The Observation

Two months ago, Jessica and I had to hastily finish our observation hours to complete our obligations for graduate school. On a recommendation, we headed to a nearby elementary school. When we arrived, the acting principal was a bit loopy and tried to get us to commit to coming for visitations for months to come, but all we really needed was about two hours worth, so Jessica finally interrupted and politely asked if it would be possible to observe someone right then and there. Hesitantly, the principal agreed, then pondered who we should watch. The principal thought long and hard (the act of thinking was visible on eir face) and finally referred us to Mr. Somebody. Mr. Somebody's name isn't really Mr. Somebody, and for once I'm not merely trying to protect him, I just don't remember the name anymore.

So we enter the classroom, and Mr. Somebody took me pleasantly by surprise: he was a white male in his 60s, hardly a stereotypical image of an elementary school teacher. He introduced Jessica and me as college kids for his students to ooh and ahh at, though they did not seem overly impressed, then explained to us that the kids had started a logic problem and wanted to know whether we wanted to participate. Sure, we agreed. He told us that there was a prize of doughnuts on the line and that our pair was equally as eligible as any of the student teams. After years of being good at logic problems, I wanted to reject the offer, feeling that it wasn't unfair. The students, however, seemed energized to have the opportunity to compete with college kids. At that point, my plan of action was to just try, then act like I messed up at the end, so that a pair of the kids could win instead.

As it turned out, Jessica and I got really into the puzzle; it wound up being more difficult than we expected, so we put our full effort into it. Without warning, a pair of students completed the puzzle and had the correct answers. Yes, we were beat by fourth graders. (Are we smarter than a fifth grader? Probably not.) I'm not going to lie, it was slightly humiliating. Especially since when Jessica and I finished the puzzle a few minutes later, the winning team was already eating their doughnuts and also received the privilege of checking our answers. Sure, we were correct, but we were only in second place. I can still envision the shaggy-haired kid's smug reaction: "We beat you, and you're in college." He had Boston cream filling on his fingers; Boston cream doughnuts are my favorite, thus adding insult to injury. I contemplated replying with the schoolyard retort, "First is the worst, second is the best." For second place, we received candy bars, which I felt obligated to accept. While we could have denied first place citing an obvious advantage, it felt wrong to deny a runner-up prize when we had been put in our place.

Surprisingly, our defeat was not the most horrifying part of our visit. Over the course of the class, Mr. Somebody revealed himself to be a fairly rotten human being. At first I made excuses for him since he was being so nice to us, but he was rude, condescending, and had no problem speaking disparagingly of his students right in front of them. They're fourth graders, not dogs, they know when you're insulting their intelligence -- and clearly, given our loss at the logic puzzle, this bunch was fairly bright.

One conversation I still recall went as follows:
Mr. Somebody: "Have you ever been to China?"
Jessica & Kevin: "No."
Mr. Somebody: "Tina* here is from China."
Tina: "I'm from Taiwan."
Mr. Somebody: "She doesn't know English; she's been here a year."
Tina: "About nine months."

I smiled at Tina trying to convey how much I was on her team. Here was her asshole teacher knowing very little about her and putting down her English skills. Somehow, probably in spite of her teacher, she understood and spoke enough to correct his ignorance. She seemed tenacious and smart enough to not let him hold her back.

Later, Mr. Somebody told us he bought a piece of land in Wyoming so that he can move there in two years once he retires because "there's no taxes and everybody there speaks English." I couldn't even muster a fake smile. If the act of speaking English is so important to him, he's in the wrong profession, or, at least in the wrong location. Southern California has a significant English language learning population, particularly in its youth. I suppose I can envision how he found himself in this situation, however. Having taught in this affluent community for the past forty years, he probably started out with only white, English native speakers. Over time, though, as racial and class lines have blurred in the area, his classroom, with only a couple of Caucasian kids, has turned into a racially and linguistically diverse environment. Understandably, that gradual transformation would be disheartening to a bigoted person. I almost pitied him, but not nearly as much as I did his students who unjustly earned his scorn. If ever an opportunity to grant someone early retirement for the sake of the community, this one was it. Then again, considering the principal decided it would be best of all of eir staff to showcase this individual, this institution was probably either oblivious or uncaring to this situation.

Before it was time for recess and for us to leave, the kids did a math worksheet about involving subtracting numbers with decimals. Not to brag, but I rocked that one, and wanted to compare progress with the first place kids from the previous activity. In the meantime, Mr. Somebody did a sample problem, but forget that he had borrowed a one, thereby getting the incorrect answer. But he didn't notice, and if the kids noticed, they sure as hell didn't say anything, and Jessica and I sat there horrified, knowing we technically aren't supposed to say anything while doing observations. So we watched as the kids copied down the problem incorrectly, and realized why our country's students perform so pitifully at math. I'd like to think that, quietly, Tina wrote down the problem correctly, resolving to one day be a better teacher than Mr. Somebody.