An Academic Competition

I generally approach each ostensibly enjoyable field trip, guest speaker, or special event with a combination of cautious optimism and abject terror, having been humiliated too many times in these circumstances to embrace them as opportunities for entertainment. Last year's visit from an elderly representative of Monticello, who was supposed to deliver an hour-long presentation but left in tears after five minutes to jeers of "Get out of here, white woman!" comes to mind immediately. Our field trip to Jamestown this past fall, when Velquisha stole a checkerboard from inside one of the replica ships and Montee got in a fight with a kid from another school, will be an equally difficult memory to erase. I'd been looking forward to Friday's Mind Games competition, however, with unrestrained enthusiasm in the ten weeks since volunteering to coach my school's team.

Mind Games, you see, is an annual district-wide event where schools send their best and brightest to compete in a series of academic challenges. My school's team was culled from our program for gifted students, and the six fourth and fifth graders for which I was responsible were not only smart but motivated, respectful, and - most importantly - malleable. Given that I spend roughly seven hours a day working with kids who seemingly make it a point to test my patience on a daily basis, the opportunity to coach students actually willing to listen to me and follow my instructions was irresistible. From our first after-school practice, I made it my mission to not only organize a competitive team but also instill in my young charges a unique brand of showmanship, which we unveiled and executed in flawless fashion at the competition.

We arrived at the competition about 45 minutes before the scheduled start time of 10:00, each wearing our 2009 Mind Games shirts we'd designed for the occasion. We had arrived early by design, as in order to carry out our first bit of flair we needed to be the first team there. After greeting the Mind Games staffers and having our team photo taken, we strode to our assigned table and enjoyed a brunch of juice boxes and donuts. All talking stopped, however, when the first group of our competitors arrived. As rehearsed, my kids leaned back in their chairs, crossed their arms, jutted out their chins, looked appraisingly at the newcomers, and did their best to project an aura of confident authority.* They maintained their poses until the last team came through the door some fifteen minutes later. I'm still not sure whether their stares did anything to intimidate the other teams - who had become accustomed to trouncing my school in recent Mind Games competitions, and whose primary response had been to point at us and snicker - but in those fifteen minutes they demonstrated unflinching solidarity, and I couldn't have been prouder.

Because each coach had to monitor another school's team during the competition, I was unable to watch the team complete their challenges, but kept tabs from across the gymnasium floor via a series of thumbs-ups and thumbs-downs with Aisha between each event. I did have a clear view of the kids, however, as the head judge read off the answers to the analogies and general knowledge questions after those rounds had ended, and was thrilled to see us adhere to one of my strictest and most-repeated stipulations for our conduct that morning; namely, that there should be absolutely no reaction to anything said by the judge between rounds. For example, upon hearing that the answer to Question #1 was "B - Tornado," every team but one responded with loud and excruciatingly annoying "Yessssssss!!"es, spastic fist pumps, and clumsily executed high fives. My team, by contrast, merely nodded and smiled at each other in satisfaction after learning of their correct answers.

When the competition ended and coaches were allowed to rejoin their teams, I made sure to let them know how pleased I was with how they'd performed, and that the final results shouldn't matter to us. All of that changed, however, when the judge announced that we had won fifth place, and the kids immediately lost the composure they'd carefully cultivated all morning. The school's team had never done so well at a Mind Games competition, and this exceeded even my highest hopes. After staying long enough to fulfill the last of my rules of conduct - clapping and cheering for every team the judge mentioned - we headed back to our school, ribbons in hand. 

*This was easier for some than others. Alaina, for example, had a mouth, chin, and nose absolutely caked with powdered sugar from her donut.

The Aquarium Incident

"Comedy," as the axiom goes, "equals tragedy plus time." Having taught several students dealing with profoundly unfunny problems, however, I submit that there are some aspects of their tragedy that could never be transformed into humor: Velquisha's house burning down, for example. Or the eviction of Michael's family from their apartment. Or the incarceration of any number of my students' parents. In the case of my classroom aquarium, however, it only took two months for me to accept that there might be some comedic value to what initially appeared to be a completely unamusing situation.

Resting unsteadily atop a dilapidated bookcase crammed with a variety of neglected books, in an unswept corner of the room I'd designated (in more innocent and ambitious days) as our "classroom library," is an aquarium. It used to be the home of three goldfish, which I let various students name and feed on a weekly basis.* At this point of the school year, the fish are long dead, but I've kept the aquarium running, having found the sound of trickling water to be something of a calming influence in an otherwise hectic environment. Today the aquarium is a watery graveyard of broken pencils, arrowhead erasers, and other assorted detritus that the kids drop in when my back is turned. It is also a home to a family of cockroaches that crawl along its walls, by which my students are remarkably - and perhaps tellingly - unbothered. 

One afternoon this February, Xavyer was keeping himself occupied during a Social Studies lesson by taking apart a marker. Given that he was going about this business in a very surreptitious manner, I was unable to see exactly how he managed to remove the marker's stem of red ink from its plastic tube, but suffice to say he has a bright future as a mechanical engineer. As I turned around to write something about the Virginia Declaration of Rights on the whiteboard, I detected a patter of footsteps to and from the aquarium. I paused in time to see Xavyer scampering back to his seat, but by then it was too late. I watched with horror as the water turned a steadily deepening shade of red. Within minutes, the tank was filled with a liquid that looked, to the class's delight, exactly like blood. Compounding this problem was a surprise visit later that afternoon from my school's principal, who was less than thrilled by what she saw in the corner, and told me as such in her office later that day. She was graciously forgiving, however, and often jokes with me now about the "aquarium incident." 

*My behavior monitoring system (in teaching parlance, the "classroom management device") consists of a sheet of blue felt affixed to a closet door, on which laminated paper fish, each bearing the name of a student and a square of Velcro, move up and down across six levels, depending on that student's behavior. Students may move up the board (swim) after successfully completing a homework assignment or demonstrating appropriate conduct in the classroom, but are considerably more likely to be moved down the  board (sink) for things like throwing spitballs or yelling at me. The three best-behaved students at the end of the week earned the privilege of not only taking turns feeding the fish the next week, but giving a fish the name of their choice. By a comfortable margin, the most common fish name was "Souljafish." Other memorable names included "Big Killah" and "Fishy the Crackhead." These, mind you, were names dreamt up by my best-behaved students.