Our Boy
by
Jeff Stimpson © 2005
Jill and I have met Alex's teacher. It was nearly
Thanksgiving before we met her, a lapse largely due to Ned starting
kindergarten this year, which sapped all our attention. Plus, Alex
seemed to doing well in second grade, almost on auto-pilot, at least
to tell from the notes of this teacher, Jane (not her real name).
Jane wasn't supposed to be his teacher this year;
Alex was transferred into her class a week into the school year for
some reason we never figured out. Her class also had an extra kid
because somebody in the Bronx got some kind of variance. The New
York City Department of Education operates a lot like the U.S. Army.
"We will have seven children in our class, which
as you may know is one over the amount I'm supposed to have," Jane
wrote on September 29th. "I'm trying to get extra help, but you know
how that goes. Anyway, Alex is right at home in this class. He knows
where everything is better than I do. I have to tell him to put away
the materials of one activity before starting another. His answer is
'Okay okay okay!' He makes me laugh."
"I took a great picture of Alex experimenting with
magnets," she later wrote. "He kept trying to shake off the objects
the magnets were picking up."
Experimenting? I liked that. Real students
"experiment" in class.
October 6: "Alex is a good boy in school. He likes
to empty every book off the shelves, but we make him put them back."
November 1: "Alex loves our pop-up play school,
but he wants it in the front of the room only. He's so funny!"
November 17: "Today we asked Alex what he wanted
to play with: the ball, or soccer, or jumping. Alex said, 'Relax!'"
Jane also bought a copy of Alex, making me like her a whole
lot. "I'm going to ask Alex to sign my copy. Alex also loves to
potato chips. He couldn't eat them fast enough. He said, 'More
please' and 'Thank you, Jane.'"
I've been anxious to see Jane's class, in which
Alex engages in such new activities as yoga. It's difficult to
imagine Alex going, "Ooooommmmm," let alone sitting for any length
of time in that pretzel position. But it's apparently part of his
blossoming secret life at school.
We get there just in time for our appointment,
while Alex is down the hall in the cafeteria for lunch. Jane shows
us the book area, which she says Alex keeps going toward. She finds
a scrap of potato chip near the beanbag chair. "See?" she says,
holding it up. "Alex was here!"
A teacher for many years, Jane used to work with
more physically handicapped kids. This is her first year with kids
like Alex in her classroom, which she has arranged so that each
child -- all boys -- has his own desk in a slightly secluded
position. Something about the room feels big, and I definitely get
the idea Alex has moved on from first grade. The bookshelves are
neat (despite Alex), the art hung straight, and everybody has his
daily tasks spelled out on little cards velcroed to a strip near the
door: Lunch, Math, Sweeping, Straightening Bookshelves (Alex's job),
and Relax. (Hey, "Relax!").
"It was so funny," says Jane. "The other day, Alex
gave us all a heart attack. We were out in the hall and all of a
sudden he just ran bolting for the doors. We were all running after
him screaming, 'Alex! No! Stop!' But he ran straight to the doors
and stopped. Then he carefully closed one, then he carefully closed
the other!
"If I look thin," she adds, "it's because I'm on
the Alex Diet."
She shows us the music station, where Alex wears
fat headphones, and the pop-up school house, where Jane says Alex
likes to hide with a book and toys. She lifts it up, and I see his
couple of Legos are still there, along with a book. "I keep the door
up," she says, indicating the flap on the front of the schoolhouse,
"but you know what Alex does?" Jane lets the flap down dramatically.
We talk about the progress he's made in just the last six months,
including his toilet training and that he now drinks liquid vitamins
and medicine without a struggle.
Alex is due back any minute, and Jill and I feel
it will distract him too much if he finds us here. As we gather our
stuff to leave, Jane shows me the copy of Alex,; on the
flyleaf, Alex has scrawled "ABCD..." I confirm for her that Alex can
also write his name.
"Oh I know," Jane says. "I'm very proud of my
boys." Pause. "They're my boys when they're here. I'm
sorry..."
Copyright 2005 Jeff Stimpson, all rights reserved
