Finding Balance

In my last post, I discussed the four personal narratives I was writing--one with each of my freshman classes studying the genre. We have finally arrived at the point where I can share what I have written with them in classes. These are second drafts after undergoing a public peer revision. They are still not perfect, but they are good enough for this rough blog. So..stay tuned for four personal narratives (one of which is included in my series of math adventures--more of those still to come). I won't release them all at once...just when I remember to do it. The first one is entitled "Finding Balance."

                The lunch smell of PB and J still hung in the air with a hint of that corn-chippiness that perpetually lingers around sixth graders. There were twenty-eight desks crammed into that classroom at Yokota East Elementary, and I sat in the back right corner next to the second story windows that looked over the courtyard. It was the perfect place for me to observe the rest of the class: I could watch every student covertly. It provided great entertainment when I finished my work early. Most of my classmates diligently poured over their life science textbooks. Lionel, of course, pretended to read while he actually stared ga-ga-eyed at Jennifer Gruenart and her silky brown hair tossed perfectly over her right shoulder. Chris Hiatt tried to learn through osmosis—a concept Mr. Anderson taught us earlier in the year—sleeping conspicuously, the open book his pillow. Marcie surreptitiously dug in her nose when she thought no one was looking, but I saw everything. Mr. Anderson, a semblance of an aging, bearded Dom DeLuise, perched at the teacher desk by the door, grading assignments or something, not really paying attention to us. The end of the school day approached, and our sagging bodies showed it.

                Science was the penultimate period of the day; only my favorite, reading, was left. Most of my classmates, however, loved science more than reading and were completely engrossed in their assignment. And although at the time, I didn’t really understand how someone could hate reading, I saw why they loved science. Mr. Anderson was an engaging teacher. He was big, loud, and most of all funny…at least to a room full of twelve-year-olds.

                “Dee leaves fall off dee trees in dee-cee-duous forests” was one of our favorite lines. In later years, kids would randomly repeat this scientific line. I taught it to my own children when they started studying plants in elementary school; my ninth grade son remembered it on his classification project for his biology class this past fall.

But whether Mr. Anderson was trying a Jamaican accent when teaching us biomes, or screaming in a pseudo-Michael Jackson falsetto “Annie, are you okay?” when demonstrating what to do with the CPR dummy, or calling us grasshoppers in a horrible wannabe Oriental voice as he expounded some Mr. Miyagi philosophies about an element of nature, or just joking in his normal rollicking voice, he was fascinating to listen to. However, there was one conversation I had with him that I would love to forget, but I will never be able to.

                “Young Master Anson, would you come back and see me for a second?” Mr. Anderson spoke loudly, without looking up. The students were used to his booming interruptions, though, and settled back to their work without skipping a beat.

                I stood slowly and made my way to the teacher desk.

                I wondered to myself if I were in trouble. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” I uttered under my breath, mostly to reassure myself.

                When I reached the desk, his meaty hands gestured for me to sit. I slumped onto the yellowing plastic chair, nervous for what was to come.

                “Hey,” he started, in a buddy-buddy sort of tone. “You know you have some of the highest test scores in the class…in the school, right?”

                I gulped, not sure where this was going. He interpreted my non-answer as a sign to keep talking.

                “Well, you do. Eetsa gooda stuffa, “ he fake-Italian burst before returning to a semi-serious tone. “I just wanted to find out why you didn’t do any extra credit this term.”

                “Uh...,” I began.

                “You did it last quarter,” he continued, “and I wanted to make sure that you remembered that you can’t get an A in this class unless you do the extra credit.” The rule in Mr. Anderson’s science class was simply this: Unless you did an extra credit project each term, you could not get an A in the class. No exceptions. He sat back, folding his arms over his ample stomach.

(borrowed from https://www.parentmap.com/)

Now, I cared about my grades. Back in Arkansas and Las Vegas, I could take my report card to the video arcade and cash in grades for tokens, and I hadn’t looked back since. The problem was I disliked science. Well, at least the way it was taught in school. Ever since the debacle of the science fair volcano Doug Walters and I constructed in fifth grade, I approached projects with trepidation. Maybe it was the fact that I thought some of the steps of the scientific method were a little redundant, or that I hated working on labs with others who consistently let me down, or the endless researching and reading of throat-cracking dry tomes of bad technical writing crammed with too much technical jargon. Maybe it was the pressure to get an A. I’m not sure. But I hated it. 

