Falling Down Again

I went to a baby shower a few days ago for Amie, the special-ed teacher who shares my classroom and co-teaches two of my ninth grade English classes. Fifteen special education students are in one of these classes of thirty-two students, and we have gotten pretty good at playing "good cop/bad cop" in the two years we have been partnered. I am fire and Amie is earth. I have never met anyone quite like her, so genuinely compassionate and uninterested in promoting herself. The administration of course, doesn't know what they have in their staff, and doesn't see her rare qualities: pure motive and a kind heart.

One day a student named Rance, who is on Amie's "caseload", fell out of his chair (who knows?) and hit his head. Rance, a bit of a nerd, to say the least, is totally unappreciated by his peers in middle school, but Amie and I find him perceptive and witty and bright. When James, an attention-guzzling, morbidly obese, at-risk gangster-wannabe who sits behind him had the ill-bred nerve to laugh at Rance's misfortune, I lost it. I got in James' face, telling him if he ever laughed at another student in my classroom again I would have him in the office so fast it would make his head spin. (Later I thought "make your head snap" might have been more effective. God! Where do these things come from? I am such a movie whore.)

After class Amie and I sat at our desks eating lunch and I fumed about James' behavior. Amie, of course, put it in perspective. James laughed because he always draws attention to misfortune. It started with him making fun of his weight before other people got the chance. He fends off his peers attacks on him by attacking himself first, and it crosses over to other people, too.

Later I hear Amie talking to James about his grandmother, who was rushed to the hospital the night before, unable to breathe. James lives with his grandma, and he uses the phone in our classroom, but he can't reach anyone. He doesn't know where he will live if his grandma dies. No one else in the family wants him. Amy tells him everything is going to be all right. She is sure his grandma will be fine.

At Amie's shower the women talk about boob jobs and home decorating tips and husbands and kids, and I try to practice being open and uncritical. It is quite hard, and I quickly find myself in the basement with an 8-year-old, one of the teacher's sons, playing the drum set happily until "they" (the teachers) come down and tell us to leave it alone.

Finally it is time to gather in the living room for "the opening of gifts". (Which, I am happy for Amie, but why do people need all of this equipment for a baby? My babies lived on breast milk and slept beside me. I didn't even have a baby bed! But I don't think my peers would appreciate that.) Watching the very pregnant Amie struggle to remove tape from a large box, I quickly pushed up off the stool to help, forgetting I wasn't in a chair and it had no back. I fell backward and there was a mortifying silence in the room at that moment when, hovering in mid-air, I realized there was no turning back. In the ugly aftermath I heard a teacher exclaim, "Is she all right?!"

The next day at school I ask Amie if she enjoyed her shower. She is thankful for all the gifts and is feeling like she is ready to have the baby. I laugh at myself and I tell her I can't believe I fell down! (Although of course I CAN believe it. It has gotten to be routine with me.) She looks at me and says, "My mom thinks you are beautiful. She was surprised that you are so beautiful because she had these ideas about people who teach alternative ed." I mumble, "I don't feel beautiful," but I glance up at Amie, appreciating her magic. I am already feeling better about myself.