A Metaphor

Scene: Empty bus lot, middle of the day. Today, to be precise.

A gaggle of teachers sit on the curb, sunning and eating lunch. A student of mine perches on the railing near us, strumming on his guitar. Some birds flutter above the concrete in the distance.

Teacher 1: I think that bird has a broken wing. Should we…

Me: What? Should we what? What can we do for it?

Teacher 1: I care a lot about birds. Birds are my thing. That poor bird, it’s trying to fly.

Keen-eyed Teacher 2: No, I think it’s two birds. They just look like one because of how they keep rising and falling together.

Teacher 3: Oh, yeah, they’re fighting.

Me: You know, that could be a metaphor for our whole experience here. We think we see a bird with a broken wing, rush in to help it, and realize when we get closer it’s just two kids beating each other up.

Scene.

Today was flies. Lots, and lots, and lots of flies in my classroom. My first block got creative and made flycatchers out of scrap paper and tape, which were incredibly useful. They caught nary a fly, but they kept the kids from swatting and screaming, the two activities they’d been most engaged in previous to fly-catcher-building.

We played a game with points to get students to understand the difference between capitalism and socialism. It’s amazing how staunchly my high-flyers defend capitalism and my low-achievers advocate socialism when I suggested averaging all their grades together to be fair. 

Fourth block today my inveterate talker wouldn’t shut up, so I beckoned him up to the board to deliver a rousing lecture on socialism vs. capitalism. He did a great job, coached a bit by the over-aged student, W, who sat in the front row occasionally heckling with questions geared to get him around the difficult issues, and the class both laughed uproariously and listened intently, so it was a win all around. I walked to my car surrounded by the sound of students calling goodbye to me, sad that I won't have the same children next year.