Terms

In which we see Ms. Bradstreet make her classroom debut

The Maria Chronicles, #8

First class, first day of school. Maria has emerged from the stall of the faculty women’s room, where, it turns out, she didn’t have to throw up after all. She has splashed cold water on her face and wiped it off, smoothed out her hair, straightened out her blouse, and sailed into that classroom like she’d done it a thousand times. The sudden hush that had overtaken the room in her wake almost unnerved her again. But then her anger at herself kicked in; she'd pronounced “Good Morning” in a strong clear voice (“G’mrning” was the collective, murmured reply) and she’s worked her way steadily through the attendance sheet she left in her in-box yesterday in preparation for this moment. Almost done.

“Wilhemina?”

“Here! You can call me Willie,” she says brightly. (Sweet face, Maria thinks to herself.)

“Kenny”?

“That’s me.” (Oh yes – the kid who helped me with the computer a couple weeks ago. Nice smile, even if there is an air of goofiness about him.)

“Derek?”

“Yeah.” (Dark hair, dark eyes. Only glanced up from his laptop only momentarily. Could be a problem.)

“And, last but not least: Vanessa?”

“I’m Vanessa.” (Pretty, in an edgy way. Definitely wants to be heard.)

“All right then,” Maria says, standing up and walking over to the Smart Board. She spent an hour here earlier this week practicing with it. Now she turns her back to the class and writes a single word with the red magic pen. Then she boxes it, presses the upper-right hand corner of the box and voila:

F R E E D O M.

“So let’s plunge right in,” she says. “We’re going to start talking about Native Americans tomorrow, but by way of getting started, I thought we could have a brief discussion of a key concept in this course. So tell me: What does this word” – she points at the Smart Board – “mean to you?”

A pause. Maria has braced herself for silence. She’s relieved that it turns out to be brief. “It means the ability to do something,” Vanessa says.

“The ability to do something,” Maria repeats.

“Yeah,” Vanessa says. “The ability to do something, like speak out. Freedom of speech.”

“I see. And presumably that would include the ability to do other things too, like worship?”

“Sure,” Vanessa replies. “Whatever you're into.” Some chuckles at this.

A boy raises his hand. “Tell me your name again?” Maria asks.

“Well, it’s Andrew on your class list, but call me A.J.”

“O.K., A.J. And what does freedom mean to you?”

“I think economics is an important part of freedom.

“Yeah, if you've got money,” Matt interjects.

“Is money a form of freedom?”

“Absolutely,” Matt replies. “Most important kind of freedom there is.”

“Is there any kind of freedom money can't get you?”

“I don't know,” he says. “I'll let you know when I feel like I have enough to find out.” Maria hears a cackle to her right: “Ha!” It’s Vanessa.

A girl raises her hand, and Maria nods to her. Anticipating her question, she says, “I’m Maggie. To me, freedom is not only the ability to do or get things, she says. It's also the ability to not have to do things. Freedom from.

“Good point,” Maria says. “We all like freedom from rules we consider pointless or oppressive. The term that’s often associated with this idea is ‘negative freedom.’”

“Like homework,” Matt says. “That’s freedom I’ve just lost.” Some chuckles.

Wasn't there like a famous speech that talked about freedom from, the girl with the pleasant smile asks – Willie, Maria remembers. “Freedom from fear?

“Yes. That's Franklin Delano Roosevelt's ‘Four Freedoms’ speech. We'll talk about that in this course, probably sometime in May. I'm impressed that you know that, Willie.” She beams.

A black haired kid – Jose? No, it’s Jake, Maria thinks – raises his hand. She nods to him. By staying silent, there's no mistake, but no confirmation, either.

“Freedom is relative,” he says.

“What do you mean by 'relative?'”

“It's always limited. You can't have complete freedom, because otherwise you'd have chaos.”

“I believe the correct term is anarchy.’”

“Fine, anarchy. But the other thing is that your freedom always gets in the way of someone else's.”

“Always?”

“Pretty much. Like if I own a business on some land, and a river runs through that land, and I pollute it, I have the freedom to do that and the freedom to deprive an environmentalist of a clean river.”

“Another girl raises her hand, and takes Maria’s eye contact as her cue to go ahead, which it more or less is. “I don't think one person's freedom always has to interfere with somebody else's, she says. My decision what to wear doesn't really hurt anyone, for instance. I think people should have as much freedom as they can as long as they don't hurt somebody else.”

