Schools without Borders

Dumbbell shenanigans and Father Finnegan

“I told you once already,” moans a distracted Camden, whom I’ve discovered stowing away in my 2nd period weightlifting class. “I’m going to seminary school.”

I’ve challenged Camden to get where he needs to go for 2nd period, which is not here in PE. I know him from other classes around school, and rarely in a good context. Talkative (by talkative I mean loud), disruptive, jittery and unpredictable, unable to sit in one spot for more than a few moments. He’s classified as Special Ed for reasons I’m not privileged to know - smart and articulate but with some kind of emotional disorder that somehow leaves him unable to digest the world as it comes at him. If only he could record it and watch it all later in his own time, perhaps he’d be more balanced.

In real time he’s a boisterous and flamboyant entertainer around other students, and his temper flares when he’s challenged to pay attention, to have his intelligence validated with homework or exams. Camden hates the predictability and routine of the school room, with it’s rules and expectations; instead he prefers to use his smarts to work up the boys around him, with jokes and banter, antics and slapstick. His sidekicks, Josiah and Rami, Julian and Cooper, who I’ve described here before, love Camden. He’s irresistible to seemingly every boy in school.

The sight of Camden has therefore raised a bright red flag this morning. He’s bad news, for me and all subs; we all know him. We scour class rosters before every bell looking for his last name and breathe easier when we don’t find it. A temporary reprieve - he’s never far away.

He’s become a nemesis of sorts this young school year, challenging my control of many classrooms here, and it’s only October. Unapproved departures and disappearances, climbing on furniture, loud comedy monologues in an especially annoying Jamaican accent, or riding his skateboard around the room (he lost what he calls his skateboard privileges back in August to the Dean of Discipline when he careened recklessly into a lunchtime crowd gathered in the Commons, then he inexplicably regained them a few days later. Who even has skateboard privileges, I wonder). His misbehavior has resulted in office reports, detention center phone calls, search and reconnaissance missions through the halls. Camden, in short, has put me through the wringer.

Somehow the seminary school strikes a chord, and it leaves me feeling pensive as I watch him eat his grab-and-go school breakfast, which I’ve allowed him to finish before leaving. I’m not sure how to digest this news, if indeed I should believe him at all. It’s either the funniest payback ever, or else a very sad outcome for a troubled young man with a lot of potential.

Or perhaps a third option: he really wants this. Father Finnegan.

As I’ve said before, I fear PE class. Rooms without borders, lots of breakable equipment, and frequent venue changes. Today we were in a neighboring classroom for attendance, then into the weight room for the day’s assignment, then out to the track for a few warmup laps, at which time several decamped to the parking lot and a getaway vehicle. Back in the weightlifting studio it’s eerily silent for a room of over 20 high school boys, and I scan the room for a headcount. They blend into the surrounding equipment, like amphibious pets in their tanks, camouflaged by idle leg press machines and free weight benches upon which they recline, chatting or resting, often motionless, and I have to pick them out from their local habitat with meticulous care.

Yesterday I was assigned to an intensive support classroom, for special needs students with requirements well beyond my capacity to provide. 6 children with 6 adults, one-to-one, obviously a team where everyone needs to pull his weight. Toileting and changing, feeding tubes and meds. I was hopelessly out of my depth, and the teachers accommodated me as best they could, essentially shorthanded for the day, giving me small assignments with the kids who were less confined or more verbal.

Still I managed to mess up breakfast with Ethan, autistic with Down syndrome, who decided to lay down for a nap in the middle of the cafeteria and stay there for most of 1st period. I thought of my yoga class and admired Ethan’s perfect shivasana, breathing deeply and seemingly sound asleep, until Mr. Westra his teacher was called into help, and he snapped to his feet with an athlete’s grace, a wry smile in my direction over the teacher’s shoulder. Sucker.

You can tell that Mr. Westra is a natural at caregiving to Ethan and his cohort, so comfortable around his kids that he maintains several pastimes inside the classroom, including jewelry-making and snake-breeding. A rock tumbler ran near the sink, plugged into a GFCI outlet so that it could run safely 24-7, and during 2nd period he casually described the smoothing process while simultaneously comforting Amy, who cried out for her mom or dad throughout the day when stressed or in need of attention. Mr. Westra’s ready for anything, and, as if on queue, Miles, a small boy with a feeding tube who mostly walks in circles all day long, had a seizure and needed to be laid down and restrained to prevent self-harm. More than 5 minutes and they’d have to call 9-1-1. One eye on the clock, Mr. Westra calmly explained to me the different polishing stages, and the coarse, medium and fine grits used during each. He could do this in his sleep.

