ACCORDING TO DEE

           "Miss, my stomach hurts."

           I am bent over helping one of my sixth graders, but these words make me stand straight up. I grab the nurse passes from my desk and begin scribbling. "Did you eat breakfast?"

           I already know the answer.

           "No."

           "Go get breakfast. You can bring it back to class."

           My co-teacher used to get annoyed when I'd let students go get breakfast after the bell rang. She said it was their responsibility to eat before school, but I say sometimes life happens. Parents run late. No food in the fridge. Hungry students can't learn.

           I teach at a Title 1 school, and the government spends a lot of money to increase our test scores.

           The new buzzword is academic discourse. "Get the kids talking. That's how they'll learn."

           I've had people in suits from the district visit my classroom. They stand in the back of the room, peering over my students.

           They come to see if I am doing my job.

           My principal worries. Test scores have flat-lined. The new textbooks and teacher trainings have not helped. "You have to teach the curriculum with integrity." He says it like it's something that we haven't thought of before.

           I forgive him though. I know he's under pressure too. If our test scores don't improve, we could become a Turn-Around School, a sugarcoated way of saying that all the teachers could be transferred out. My kids would have to come to a school staffed by strangers.

           My students are "my kids." For me, the voices of panic from the state are muffled. All I can hear are my kids' voices. All I can see are their faces.

           My husband teaches at a wealthy high school. Their students score high on tests, even when they are routinely pulled out of school for ski trips, beach vacations, trips to science museums... while some of my kids have never left the five square miles of their neighborhood.

           My niece will someday attend that high school, but right now she's in second grade. Her school is year around, so I volunteer there over the summer. The top reader in her class read one grade level above my average student. I am lucky if my sixth graders can read at a fifth grade level.

           Being at my niece's school feels like some sort of dream. I watch her classmates sit with their eyes glued to the teacher. The only time their hands leave their firmly clasped position in their laps is to reach for an ice-cold water bottle, sometimes even a colorful Hydro flask that rests supremely on their desks.

           My classroom does not look like this. Last year, one of my kids was sitting with his foot propped on the seat of his chair, knee to his chest. He was examining his black converse, picking at the dirty white toe of his shoe.

           "Bryan, what's up, bud?"

           "My shoe... look at the bottom." Bryan pulled up the toe of his shoe. The sole separated and lay flat on his chair. "It's broken." His brown eyes looked up at me. "Can you fix it?"

           "Let's see what we can do about it."

           I grabbed some clear duct tape. Bryan's small hands held his shoe in place as I stretched the tape around.

           "There. That should work."

           Bryan squeezed the top of his shoe to make sure it stuck. Then, he got up.

           "Look, Miss! I can slide on the carpet!" Bryan hopped forward and slid across the floor. My heart ached as I watched his worn shoe transform into a new toy, slick with duct tape.  

           The next time the people in suits from the state come into my classroom and ask me questions about my teaching, I should hand them a list of questions for my kids. Ask them if they've eaten breakfast or if they need glasses. Ask them if they've ever been to the beach or ever sat down to a meal with their whole family when no one was hurt or sick or in jail. Ask them to forget about test scores for a moment. I should ask the people in suits what they could do to help fix those problems for my students before they tell me how to teach my kids.

           My kids are worth so much more than a score on a standardized test.

           The January wind sent a chill down my spine as I waited in line outside the door to my third grade classroom after recess. I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my coat and gazed across the courtyard. My two best friends, Kayleigh and Courtney, were giggling outside of their classroom door, which was not the same as my classroom door. I offered a weak smile in their direction.

           Just as Kayleigh started to wave, my third grade teacher brushed passed me and blocked my view. “Why, hello, Diane,” Mrs. Dennis gave me a toothy grin. “Did you have a good recess?”

           I nodded and stared down at my shoes. My tennis shoes were white and purple with a giant NB on the side. Mrs. Dennis’s keys jangled as she moved to unlock the door. A few other students behind me in line pushed around me in an effort to be the first one in the room. I stepped aside to let the rowdy ones inside first, my eyes never leaving my shoes.

           The classroom was abuzz as I stepped inside. Kids were digging into their desks, sliding out and pushing in their chairs, their laughter and raised voices crowded the air. “Drop off your coats and I’ll meet you all on the rug for Mad Libs!” I heard Mrs. Dennis shout near the coat rack. A couple of students jumped and rolled onto the rug.

           Mad Libs.

           I shuffled to my desk, hung my coat on the back of my chair, and floated to my seat on the rug.

           Mad Libs.

           I sat cross-legged and twirled my thumbs round and round. A noun? What was that again? My eyes lifted to the colorful posters above the chalkboard. “Person, place, or thing.” Right. And a verb? An action word. But what was an adverb again? I squinted my eyes to read the poster that was farthest away.

           I felt the other students tumbling and landing near me in the second row. A girl, Alyssa, swung her long ponytail, her curls hitting my shoulder as she scooted into her spot next to me.

           They will all stare at me, I thought. If I get adverb wrong, they will all stare at me. I could feel their eyes already.

           "Talk! Talk!“

           A voice pulled me out of my thoughts. Alyssa, the girl with the long ponytail, was poking me in the shoulder. "Talk!” she giggled.

           I shifted nervously on the rug. Why was she saying that? I turned my face in her direction and jumped back, startled. Her nose was inches from mine, her eyes wide, her front teeth protruding from her lips. “Taaaaalk!”

           I whipped my head away from her and looked down at my clasped hands. Please leave me alone. Alyssa leaned forward trying to catch my eyes. Her thumb and four fingers were pressed together making a hand puppet. “Talk, talk!” She demanded, snapping her fingers together.

           There was a rustle. I think other kids had noticed. “Talk, talk” didn’t just sound like Alyssa anymore. I think there was a chorus of voices, high-pitched, screeching, scratching, demanding that I “talk, talk.”

           But I didn’t want to. Not to them.  

           Where was Mrs. Dennis?

           I lifted my eyelids slightly. I saw her feet in front of me, oversized white tennis shoes with yellowing Velcro straps.

           "Awww…“ I heard a coo from above. "Diane didn’t talk to me until Christmas.”

           Like I had done something bad. Like I was supposed to talk to them. My teacher sitting on her blue plastic chair comforting the class for having to deal with my silence. The kids rolling on the rug, chortling, laughing, giggling, cackling, “talk, talk, talk.” Why did it matter if I talked to them anyway?

           It was a bad thing that I didn’t talk much. It was a bad thing that I wanted to sit on the rug in silence, and keep sitting there in silence, hoping they’d go away and we’d play Mad Libs like nothing ever happened.

           And the class did play Mad Libs. Like nothing ever happened.