“Don't be so sure, Olivia,” Matt says.

“Don't be so sure of what?” Olivia responds.

“That what you're wearing doesn't hurt anyone,” he answers, suppressing a smile.

Olivia wrinkles her face with distaste, and sticks her tongue out at Matt. Maria is a bit disappointed; for a minute there, she thought the class might be headed toward a discussion of sweatshop labor.

“Are we going to be tested on this?” Vanessa asks.

“Not directly,” Maria answers, hoping she doesn’t betray her irritation. “This is more like an ice-breaker.”

Maria glances up at the clock. About 10 minutes left. She decides to buy some good will by not trying to squeeze out every last drop on the first day.

“All right then. I suppose that's enough for now. You can go.”

“Thank you, Ms. Bradstreet! a voice says amid the chatter of this first exit.”

“Thank you!”

“Is the homework on the website?”

“Yes, yes.”

“See you tomorrow!” Willie says.

Yes you will, Maria thinks. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and the week after that, and month after month after month after that. Maria feels another flittering of panic and despair: “I'm in this thing for real now,” she says aloud to the empty room. And then the sense of dread passes. This is the ground, these are the terms, of her vocation.

Codes

In which we see Ms. Bradstreet look for a break

The Maria Chronicles, #4

Damn it, Damn it, Damn it!

Maria would like to throw her new Macbook out the window. For the last half hour she’s been trying to paste The Federalist Papers, #35, into the course web page she’s been assigned for her upcoming classes. Having taken this new job, she’s determined to refresh her entire skill set, ranging from her curricular offerings to her use of technology, and to that end she eagerly accepted the invitation to put all her courses online. She spent an hour yesterday with the school’s tech guru, Ray Rozenholtz, the genial gabber who issued Maria the computer and reassured her that she’d find the software to be a breeze. And it kind of was – when she was sitting there in his office, that is. Now, though, alone in the cluster of desks that constitute the History Department office on a sweltering late August afternoon, she’s hopelessly stuck. When she copied and pasted the immortal Alexander Hamilton onto the page, he lost all his formatting. That wasn’t such a big deal, except that the whole thing is now a single slab of type, no line breaks, and no matter how many times she hits the return key the thing remains an unreadable blob.

Maria sighs deeply. "Now what?" she says, aggrieved, to herself.

"Technology trouble?" A voice behind her says. Maria almost leaps out of her chair in terror.

"Oh my God!" she says, swiveling to see the source of the voice. It's a blond-haired boy, pimply, with green eyes, clearly frightened by her fright

"Sorry!" His reply is loud, even forceful, with a tint of aggrievement. He's rattled by her being rattled.

"I'm sorry," Maria says, apologetically. "It's just that I didn't know anyone was here."

"I came to see Ms. Abruzzi," the boy explains.

"She's not here," Maria says, stating the obvious about the department chair and immediately regretting it.

"I know," he replies neutrally. "But we have an appointment. I'm a couple minutes early."

"Oh." Maria is recovering her equilibrium, part of which involves realizing that she has to take the lead here with this child in terms of the social niceties. "I'm Maria Bradstreet," she says, extending her hand.

"You're the new history teacher," he says with a smile. "For Mr. Haynes."

"Yes, that's right." Haynes apparently lasted a year. Following a teacher that left mid-year. Maria got hired because the school was desperate for a seasoned teacher in what is a young department. "And what's your name?"

"Me? I'm Kenny Lowe."

"Well, hello, Kenny."

"I think you might be my teacher this year?"

"Wonderful! In which course?"

"The regular history course. Whatever that's called."

"You mean the U.S. history survey."

"Yeah, the survey."

"Ah. Very good. Of course, at the rate things are going there isn't going to be much to do, because I'm having trouble with copying and pasting documents."

"Is that it there?" Kenny asks, squinting at the screen. "Why don't you just make a link rather than copy it in?"

Maria feels like an idiot. "Yeah, I guess I could have done that. I just thought it would be easier to cut and paste. But when I did, all the formatting disappeared and the whole thing is one long paragraph."

"Can I take a look?"

"Be my guest!" Maria pushes her swivel chair away to make room for him. Kenny looks intently at the computer, which gives her a chance to look more closely at him. His features are delicate, partially obscured by his acne and whiskers. She's struck by the intensity of his concentration -- it has an adult quality, even as his manner and appearance suggest an uneasy purchase on his adolescence.

