The Swivel Chair And The Spirit

I’ve seen some amazing things in my life. But I have yet to see an ailing back and an aging chair providentially lead to a breakthrough in human and racial understanding. Today, I did.

It’s a story with 5 scenes.

First some background. It’s Thursday evening, close to the end of my first quarter of teaching. Most of my students are African American and I am mostly white – scratch that, I am 100% white. My father is a doctor. I am well educated. You could say I look white and talk like it.

“You rich,” one of my students said to me in the first two weeks of school. Probably because I look like I am – though, alas, I am not. I have made choices that took me down a different path.

Nevertheless, I am a contrasting figure to most of my students and it has taken me a while to earn their trust. I love these kids with a love that is made of similar stuff to the love I have for my own children. But such a love must first be believed. And in the beginning of this school year my students were not believers.

Especially one. I’ll call him W. He’s 6’4’’, strong, sure of himself, with a chip on his shoulder. Before I ever laid eyes on him, he had made up his mind: he doesn’t like school. Always sits in the back of the room. Talking. Eating sunflower seeds from their hard casing. Stretching his legs. Slouching in his chair. Occasionally burping. Loud burps. Daring you to say something. He’s pretty convinced he doesn’t like me. In various ways, he has made that clear.

As for me: I was a bit afraid of him. You hear about kids and their anger. I figured if I ever pushed W too far he might snap. If he did, I didn’t have much doubt who would win that fight. So in the beginning I danced around any notion of discipline with him. I avoided confrontations.

But he needed discipline. He was often out of line.

Scene 1. First week of school. All the kids are testing my boundaries. I’m the new teacher. I’m a prime target. W does the most testing: testing me the most loudly, most consistently and most disrespectfully. I forget what our first issue was. But I remember calling him out a few times in one class and him loudly protesting that I was being unfair. Other people are talking! Other people are out line too!

I remember asking him that day to step out in the hallway, where we stand eye to eye. I assure him in that moment, that I am not out to get him. That, on the contrary, I can tell he is a strong leader. That I hoped he would use his leadership in my class to nudge us in a good direction. I thought it was a good conversation. But its effects were short-lived.

Scene II. A week or so later, W is in the back of my class. Long legs splayed out, slouching back, yawning loudly, stretching long arms and legs, talking while I’m talking. To this point, I had not called him out much because I had plenty of other fires to put out in his class and I sensed he might be explosive if I pushed him too far. I was still figuring out just what kind of behavior was appropriate to demand in class. But on this day, he goes too far, so I call him out. He jerks back and reacts violently, scolding me with a:

“It ain’t that deep, niggah!”

Meaning: “It’s not a big deal what I’m doing. Why are you calling me out?”

“What did you say to me?” I responded angrily. Being called that name, by a young black student, with a tone of contempt and disrespect cast a racial cloud over me and over the scene. I felt outraged. Shocked. Stunned.

I have since learned that this word is bandied about among these kids without much thought, like “bruh,” meaning ‘bro’ or ‘dude.’ Hence perhaps I ought not have taken it as the deep insult that I thought it was.

But, in any event, W gives no response to my question. So I search my heart for what to do. Could I have imagined it? Should I discipline him for this?

I am in uncharted waters. I know he has just disrespected me clearly and loudly in front of the whole class. I have learned that if you let things like this slide, the whole class will lose respect for you and will let you know it, in a string of constant snake bites, from all sides, going forward.

But I didn’t know this then. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I didn’t want to overreact. Didn’t want to make an enemy of W. But I didn’t want to under-react either. So I give him a deduction on his Classroom Participation score that day and then stew, after class, as to what I should have done.

Later in the day, I speak with our Dean of Students, Mrs. Johnson. She says to me:

“You need to handle it, Neal. Tomorrow. If your kids think they can get away with comments like that, they will keep trying it, again and again.”

So next day, I pull W out of class, early. I tell him I am quite aware of what he said yesterday and that it is not acceptable. That he would need to serve a teacher detention with me, but that I would not write him up and this would not appear on his record. He complies and I feel the situation is a step in a net positive direction. He knows I could have come down harder. But I didn’t.

Scene III. 5 weeks later. W is failing three classes. He is also a student in my homeroom, so I catch wind of his academic plight. I have been looking for ways to connect with him so on several occasions I take the opportunity to review with him his grades and missing assignments. I notice he is very sensitive to his predicament. He feels several teachers are targeting him (I know the teachers; they are not targeting him). Over time, I help W set up a quiz make-up here, a make-up assignment there. I talk to his tutor and learn that W becomes defensive and aggressive when he feels threatened or insecure. This is subtle and easy to miss. W is so big; his defensiveness easily appears aggressive. But when I learn to see it as the frightened reaction of a young boy, I begin to see an opening. I begin to sense I could help him. I begin to feel in myself something like tenderness. That tenderness leads to joy when my intervention pushes one class from an F to a D, and another from a D to a C. I won’t say that W rejoiced with me – if he has an emotional range like that, he hides it.  But he does smile. A smile of pride and of possibility. I know we have connected.

Scene IV. A week later. I am giving all of my Scripture classes a test. One class is just finishing, while W and his class are coming in. In the class that is exiting, there is a young boy, a white boy, named J. He is extremely small, skinny and frail; he is red-headed and has a few learning disabilities. He is as sweet and intelligent as the day is long but he is the type of child with whom a bully would have a field day.

Academically, J struggles with written assignments when given a tight time frame. He bombed my first test but in this second one he did, what for him, was a fabulous job. J is gathering his things and getting up to leave. I am congratulating him on his great test when, at that very moment, W walks in. He overhears my remarks. A mean-spirited child would have either ignored them or maybe said something derogatory – out of jealously or just for the sport of picking on a weaker child.

