TO BE + Ving

The clouds outside are the color of moldy cigarette ashes. Through the rain-speckled window, students and teachers waddle by dressed in bundles against the mid-September chill. As a woman pulls her collar tighter against her neck, you can see her thoughts rising and diffusing with her visible breath. It shouldn’t be this cold this early in the fall. Maybe those are just my thoughts. Either way, the weather doesn’t seem to care.

In the school the students sit in sweaters and jackets – the heat won’t be turned on for at least another two weeks. The eighth graders are having trouble sitting still. Hands rub together or hide between thighs. Every few moments they find the notebook on the desk, make a few scratches with blue pens. We didn’t have to do this much homework last year. Why do they suddenly expect so much of us? Some students pick up the slack, diving deep into the text and their notes in an effort to catch up to the teachers’ demands for work and progress. Most of the students withdraw into their newly developing techniques of avoiding things they don’t want to do. They slyly (or not so slyly) check their phones every thirty seconds, they punch each other in the arm when the teacher turns to write something on the board, they laugh uncontrollably when someone makes a mistake that they themselves would’ve made.

SS highjacks the lesson plan, opting for a read-and-translate method in order to show the students how little they know, how poorly they study at home, how they need to pick up the pace and seriousness if they are going to make it through her class. For some students, the method gets results. They sulk while being reprimanded and, when given a new chance to answer questions from a textbook exercise, they reach high with hands wagging frantically, determined to outwag their neighbor and earn a spot back on the teacher’s good side. Yesterday at 5:00 Billy was playing football. Others retract even further from productivity in a show of sighs and eye-rolling. One student is made to stand for five minutes of the lesson for playing on his cell phone. When he sits back down he tries to pay attention for a minute (Billy is playing football right now.) before feeling around in his left pocket. The right elbow comes up to the table and the left hand retrieves the cell phone. SS has been teaching too long to be fooled. She unleashes a new string of reprimands, including terms I recognized as “shameless” and “useless.” She informs him of his class grade for the day. He says he wasn’t doing anything wrong. She informs him in advance of his grade for next week’s class. He says thank you. She says he is free to gather his things and leave. He stares out the window angrily. She says fine. You won’t be admitted into my classroom again without your parents’ company. He puts his head on the table. What will Billy be doing tomorrow at 5:00?