The electric air freshener helps the classroom smell clean; it smells like a rest area bathroom.
With a cellphone on a ledge that once held chalk, Aaliyah is recording herself dance for TikTok. She’s dancing in front of the class with choreographed moves of the latest dance fad. There are two pose moves in succession, hand on hip, hip out. There is a flutter of fingers at the end, as the dancer slides toward the camera. Her pants are riding low, and her butt is out, showing off her boxer briefs, the pastel designs of Ethicas, the current hot brand in underwear.
“Aaliyah,” I say. Already I sound like an old white man. It’s as if she is a Native, here in North Philadelphia, while I am one of Stanley Kubrick’s 21st century villains, part of an absurd but punitive machine, a Nurse Rachett.
“I can’t believe that I am saying this, but please pull your pants up. Put your phone away. Have a seat.”
“Wait, what?! Boys can droop they drawers. You let the boys do it. Why’s it different for me?”
“Please, pull your pants up. Put your phone away. Have a seat.”
It’s a shame that Aaliyah doesn’t get credit for talking back. Perhaps she is someone like bell hooks who notes that a woman’s work is never done. In other words, not only do women have jobs (and housework and child rearing), but also they have political work, changing the products and processes of politics, talking back. In the classroom, Aaliyah has her classwork to do, and she is talking back, changing the processes and products of class. To paraphrase Judy Chicago, why are her circumstances not our subject matter…why not use them to reveal the whole nature of the human condition?
Aaliyah is supposed to sit in the front row, but she sits in the middle today. I do not even care. She wears a burgundy khimar covering her head. She wears the school uniform, a green polo with our high school’s name embroidered in yellow thread. Blue jeans. Black Nike Air Forces. She is dark complected like coffee with some milk. She has large eyes, good for rolling at me, but they are probably soulful eyes.
My own appearance? Oof. My father took me shopping for my first day of high school, that is when I was an incoming 9th grade student. We went to a department store in the mall, and I chose burgundy loafers. I suppose my dad approved of this enactment of WASP masculinity. He brought the shoes. They were different than my classmate’s shoes, the New Balances and the Doc Martins. I scuffed them against a brick wall with my hands right after lunch. Now, I’m wearing black Nike 270’s. My students call them, “nut ass 270s”.
The class door handle is somewhat broken. There is one big old screw holding the ring in place that does not match the door hardware, and the handle rattles if you rattle it. Still the thick wooden door satisfies something in me, maybe its light-colored wood. The tall rectangular window in the door has wire glass in it. Aaliyah knocks. She comes to class late. “Twenty minutes late, Aaliyah,” I say. She misses the daily online session of Lexia, which is supposed to help her with grammar, comprehension, and word study.
“Why did you write all that stuff on my report card? Has trouble reading?! I can read! No one else wrote anything, and you wrote a whole book. Has trouble reading!”
“I’m trying to give the most accurate picture of the information that I have.” Here is an interesting problem as a white male teacher. If I give up the gaze, the privilege of representing everyone “else”, what if anything am I supposed to write on the report card?
“Has trouble reading?! I can read! Now my mom is asking me about this. She is mad at you. She is mad that you wrote all that stuff.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll give her a call.”
“You don’t have to call her. You just have to change my report card. You know I can read. You have seen my work.”
“Could I show you your test scores?”
“I don’t need to see my test scores. Matter of fact, yeah, show me,” she says. Changing course, “Those don’t mean nothing. I wasn’t trying.”
“Okay, just show me. I just need to see.” I add, “I am sorry for writing so much on your report card. I guess I didn’t really think about how that would look on your end. I will give your mom a call, and we’ll talk about it.”
I like to keep the overhead lights off. Light comes in from four large windows. The windows have a translucent coating so that you cannot see out, a light eggy white. Two large pieces of paper cover two of the windows. One says that life is an art. —Cesar Viejo. The other says that writing is like braiding hair. — Edwige Danticat.
Aaliyah is sitting on top of a desk beside the bank of windows. Two or three of her classmates are standing around her. It's the end of a class a day before winter recess. Aaliyah is holding court. “Boy’s need to wash up. Y'all think it's gay to wash your asses. Wash your asses, boys.”
“Y'all need to change your Ethicas. How hard is it to walk down to the store and buy a couple new pairs of underwear? You need to wash those jawns, too. Y'all be wearing the same pair for three, four days straight.”
“Y'all need to wash your asses. Wash up.”
I’m laughing, and I can appreciate Aaliyah’s show of power. Still, her performance of a gendered self is not school appropriate—to use a dry term. It’s not part of the establishment; it’s not part of the institution. In that way, she holds the bad girl front line, but her performance, her becoming, alienates her from being a school kid. If this were school appropriate (e.g. talking back, avoiding distasteful tasks, and finding her way free of the rules) would it be good for her?
Beautiful, Sam. Looking forward to more!