Just One - Part Two

 

A double session with the final years. Four years of trying, four years of giving, four years of teaching and assessing and now they are beginning to understand. Now they are beginning to make the commitment, most of them. She finds hope in the class. Hope in the answers, hope in the discussion, hope that all the years invested in these young adults will go somewhere away from prison, away from tragic accidents to substance abuse, away from fraud, dishonesty and choice of a lower level of existence.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes, Lee.”

“Ma’am, you’ve taught us to be open-minded, to think for ourselves and be awake to the world around us. Last lesson you said “engage with others and find out their truth”.”

“Yes, I have. Do you disagree? Do you have a different thought on a more productive way to go about living?”

“No, ma’am, it’s not that, I like having my ideas and thoughts accepted, I like being able to be open in your classroom to talk about stuff that matters. Talk about our subject like it’s totally real world and not just book stuff. But ma’am, you see, I’ve tried to do it out there and it seems like I’m bashing into contradiction, like this classroom is the odd place in the world and the outside ‘real’ world is the opposite of in here. In here isn’t ‘real world’.”

“Go on Lee.”

“I tried ma’am. I swear I tried to “engage” with people on the bus and they just blanked me. I tried with friends and family, and it felt so awkward. They were so distracted by their phones that I didn’t know how to carry on. But, ma’am,” his voice lifted its tone to one that was edged with excitement, his facial expression losing soft shadows, as if knowing it had touched light. “Ma’am, there was this one old guy on the train. Ma’am, I gave him my seat and then the lady next to him got off so I sat down next to him and he asked me why I gave him my seat. I told him that I wouldn’t normally, but I had a school project where I needed to ‘engage’ with others, and usually the best way to start was with an act of kindness, so I was trying it out. Ma’am, he told me that it shouldn’t be a school project, it should be a life project. He told me of when he was in the War. Ma’am he was literally a kid during the War. Ma’am they bombed his house down when he was sent with other kids to the countryside! He lost his dad in the War Ma’am and he said they couldn’t get food without government permission! Ma’am, it sounded so hectic. He spoke about “Us and Them” ma’am. And I thought about it all night. “Us and Them”. Ma’am, I don’t understand. We are all human, with our one life, trying to get through, why is there so much “Us and Them” in the world? How is that living a positive life?”

“Wow, Lee. Well done you on going through with the task. Those are very big questions and now you can never leave a blank answer in your papers again and tell me that you don’t have anything to write.”

The class giggled at her reference to Lee’s age old line that he didn’t have thoughts and so had nothing to write.

“So, he’s asked us if the real world is in here or out there. What do you think? Rayne?”

“Ma’am, it’s all real world. My only real moment is the one I am living in and whether or not I’m engaging with anyone or anything or not, it’s still ‘real’, but it can only be my real.”

“Nice one!” Amanda complimented, “Deep, I like it!”

“Me too Amanda,” she nodded, “but that brings us to Lee’s other point, “Us and Them”. How does Rayne’s answer connect to the “Us and Them” that Lee is working through? Let me back track, Lee, what was the “Us and Them” from the old guy?”

He thought for a moment as the class watched in interest, “Well, the people who were fighting for, and those who were fighting against. The people who had food, apparently rich people, and the people who had these things called ‘rations’. The people who were in charge but weren’t fighting so they didn’t die, and his family who lost their father and they got nothing, but the non-fighting people got more power… but I think there was other stuff too. Like him and me. Like, why did he ask me why I would let him sit? That would mean he thinks people like me wouldn’t let old people sit, but people like him would, or did. Like rude people, polite people, rich and poor, black and white, ma’am there’s so much of it everywhere and every time I think, then I can point out more. Like then his mom must have been a single mom and I know that married women don’t like single women, or divorced women, but they are all women. I don’t know ma’am sometimes it hurts my brain to think about these things.” A consensual, comradery of laughter.

“It hurts my brain too Lee, and my heart. You are very right. Your observations are spot on. So why, why “Us and Them”? Rayne did you think of something yet?”

“May I ma’am?”

“Sure Jay, go ahead.”

Jay lifted her hands as she always did, as if designing the answer in front of herself, like a conductor practising for an intense orchestral performance. “Ma’am, Rayne brought up the “Us” of “Us” with the knowledge to be aware, like you told us to, so she sees her real in her moment and how it can change and that’s ok. But, the “Them” is those who aren’t aware. Those who don’t know that everyone can only have their own ‘real’, the “Them”s think that everyone else must have the same real as they do. “Us” know they don’t, and “Them” don’t know. I think. Ma’am, is that right?”