But not W.

He walks up to J, who is now standing by the first row of desks. Picture this: a 6’ 4’’ black muscular frame towering over a white, frail, pale, 5’4’’ frame. And W says:

“Great job, J. Great job.”

He extends his right fist for a fist bump. Little J bumps him back, awash in a glow of pride and affirmation. Like he has arrived. Like he’s now in the in-crowd. I stand there, a witness to kindness as pure as mountain-fallen snow; a witness to living, breathing proof that racism is not endemic to the relationships between black and white children.

Later I pull W out of my class. His face has doubt written all over it: what did I do wrong?

“It’s a good thing, W,” I say, “don’t worry.”

We step into the hallway. I move a few steps back, away from the doorway so no kids could see us. We are standing against the metal student lockers, sunlight pouring in through the window down the hall where I have affixed a rugged, wooden cross. I wait until he looks me in the eyes.

“I saw what you did to J,” I say.

Then, in that instant, there comes a wide-eyed, innocent look of a 5-year-old boy over the face of this child in a man’s body. A look that knows: he has been seen. He has been recognized for who he is.

“I think that was pretty cool,” I say. “You should have seen the look you put on J’s face. You made his day. That was you using your power to lead in an incredible way. I just want to say thank you. That was awesome.”

Later that day I go into W’s Classroom Participation score and erase all the prior point deductions. I tell him the next day what I have done. It bumped his quarter grade up a point or two.

“What you did yesterday is dead center to the kind of thing that I pray happens in our classroom. And you did it without me asking you to do it.”

He smiles, once again, the smile of one who is seen for who he is.

I call W’s mom that night. I tell her what he has done. I tell her about the strides he has been making with his grades. She loved hearing both updates. But as to the kindness W showed J, she said: “That’s my W, he has a tender heart.”

He has a tender heart.

If you knew W at school, if you knew him as a teacher to student, this is not something you would have guessed. But I knew it now. I had seen it. And his mom was telling me, this is my boy. This is W. This is who he is.

And I thought: “This is the boy I want with all my teacher’s heart to try to help succeed, in school and life.”

Scene V. Today, Thursday. W is still a boy. He still has his habits. In the second part of my class, he is disruptively slouching and stretching his 76-inch frame and burping out loud (To be fair, it was post-lunch and the whole class was struggling to pay attention). I ask him to sit up, as I always ask all my students to do, and to refrain from burping out loud. “Just cover your burps, W, if you really needed to burp. Do it quietly.”

I don’t give any point deductions. Just a warning. But W takes great offense at this, the way he used to in our early days. It’s not a huge deal, but I notice his defensiveness and irritability and I am sad about it. It’s a step backward in our relationship dynamics.

Skip, now, to the end of class. The kids file out. I am alone; it’s my planning bell. I get a text from the Holy Spirit in the guise of our facilities manager, Rob. He sends me a photo of a chair that might better support my back. I had texted him earlier in the week, my back sore from my old, creaky chair with horrible support. I was asking if we had any better chairs in the building.

It’s Thursday now, days have passed since that text. I was supposed to confirm with Rob when I had some free time to meet with him. But I had gotten busy and had forgotten I asked about getting a new chair. Rob is busy too; this whole matter should have been forgotten amidst the myriad of details in running a school’s facilities. On top of all that, this week Rob is overseeing the installation of a new HVAC system for our basketball gymnasium. The HVAC work is being done right across the way from my classroom window; it’s a high priority job. Chair upgrade requests for the new Religion teacher should have been bumped well down below in the week’s priorities.

Yet, at this moment, Rob thinks of me and my back. He texts me and tells me to come down to the basement to look at this one chair he thinks will be good for me.

I’m a little deflated by how the last class went, by the interaction with W. I need a break. So I go down to the basement where Rob says the chair is. It’s 3 floors down. I walk past the Art rooms where I have yet to set foot as a teacher. I look back and see W walk down the hall and go in. I sense an opportunity for connection. I follow him into the room and ask if he can step outside for a moment. His teacher says no problem.

There we are, me and W: standing in the hallway, no longer strangers to one another. There is no longer the aura of tension I used to feel around him; he is no longer distrustful, I am no longer afraid. There is something more like love. It settles in the hallway like a thick mist.

“W,” I say, “Are we ever going to get to the point where you know I am on your side? Where you don’t worry that I am out to get you just because I make a correction?”

He looks at me. Gone is the lens of defense and agitation I used to see in his face. He just calmly looks at me. He is hearing me.

“Are we not there now?” I ask. “Don’t you know by now that I am on your side? I help you catch up on your assignments. I help you bump up your grades. I call your Mom to tell her how great you are doing. . . ”

“Are we not there yet?”

A look like a smile comes over his face. Not a smile, but it is like a smile. It is calm. He has heard me. He does not disagree.

“Yes, sir,” he says.

As far as I know it’s the first time he has ever called me sir. Not that I need or look for that kind of respect. But W does not throw around such words lightly.

I pat him on the chest. I look him in the eye and smile.

“Glad to hear it,” I say. “Have a great day, W. See you tomorrow in homeroom.”

He goes back into his art class. And I continue down the hall to grab my chair upgrade from Rob’s office.

Later, at the end of that same day, I walk down a long yellow hallway toward the faculty exit by the parking lot. As I head to my car I step outside and scan around, as I often do, to see if there are any kids around that I know. For the first time in all my walks to my car after school, I see W, 25 yards to my right, waiting, I suppose for his ride.

“W!” I call out and raise my hand.

He turns, sees me, and raises his hand back. From a distance, we lock eyes. A 53-year-old white Religion teacher and a young boy who now knows, I hope, that I have his back.

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