A Tale of Two Students

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the onslaught of senior project, it was the epidemic of senioritis. It was the week after AP exams, it was still five weeks till the end of the school year. It was the time of endless, endless rain. It was also time to put Charles Dickens back on the shelf for another year. 


In the midst of all the whack-a-mole of activities, I was visited by two students. Both ghosts of Seniors Past. Both talented, articulate, intelligent, wry, witty. Both contrarians.  In short, both my kind of people.


Student A stopped in to see me after school, while I was cleaning up the latest detrius of the literary magazine meeting. As I put all the poems and stories back in the bin, he walked in the door, green field jacket, black rimmed glasses, twisted up smile. We chatted about David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Safron Foer, and other three-named authors. He said he was going back to New Paltz in the fall, to be an English major, to go to grad school and become a teacher. He was reading Faulkner again, he said. Even better than when we read it in AP Lit class, he said. Too bad Faulkner sold his third name for a bottle of gin, we agreed. Old William Gin Faulkner. "Let me know how you like Pale King" he said as he walked out the door. 


It was the kind of meeting that teachers love. It validates us when someone chooses to study literature, or writing, or even art. It makes us feel all warm and sunny inside, because now there is an acolyte in the house and we feel like our efforts at opening a door for a student to walk through was worth it. The poems, the Kafka, the Rimbaud....well, exposing students to all that - it paid off in the end. Right?I smiled all the way home as I sipped a latte. 


Student B messsaged me last night as I ADD'd while preparing a lesson plan about elegies. As I popped between tabs, organizing the powerpoint and poems, he popped up in my lower right corner. His icon was a caricature of a man against a white-gold background, and I couldn't tell if it was angry or wistful. We chatted for a while about Death of a Salesman, which we read in our Regular English class, and he said he felt like Biff Loman, but noted that every son is doomed to play that role. He pointed out that Biff was not a failure, because he chose to stick with his "shitty life" , which led to an almost desperately earnest question about what was the "right" American Dream, which segued into a question: "What is the purpose of my life?"


It was the kind of meeting that made me wonder. Somehow, this student had lived his suburban life, comfortably cocooned, then realized one day that it was built on materialism- or evil as he called it. He told me he had written a poem to a girl, who didn't know what the word "unrequited" meant. He said he respected me for allowing him to be a contrarian, for challenging him. But it was obvious that he was going through a rough time. Things were too divergent-the egg of the world was starting to crack. I finished my powerpoint and went to bed. And lay awake, staring at the ceiling. What have I done? I asked myself. 


And so, dear imaginary reader, comes my quandary. For what exactly is my role as a teacher in a mega-suburban high school?Is it to reinforce the status quo, the three car garages, the swimming pools, the over-groomed girl and the musclebound oaf who must be her boyfriend? Is it to smooth over the rough edges of adolescence,tell them their canned tans look lovely, their fake nails cute, their straightened hair gorgeous?  OR: Is it to challenge those students who aren't pedigreed in AP classes, push them to take risks, to enroll in literature programs, to go to grad school? Do I owe it to the other students, the ones who were lazy or too bright, who didn't fit in, who go on to community college and then, one day, wake up? For that waking is not always pleasant, and might prompt questions, which beget rejection, and dissatisfaction. And sometimes, revolution. 


I don't have an answer. But I do have a poem.  Charles Bukowski should always be in courier font. Or they should have a font, with his name on it. 




BLUEBIRD
Charles Bukowski


there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?