cubicle 502

I noticed their expressions midweek.  The vacant look in their eyes.  They were looking like adults.  I heard their sighs and throat clearing.  The quiet rustling of papers.  They were sounding like adults.  About halfway through week two, I had turned summer school classroom into a box of work producing predictability.  It was a large sized cubicle and we were all segments of one, functioning, production oriented worker.

Every day is the same.  Enter.  Pledge your allegiance to a country and a god.  Hear announcements.  Find your page.  Read.  Assess.  Label.  Answer.  Turn in.  Break.  Learn new vocabulary.  Practice new vocabulary.  Take a quiz on the reading and the vocabulary.  Go home.  Every day.  For three hours.  For four weeks.

It doesn't matter that they can work in groups, or listen to ipods while they work on vocabulary, or that the stories are actually quite compelling.  None of that matters.  Every day is the same.  And so midweek, there was silence and staleness in the air.  The ennui of adulthood.

During the school year, I strive to capture and maintain the students' attention.  I am ridiculous.  We play weird games and make up little gestures for vocabulary.  We are silly.  We are serious.  We are all in it together in a war against the boredom of living.  And so when I first noticed the onset of ennui, it stung a little.  Oh no!  Peals of laughter aren't ringing through the halls!?  The children don't leave everyday full of sunshine and hearts beating out of their chests for the joy of reading and living?!  Am I failing them?

Nope.  No I am not.  They are producing some marvelous work.  They are reading more words every day than they did all school year.  Aside from a few cheaters, they are working effectively and efficiently.  They are learning five new words a day.  Really learning them.  They are doing what they came here to do- make up the work that they failed to do during the school year.

And besides, aren't we constantly told we are supposed to be preparing them for adulthood?  That high school is preparation for "the real world" of employment and working with coworkers etc. etc.  If this is true, I deserve a gold star.  As I look around the room, I can predict already that the majority of these kids will at some point have a job like most of us have had.  A thankless and boring job in which you show up, do the same thing everyday, and leave.  An adult job.

While I hope some of them are lucky enough to land a job that is wildly creative and "doesn't feel like working" (or whatever that fantasy cliche is), the reality is that working is often just that.  Getting through monotonous, routine whole days without losing your mind, identity, and will to live is the crowning glory of most adults lucky enough to have a job. We've all done it or do it.  We all invent little ways to cope and find meaning within the little or big cubicles of necessity.  This summer in room 502, I am offering not only a repeat of English grades 9-12, but a practice run crash course in Adult Employment 101.

But today, Friday, 10 days in, half way through, i, the responsible adult in the room, the Queen B, the holder of grades, the boss, told them all to stop working after break.  Today, Friday, halfway through classes, i said don't you dare do one more bit of work.  you will smile and you will laugh and you will play Apples to Apples with your classmates and we will half watch The Princess Bride playing in the background and you will look each other in the eyes and be the awkward 14 year olds you really are and i'd better hear you laughing and remembering how to live. And that is what i told them in so many words and they fell right in line and it was great in so many ways.