The "Expert"

Sometimes after I have spent my time as a volunteer in my local public school classroom, I think I have come on too strong. After thirty years of inventing and nurturing a school, constantly shaping and adjusting, trying new ideas and letting go of those that weren't working, I have some expertise. I can't help seeing that if I were a young and idealistic teacher right now, and I had the opportunity, I would leave this broken system and do exactly what I did thirty years ago; start something new! This public school system is beyond me in its ponderous drive towards the next educational panacea. Not much has changed in thirty years (though there are some notable exceptions dotted across the country.)

I go every week to volunteer because I love teaching, I love the affirmation of kids, and I feel the responsibility to make even a small difference in the lives of children. And I even fantasize that I could effect a few changes!

Yesterday I went in with notably heavy baggage- 25 pounds of red clay, the fixings for a huge fruit salad, ideas for stories and activities. After unloading my baggage to the bench in front of the office, I parked my car and returned to check in and receive my' pervert-free clearance' from the office. None of the regular bunch was out front but I did spy one of the kindergarten teachers walking by. I have never known his name because these teachers never introduce themselves (or maybe they don't care to.) I have seen this man in the teachers' lunch room and I have always thought him to be especially grumpy.

This day it is cold and spitting blessed rain. "Good morning!", I crow in my best Sally Sunshine voice. "You are looking so handsome and brawny. Would you mind helping me with these things?"

He makes a few disparaging remarks about how he knows I just said that to get him to help. But he does smile and take the clay to the classroom. When we get there I tell him that his reward is to get the first pick of the magazines I always bring. He audibly snorts. "This intellectual stuff! No way!" But he shuffles through the New Yorkers, the Science News, Audubon, Harvard and Brown magazines, and finally settles on The New York Review of Books. "This will impress people," he mutters and wanders off to his classroom. Later, I send him a Dixie cup of the fruit salad we made in our classroom. I find out that his name is Dan. I am relentless today.

My idea today is to have the kids make clay bas relief heads using no tools but their fingers and old dull pencils. After the dispirited rendition of the pledge and the national anthem, we all ignore all the announcements and pronouncements. Seventeen kids doing at least two things takes a lot of energy. Marisol and Johnny are at the food station cutting up the fruit. CareyAnne, the teacher, is overseeing the cutting up of strawberries, bananas, melons and the rest.

Dynasty, the fifth grade helper, has made a model for what we are going to do and now she is using a wire cutter to create slabs for everyone as the base for their bas relief head. She can only spend half an hour in this class. (No one is absent on Miss Molly's day.) We have done a number of clay projects throughout the year. The kids are now used to the process of making it, firing it, glazing it, and then firing it again. The hardest thing for kids is learning how to attach clay pieces to each other. It is April and now most of them know how to score each piece, add slurry, press firmly. They have had experience knowing what happens when you don't! They now know that I will not fire anything without a readable name on it.

I look at these eighteen pieces now drying in my studio and I think of what a long way we have gone this year. These artworks are amazing and lovely. I envision them hanging on the wall outside the Lacoochee office, adorning the lives of children.

After the clay pieces are finished and hands are washed I read two stories to the kids. I used to be so tender about bringing/doing everything I did at Lacoochee. But today I just asked the librarian, Michelle, "Hey, I need two or three good books to read aloud right now." Without missing a beat, she suggests and finds three books for me - and she doesn't even check them out! She knows I'll bring them back. It seems so normal and fine. She made good choices; the kids are interested. I am really good at reading out loud to kids. (Lots of experience!) I ask them to fill in the next words, and they do. "See! Reading is about the experience you have! You really know lots about how to read!" They preen. And they are eager.

CareyAnne, the teacher, is such an inclusive, intelligent and loving person. The kids know this. I know this. I think that I was incredibly lucky to have wound up in her classroom. I am not the best with younger kids but it has been a great experience for me.

This teacher is very good, the best. She has a group of hard kids., socioeconomically at the bottom rung. She sees each one with possibilities and a future. She respects her students and loves each one. I have never heard her gripe. She is open to new ideas. Her students may not do the best on the FCAT, and not because of her best efforts. She will not be nominated as teacher of the year because this little school is close to nothing in the system. These people are working hard!

The principal of Lacoochee has never made much contact with me and I do not know her at all. I kind of expected that she would have thanked me for making possible the field trip to MOSI for the whole primary group. I really would have liked her to come into our classroom and say, "Oh wow! What wonderful clay items the kids have made!" , or even, "Thanks for funding a school field trip". Oh, well, I said that I wanted to be anonymous.. and I am.