"It's the line breaks," he says to her, still looking at the screen. All the coding is missing. She sees him make type the letter "b" and a slash within brackets, and then a series of CTRL/V where he thinks the breaks should go. He then hits the PUBLISH button on screen. Sure enough, the line breaks are there. "I think you'll be able to do italics and bold the usual way," he says. "For some reason, you need to put in the HTML language for the line breaks."

"Wow," Maria says, grateful and humbled. Are you a computer aficionado, Kenny?"

"Well I dunno. I guess," he says, which Maria surmises is a vast understatement. "I like to do animations."

"You mean like cartoons?"

"Yeah, sort of. Me and my friends have a website --"

"Ah, so I see you've met Kenny," Jen Abruzzi says, coming into the room. He's my advisee. "You've met Ms. Bradstreet?"

"Yes."

"Kenny got me out of a technology jam," Maria says.

"I'm not surprised," Jen says. "He's our resident computer geek." She flashes him an affectionate smile. "C'mon into my office, Kenny. We'll see if you we can straighten out the chem kink in your schedule."

The two of them disappear into Jen's adjacent office. Maria looks back at the screen. She feels a twinge of unease: She's in Kenny's debt and wonders if that will affect her sense of authority over him in the classroom. But having had the thought, her fear recedes. Maybe with a different kid she'd have more reason for concern. He seems like he'll be fine. Actually, she suspects this will actually help their relationship. She remembers an incident in Benjamin Franklin's autobiography when young Franklin courts favor with a rich and influential man not by trying to be of service, but asking to borrow a book Franklin knew the man owns. It's probably a good idea to seek their help from time to time to build good will and trust.

Later. Now she has to finish this syllabus. And establish herself here. Effective dependency requires strength. Maria has a ways to go, around here at least.

The load

In which we see Ms. Bradstreet weigh how much homework is enough

The Maria Chronicles, #2

Maria is conflicted. It's a Sunday night in mid-July, and she's sitting on the deck outside her frighteningly expensive, but at least unpacked, little apartment on Southside Avenue. She believes that what her landlord told her is true, that it will afford a view of the Hudson come winter when all the greenery is gone. For now she settles for occasional pedestrian traffic and the occasional sound of the Metro North train coming into the station a couple blocks away. She's been bent over her laptop for hours now, the container of lo mein she brought home from dinner last night long since forgotten, as is the half-empty bottle of Pinot Grigio. Standing up, she realizes that her back and neck are sore from her unnatural position. It hadn't been her intention to spend so much time on the syllabus for this new course, which she looked at after she came home from a jog in the park, but once she got started her immersion had been complete. Until a few minutes ago, anyway, when she got stuck. Now she stands, realizes it's getting dark, and moves her stuff inside to the kitchen. No more wine. She's tired. And about a week into her new life, a little lonely.

The problem is with her new "Advanced Topics" class. This is actually a plum assignment in a portfolio that includes the year-long survey and other staple courses. The school recently decided to drop its AP curriculum as too restrictive, a move she thoroughly endorses. This has opened up a space for an elective of her choosing, and Maria has decided she would like to try her hand at historiography in a class she's calling "Great Debates in U.S. History." She's using the latest edition of a nice course reader that she got as a desk copy last year, having then decided it was something she would like build a course around someday. That came to pass sooner than expected -- along with the end of her marriage, a new home, and a new job, which she hadn't expected at all.

The issue at hand is how much work she can or should try to get out of her still-imagined students. Maria knows she's going to ask them to write a couple short pieces on readings of their choice. She also knows she's going to ask them to do a final project on a movie with a historical theme, like Last of the Mohicans or Saving Private Ryan, that she'll want them to situate in terms of academic scholarship at the time of its release and/or today. What she can't quite decide is whether to require them to read and write a review of a major piece of historical writing from a list she'll give them, something that will include classics like Garry Wills's Lincoln at Gettysburg or Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives. The books would have to be short. And she knows it will be tough for students who will no doubt also be taking similarly challenging courses in science and math, not to mention playing soccer, performing in the percussion ensemble, or whatever. But shouldn't they have a sustained encounter with a major piece of historical scholarship? Especially since they're taking this course because they want to be challenged? Or maybe she should be thinking, as education guru Ted Sizer says, that Less Is More. Maybe three short reaction pieces, the movie essay, and class participation is enough.

