by Janet Nelson

I stand in front of this class, recovering from the first-day-of-school nightmares all beginning teachers have. I know that these dreams can actually be categorized and recognized by any and all teachers. The –Suddenly Realizing You’re Standing Naked In Front Of Your Class and the Students Are Laughing Uproariously – dream. The – showing Up In Class, but Your Mind Goes Completely Blank and You Are Totally Unprepared -- dream. The – Long, Long, Hall That Never Ends, but You’re Late for Class and Can’t Get to Your room no Matter How Hard You Try – dream. Luckily, I know all of these things will pass. My mentor teacher has laughed about it, telling me we all do it, but I am still shaking from abject fear.

This is my first real day of teaching. The irony of that is not lost on me. I once considered every teacher on the planet my personal enemy and a legitimate target for ridicule. It is a strange twist of fate that has brought me here, and I encourage myself to be mindful. To remember why I am here, where I have come from, and what I might bring to these unsuspecting ninth graders.

 I was an angry kid. Fully developed, at least according to the average junior high bra standards. I became political in the era of Vietnam, assassination, and Watergate. Anxious to grow up and surrounded by a culture that discourages the experience of being a child, I developed fluency in all forms of disobedience; an obvious hippy sympathizer in an era of early seventies polarization.

 My social studies teacher used to draw stick figures that represented the good guys and the bad guys on his green void of newly cleaned chalkboard. The bad guys always had long hair on their round stick heads. Hippies. They all knew I was one of them. He frequently pointed out to the class that my brother had burned his draft card. An interesting tidbit, I suppose. One day he used me as an example of the word “obese” as part of our vocabulary lesson. My hatred of authority figures and teachers in general began to solidify, until my standard reply to teacher instruction became “*uck you!”

 Expulsion came as a welcome relief. I thought I was free, until the phone call came.

 “Janet? Hey! You’re enrolled as student number sixteen in our new alternative school!”

 Yippy. My Herculean eye roll made it over the phone lines with no problem at all.

 Three weeks later I surveyed the large pea green room of the abandoned and mildewed basement that housed this experiment. Sixteen of us slouched, glaring and pissed. This was simply another prison to break free from, and we all knew it. Our director was explaining how this school would work.

 “You, as the students, will co-direct this school. That means you decide what rules we will have, and what the consequences will be if those rules are broken. You will be responsible for eventually hiring three more teachers, but we’ll talk about that later on. When we have problems, and conflicts that come up, remember they will be resolved as a group. You need to always be looking for solutions. If you see something that needs fixing, don’t just complain. Think about how we can work together to fix it. This is your school. You belong here, and you are going to make it what you need it to be. You choose what you want to learn. My job is just to make sure you can learn it.”

 I glanced at the kid to my left. The only movement came from one eyebrow. It was obvious this fellow shared my sentiment, which was, ‘Yeah. Right.” This fearless director began walking around the circle, handing each student something. When he got to me, I put out my hand, and he dropped a key into it.

 “Hey. What’s this?” I asked.

 “It’s the key to the school,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he had just handed me something mundane, like a referral, or an expulsion notice. Those things I would expect from a teacher. But this?

 “It’s your school. You can get in and out as you need to. I know you’ll use it responsibly.” His bushy eyebrows rose together in an odd combination of question, interrogation, and worry.

 Could this be real? Was this guy putting us on, or what? I wasn’t someone to trust! I was the bad kid. The stick figure with the long hippy hair. The girl whos brother burned his draft card.

Collectively, hope rose to the surface of our soured teenage brains. It was like watching a resurrection that should have been catalogued and documented by the Vatican. It had been a long time since I had felt this feeling, this ability to care; to think that I might have some power to change something in my life. To believe that I might make a productive difference in something important. I could get used to that idea, but I was afraid to believe in it too much. We were actually able to begin a very heated discussion, constructing the rules for our new domain. The paralyzed began to walk again.

 Later I wandered into the restroom. Two out of three stalls were busy, but I took my rightful place. It was then I realized one classroom aid and one teacher were my fellow occupants. I assumed a stance of lurking. Eavesdropping as any respectable reprobate would.

 “Damn kids,” I heard one grumble. “Those rules are a little strict!”

 “Hell yes!” the other responded. “I just flushed a lid of great pot!”

 At that point, I knew this was real. Our words had been given weight. These people had listened, had acted on our words, and seemed as if they actually cared, outside the scope of pretense. She didn’t have to flush it, after all! Suddenly, I had the power to be heard, and to make a difference in the structure of my own learning. I was given the gift of having the power to direct my own life in that one simple step, and with one simple key.

 I look out on this class of ninth graders, and know that keys come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and guises. I know it’s a big hope, and an ambitious wish, but I am bound and determined to try to give them a chance at that gift. I am grateful. I am humble. I am scared to death, and I am very, very ready to get to work.

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