“Hmmm, Jay, you know I don’t know what’s “right”, I keep telling you that in today’s culture, in the theories of post-modernism there are loads of truths, loads of rights; but in this context I do like the way you are thinking! I wish our sleepy head at the back would have more truth than “I slept through ma’am’s class” though.”

“Ah ma’am, he had a rough family night again last night.”

“Will you fill him in on today’s class?”

“Sure thing ma’am, I will tell him that he was the “Them” that were sleeping and “Us” was the lot that were learning!” Group laughter as a hand went up in the back row, a locally renowned gangster by night with an inner desire to escape from the life he was born into. A learner who so seldom participated openly, maybe he was the ‘just one’ today.

“Yes, Ray?”

Silence fell.

“Ma’am, I know you don’t know black and white “right” answers, and you always ask us to find our own truths so we can believe what we need to for sure and not because you tell us so. But if you were to give us a thought on why we do it. Why do we separate? Why do we hate? Why do all those around us force us to be what isn’t right?”

Silence hung.

She picked up a board marker and looked at them all. “I have tried to understand, Ray, I really have. I have tried to work it out, I have read, engaged, watched and lived, searching for a way to be more than another cog in an overwhelmingly huge and complex set of broken people. I have only managed to break it down to one reason.” She turned and in large letters wrote on the board: “FEAR.” She wrote under it “Contamination”. She moved to the right and wrote “LOVE”, underneath it writing “Contribution”. Above all four words, at the top of the board she wrote “CHOICE”. She then turned back around to face the struggling, young, learning minds to speak her truth. “I can only speak the truth that I have found. That every morning everyone wakes up and has to decide: Shall I fear not? Shall I love? Or shall I fear, shall I hurt others to make myself feel better? Shall I contribute and build up others or shall I contaminate, manipulate and break them so that I can feel more “ok” when I compare myself to them? Love, is hard, love involves sacrifice without instantaneous return. Love is kindness when it is not deserved, mercy when it is not earned, and grace without reason. That means separating oneself from one’s ego and placing another ahead of oneself. Fear, however, is the other choice. The ego’s choice. Fear that I am not good enough and have to make it so; anger because I am scared of being ‘wrong’; hate in that I am fearful another will prove me ‘wrong’ and then I cannot be ‘right’; insecurity when I look in the mirror and don’t like what I see so I try to hide me. We hate because we are insecure. We hate because that’s what we have been taught. We hate because it’s easier than loving another completely. . . That’s all I have managed to discover so far.”

Many heads looked down. Many faces just stared at the board. A few were scribbling down what was on the board, because they needed to ‘get it right’ and copy and repeat what the teacher said, just like one day they would copy and repeat many other things that would add more of the broken world to them, and less of their own healing.

“In here, I am either contributing to your lives, or I am contaminating your thoughts. I can only pray that as I stand here loving you and hoping you always choose better, that you will be able to be brave and strong enough through your human weakness to act in love, whatever it costs; and cast away all the fears, anxieties and worries of this world, that seem to exploding across our planet from some great negative volcano of selfishness, illusionary desire for power and social media addictions to a constructed façade of fake truth and temperamental relationships. Ray, I believe humans want to hold on to hate because it makes them feel ‘safe’, because it is an easier choice than love. Because “Us” and “Them” means one has a way to pretend one is better, when in my reality, both are as broken as each other.”

It was as if one giant breath was being held by the class. Held in unsurity, held in a cotton wool that would need to be watered much more than in one class for the seed to grow. Dear Lord, let them water the seed and grow lives of love, please Lord, please.

 

The bell. The pause. The packing away. The waking up the sleeping child so he could walk in his unknowing state to his next class, where he would sleep again.

“Thanks everyone. Glad we are moving on with your deeper understanding of what we are studying. Have a good week.”

Exhaustion sweeps over her. Grateful for lunch, she waits for the masses to empty from the hallways so she can sit in the staffroom for a while and rest her truth.

Whilst contemplatively nibbling the lunch she had prepared another tormented Soul placed herself in a chair alongside.

“Hello, you look like the train wreck I know I look like.”

“Thanks Margie, I’ll remember to add that to my list of pick-me-up lines.”