Whatever it was, my abhorrence for extra science homework included much dragging of feet and slogging through late nights, me perpetually postponing the extra fluffy junk that had nothing to do with my interests.

                Although I know better now, at that point in my life, I would have preferred reading the dumb chapter, answering the pointless questions at the end, and going about my business none the smarter in science. I could answer questions from a textbook easily despite the monotony of the process; I simply did not care enough to want to know more than I needed.

                Perhaps because I tried to block it out of my mind, I don’t remember what I actually produced to get the extra credit that first term. What I do remember, though, was the turmoil it caused. One late night after doing a crappy rush job on some science-related assignment or another, my mom, knowing my avoidance habits, put her arm around my shoulder, and simply asked, “Is it worth it?”

                Through tears, I explained to her that the only way to get an A in science was to do extra.  Lately the extra had started to take its toll. From the look in her eyes, I knew she didn’t agree with that grading policy, but she simply asked me again, “Is it worth it?” And then she went to bed, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Was an A in science worth all the problems it caused me at home? Did I really want it badly enough. I didn’t sleep much that night.

                Standing in front of Mr. Anderson that day, I began to sweat. I looked around for an out. Lionel still ogled, and Marcie still excavated for green gold. No one paid attention to the conference happening at the back of the room.

                “I’m not going to do any extra credit,” I managed to mumble.

                “Sorry. What was that?” he bellowed. Disturbed by his raucous nature, people started to look over. “I couldn’t hear what you said.”

                My hands started shaking in front of this behemoth of a man towering over me even sitting down; he was at least four times my eleven-year-old size. My inherent timidity kicked in, but somehow my inner soul found the strength to stand its ground. “I am not going to do any more extra credit,” I repeated. “It’s not worth it to me.”

                I thought his eyes were going to goggle out of his head momentarily, but he quickly regained his composure. “Pity,” he said. “You could have done great things.” And that was all. His lack of further response dismissed me. I slithered back to my seat.

                Maybe it was just in my mind, but over the rest of the year, I think he started being a little tougher on me. He challenged me more openly in front of the class—I always had to answer the toughest questions—but I continued to hold my ground. I finished the year with all A’s with the exception of the 95% B plusses in science. Despite being one of the smartest kids in the class, one of seven in the talented and gifted program, I wasn’t voted onto the trivia bowl team as my class’s representative because of my B’s (and the fact that the most popular meathead in the school was in my class). Not doing extra credit did have its consequences, but they didn’t come at the cost of my personal sanity. I began to achieve balance.

                Now, I don’t want to make Mr. Anderson out to be the antagonist of this story, for he truly did teach me….and most of it involved science. But standing up for myself in the back of that classroom was definitely a turning point in my academic and social development.

                It wasn’t immediate, of course. In tenth grade biology, I swung it to the other extreme, failing third term because I didn’t think my own leaf project was worthwhile. It’s a good thing that credit was awarded on the semester system at that school. (I pulled it up to a B by the end.) I found an inner peace with what mattered and what didn’t. I worked hard (mostly), but I didn’t overexert myself, especially in areas I knew weren’t going to be valuable to my future—a lesson I try to ingrain in my students, principally those of the honors variety. Yes, I know times have changed, but you can still get scholarships with A’s and B’s. Contentment doesn’t equal 4.0. I had a colleague who frequently told his pupils that the world is run by B students. And I think I agree. Grades don’t mean everything, but they do mean some things.

                The last final exam I took for my bachelor’s degree involved a grammar test, which was supposed to take three hours to complete. Before the test, I totaled up the points I had earned over the course of the semester and compared them against the syllabus grade scale. In the end, I didn’t do more than was necessary. While the rest of my classmates toiled over the entire test, I answered the fourteen or fifteen questions to earn the points I needed to get the grade I wanted then took my wife to lunch, leaving the rest of the assessment blank.

                Some things aren’t worth the trouble, especially if they extinguish the desire to learn and enjoy life. I’ve had students go down in flames physically and emotionally when they couldn’t live up to expectations—both parental and self-inflicted. I know people who pushed themselves to breaking points in high school to snatch up scholarships (sometimes to the detriment of others) only to crack their freshmen year in college and overdose trying to escape expectations. I know students and teachers who work themselves sick before Thanksgiving.

                Balance for me came from an imbalance in my life, and I can only thank Mr. Anderson for forcing me to make that discovery.