day until one day we finished our first magical book, ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’ by C.S. Lewis. By the end, the teacher sat at his desk following in his own copy as we read (mostly) on our own.

I cannot tell to you the power we were given with this gift of words. We stood taller at the end of the year.  We smiled openly.  We asked more questions.   Because of those brave teachers I forever will carry a love of history, art, religion and books.  A sunrise dawned in my head, revealing a world of light and learning.