“Be sure you do. This place needs as many pick-me-up lines as it can get.”

“What happened this time?”

“Same old really, my final year drama boys decided to join the afternoon workshop I organised with an international actor and the football coaches are freaking out. Apparently there is some big game. Here’s me, a one woman department, against them, a 5 man department with numerous teachers helping out and external coaches brought in with the budget the school apparently does not have. The coach has even had the principal speak to the guys to get them to go to practice instead of the workshop. And do you know what?”

“You know I seldom do, my friend.”

“Well, then I shall have to inform you. Despite the bullying from numerous coaches and even their talking to by the head in whatever way he did it, they are still attending my workshop this afternoon! The have decided that their academic future and their ability to engage with people is more important than kicking a ball! Can you believe it? Where on earth this thinking has come from I have no idea, but I am internally thrilled, even if the sports coaches are now blatantly ignoring me, slamming doors in my presence and acting like spoilt five years olds deprived of their favourite toy! Maybe we are making a difference lovely lady, maybe, just maybe we are.”

She nodded, sending up a grateful prayer that she got in the shower and managed to get to work today and that her dear friend Margie, the flamboyant, dedicated, empathic and precious Margie had something to smile about today! “Maybe, Margie, let’s hope this is just one of many more moments of enlightenment. I wouldn’t worry about the boys losing out, they are the top players. When the coaches are done sulking I have no doubt they will put them back in the team. Still, I’m still ignored and cast out from when I stood up for a learner a couple of years ago, so I can’t guarantee that those coaches will ever be adult around you again.”

“It’s worth it. I can’t change their choices, but I can at least pop those seeds into our learners and I’m sure this actor who brought himself up from nothing will inspire the group magically. In the ways we can’t in the ‘just a teacher’ box they place us in. Here I am being internally joyful, how about you? A better day today?”

“You know I take it a moment at a time now.”

“I do. But that’s not answering my question madam.”

“You old nag. Yes, it has been better than some of my worst. I only have one parent tonight, you?”

“None. These poor kids, I don’t think that their parents realise the damage they do in their disinterest and disconnection from their kids’ lives. It makes me so heart sore. It really does. Do you think they have any clue?”

“Deep down, but I’m guessing they squash it further to get rid of the guilt and push their own agenda’s some more. But then again, there are probably legit reasons too with night shifts and battles to put food on the table. Who knows. They will realise too late that being here to see us would have put more food on the table in their retirement, than the desertion they are teaching their children. Who has the answers hey?”

“Indeed, not me!” She rose at the bell and gave her colleague a hug.

“Me, neither. Thanks for the hug, I haven’t had one of those in about two weeks.”

“Well then here’s another.” Laughing they embraced and left with a shared empowerment to conquer the last lesson of the day.

The top Grade 9 set. Stone cold. Textbook vacuums with no personal opinions, no energy, no life. Just the hunger for an “A” by memorising the textbook and spitting it out again.

A long afternoon of marking; of setting papers; and preparing for the challenges of the next day. Prayers that one of her learners would be safe tonight, and arrive with less bruises that usual tomorrow, after her dad’s long engagement with the pub’s Monday Extended Happy Hour.

The evening, the one tired parent. The one tired teacher. Passing exchanges of words that have been repeated thousands of times over decades in many different forms.

A trip home.

A reheated meal.

A phone call from Mother.

 “You sound tired again. When are you going to use your degree for something more lucrative?”

“Mother, do we you have to go there tonight?”

“You know it’s because I care and I hate seeing you waste away by giving your everything to that black hole of a generation. They just take. They all feel themselves so entitled. Really dear, you can do so much more, for so much more.”

“Mother, you know that I have my faith. I’ve told you my purpose is to live in answer to “what would Jesus do?” He taught and loved Mother, He taught and loved. Nowhere but in a classroom are people willing to be taught and to think and change.”

“Yes, and He died at 30 for it. Suffered and died. For what? Ignorant Pharisees and the blind who won’t see? He gave His everything for nothing.”

“No Mother, He gave it all for me.”

 

If she had have known, would she have made the commitment? Yes.

Had she been more informed of how difficult it would be, would she have signed up? Yes

It hadn’t turned out differently, her days were hard, the tears were always near, but just one, maybe just one person would know Love for it and that made it all worthwhile. They choose to engage, it had been a good day.