Maria knows that the issue isn't entirely intellectual or pedagogical. It's at least as much about the kind of tone and reputation she's going to establish, how she's going to be perceived. Will they see her as a hard-ass? Is that a bad thing? She knows from experience that setting the bar too high discourages kids, some of whom will drop out -- and a sharp melt early on will not be good for her image. On the other hand, setting the bar too low conveys a lack of seriousness, and paradoxically may mean she gets even less work out of them. It's more important than usual that she get this right.

The sudden burst of Los Lobos's version of "La Bamba" from her cell phone comes as a relief to Maria. She's glad to have the diversion and human contact, particularly when she sees that it's her daughter Felicia calling from Seattle, where she's now a few months into her job as a reporter for the History News Network website (thank God her boyfriend, a software designer, has a salary they can live on).

"Hello darling!"

"Hello Mama! How are you?"

"I'm great. Really great!"

"Oh no you're not. I can tell from your voice."

"Now honey, don't you start."

"What is it, Mama? You feeling all alone out there? How could you not? You know, the Labor Day weekend coming up, but I bet I could even -- "

"Nevermind about that. You tell me how you are."

There's a pause. Maria knows Felicia hears the edge in her mother's voice. The right answer is to answer. Good girl: Felicia does, with talk about the office, her boyfriend David, a recent visit to Vancouver. This goes on for a while. When Maria senses that Felicia wants to turn the conversation back to her, she shifts the ground again.

"And your brother? Have you heard from him?"

"Yeah, I talked with him yesterday," Felicia answers. "I didn't get the sense things were all honky dory with Doreen -- he sounded a little tired, maybe even down -- but I didn't press and he didn't say much on that. His work is going well, though. And what about your work? Are you preparing for classes?"

This is safe ground. "Indeed I am. Maria describes her curricular planning, including the work she'd done that afternoon. She also decides that Felicia is a good sounding board, and asks her opinion.

"Oh I would definitely assign the book," Felicia says. "Let 'em do some real history. You're talking as if you're going to inflict pain on them. It'll be fun!"

"Well, it would be fun for you. You were always the golden girl when it came to homework. I'm worried about it being perceived as too burdensome."

"Burdensome, schmerdensome! If you're really worried about it, have them read the book over spring break."

A good idea. But Maria shoots it down. "Can't. I was told when I was hired that they really try hard not to make the place too much of a grind. School policy is no homework over vacations."

"Well, that may be the policy, but you and I both know there will always be kids who do homework over vacations, whether they want to or not. So don't actually assign it for the break. Set it up so that anyone who wants to can read it at the airport while waiting six hours to board the plane to Orlando, but no one will actually have to read it, because the review won't be due for a week or so after that."

"Honey, you're brilliant."

"Of course I am. That's why I'm making a fortune here writing news digests for HNN. Have you asked my good-for-nothing brother what he thinks?" Maria knows Felicia really is fond of Evan, and really thinks of him as lazy.

"That good-for-nothing brother of yours is making about twice as much as you are. But no, I haven't asked him."

"Well don't. You know what he'll say."

Maria does. That's why she's tempted to call him. But she knows that he's going to a Coldplay concert tonight.

Maria gazes back out toward the deck. It's fully dark now, and she's fully tired. "You know, Mama, David has some frequent flyer miles. I could get out there to see you maybe even next weekend."

This is all too tempting an offer. "Nonsense. Maybe Labor Day. We'll see. Let me go, honey. I want to catch some re-runs of In Treatment on HBO."

"OK, Mama. You think about that visit. I can be there at a snap of your fingers."

"I know, sweetheart. Thank you. Love to David."

Maria has no intention of watching In Treatment. Instead, she puts her wineglass in the dishwasher, turns off her computer, and turns on a lamp in her bedroom, where a paperback copy of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge awaits. She had already thought of what Felicia had said. But hearing her say it has emboldened her. It's going on the syllabus. She can change her mind later. Ted Sizer says less is more, she thinks as she takes off her shorts and crawls into bed with the T-shirt she put on after the shower that followed her run. But he also talks about patient expectation. Something like that. I'll aim high, at first, anyway. That's always been my way. Mark would say that's why he had the affair -- that my standards are too high, but . . . .

Maria is grateful for her exhaustion. She's barely opened the novel before she falls asleep.