Later that day he introduced me to Cannoli, a striped Pueblan Milk Snake, whom he plucked deftly from his large terrarium with the aid of a No. 2 pencil. Cannoli is about a foot long, beautiful, with a vertical white-black-orange striping pattern that the teacher has bred into him. Cannoli spent most of the day hidden inside his cave, emerging only to feed on the small mouse that the teacher left for him thawing on a rock, blending otherwise into his background, like the PE students in the weightlifting studio.

In class, a few boys are engaged in shenanigans as they perform bicep curls with heavy weights. There are a couple of 100-pd dumbbells on the weight rack, which honestly don’t exist even at my local gym, and the boys clown as one tries to hoist a weight from its slot. I worry about hernias and broken toes. A recent news report described the latest school district lawsuit settlement (they’re all settled), involving a teacher who brought samurai swords to a local high school and a student who had his wrist sliced open as a result. $3 million later the teacher is out of a job and the school district wonders why they get sued so often.

“I’ll be fired if you drop that on your foot,” I remind the boys, mock-complaining but definitely not joking.

My fear of PE isn’t without merit: prior experience has taught me to be wary. A broken wrist the result of a zany game of indoor soccer that included several teams and no apparent goals or boundaries. A harmless game of dodgeball involving the school’s senior quarterback that led to at least one concussion. Plus a near fatality after a kid climbed over 50 feet to the top of a wall of folded gym bleachers, then somehow to a crow’s nest yet 20 feet higher, all under the guise of retrieving a missing basketball. I called security to get the boy down and feared some complicated process involving ladders and pulleys. I was relieved when they were somehow able to coax him down with words only - calm and cool - before yanking his ass off to the principal’s office. Should’ve stayed in the crow’s nest, matey.

Later in the day, I’ll sub for a Spanish teacher and discover a group of student rebels to rival Camden and his buddies. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Mia, with costars Vivienne and Celeste. The girls are a totally different kind of inappropriate. Where Camden’s misbehavior is clownish and comical, the girls are conspiratorial and serious, wrapped up inside the enormity of their important private troubles, which they describe loudly and with intimate spontaneity. Talking over one another, they speak to no one in particular.

“I gave her a warning,” warns Mia to her pals, oblivious to the rest of the room. “She’s gonna deal with me if she doesn’t watch out…”

“How could he possibly think…” begins Celeste.

“It’s so unfair…” starts Vivienne.

The girls are too busy inside their ongoing, simultaneous conversations to look up, let alone respond to requests for focus. Somehow their self-absorption makes them untouchable, off-limits, and my attempts to redirect them back towards Spanish go largely unanswered. Mia will occupy four different locations around the room during the class period, none of which is her assigned seat, and she eyes me with a dangerous half-smile that says both “let’s chat” and “back off.”

Outside the weight room a game of tackle football breaks out on a patch of artificial turf. Camden watches from the sidelines eating an apple. He’s on the small side so it’s probably wise. Beyond the small field is an unlocked gate to the parking lot (really what could go wrong?), and I take another visual headcount. Somehow we’re all still present and accounted for.

“Yes, I’m seriously in seminary school,” Camden responds, annoyed at my growing interest and barely hidden skepticism. His class begins at 11am, after our 2nd period begins but before it ends. The excuse is plausible.

I consider his situation as we watch the boys grappling over the football game. He’s uncomfortable dealing with the world as it is. That much is clear. I’ve seen his anxiety around teachers, experienced his temper when challenged. His antics are a mask, cover for the turmoil underneath.

Is it possible that Camden wants this for himself? Maybe this isn’t a punishment. Perhaps he simply wants to live in a better world, one that promises grace and peace, a safe and quiet space, without the complications and ever-changing expectations of modern life. The vestments a badge of honor, the markings of a higher calling, if not simply another cover-up, a different kind of mask.

Maybe he really wants to be Father Finnegan.

While I’m redirecting the football teams into a game of two-hand touch, he disappears through the side gate. Off to seminary school, or I suppose the Burger King.

Whichever, it’s good to know the lord still works in mysterious ways.