Missed Opportunity (Week 3)

In my 3rd week at LCHS I've observed another situation where I really wish I had my own class. In my co-op's freshman English classes and in her Creative Writing class she is teaching about transcendentalism nature writing/throeau etc. This week, as you may have noticed, has been warm, finally. In LCHS there is no air conditioning; it gets really hot in the third floor classrooms. We spent all of Tuesday writing in our seats and listening to lecture. The kids were distracted and kept looking out the window. My co-op kept mentioning the heat and how she was sorry that it was unavoidable. In creative writing class she had them sit and write about being outside (they were to describe a natural scene, or write a poem about nature they observed) while sitting at their desks in a hot room. 

Why not go outside? 

There is a large field, vacant during the school-day hours, for baseball and football. We could have went over there and wrote outside and actually been in a natural setting. 

It almost seemed ironic, or hypocritical. Something didn't seem right. 

So we sat and wrote. The heat put some kids to sleep. 

So if that isn't disheartening enough, here is a poem I wrote after school on wednesday about Lucia, an ESL student in my co-op's freshman English class.

___

Lucia chews gum every day,

and always has to be told to spit it out--

Must be scolded before she sits,

when she walks in to doorway

to English.

Whether she does her reading or not

(If she did she’s a liar and is she didn’t she lies)

She is never called on,

so she sits back,

applies lip balm,

looks  around,

looks at me, scribbling,

in the back of the room,

chews more gum,

is never called on…

except for to spit it out immediately.

Sometimes in class they popcorn read.

And when it comes to her she says each small word,

Flower, call, pig, four, hands.

but the teacher says the bigger ones before she has a chance.

On her locker is a peeling Spanish-flag laminate

barely hanging to the metal door

by dried up Scotch tape donuts.

And each morning she finds it on the linoleum floor,

picks it up,

sticks it back on,

each time pressing harder, for a few seconds longer.

Then walks to class,

sticks a stick of gum between her lips.

In class they study grammar and she puts her head down on her purse like she’s listening to it.

Sometimes before the end of the day, even as early as 1, 130,

when the air is dirty dry and hotly sticky,

the flag comes unstuck already--

It is already on the ground.

When the teacher reads aloud

but comes to a Spanish noun,

like banjo (which she says banjo)

Or ha-hac-haci--

Lucia offers “Hacienda”

She is told not to interrupt.

And scolded for her gum.