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Previous issue's column | May/June
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William
and I
Teaching and learning in West Philadelphia.
By Sarah Blackman

William
thinks that all the ground in the world is made of cement and blacktop,
interrupted by a few weeds in the sidewalk cracks and scattered with some
bits of glass you have to look out for. A metal fence wraps around his
schools playground, sectioning it off from a parking lot. I was once
a second grader, like William is now, and the playground of my rural school
was bordered by the edge of a forest.
When
I was in second grade, I read The Secret Garden; now that William
is in second grade, he needs help with The Cat in the Hat, which
is why we know each other. In the tiny library of his school, a 15-minute
walk from Penn, we sound words out together and learn lots of vocabulary,
though William knows many words that barely existed in the world I grew
up in: My mom took Greyhound to see my sister, he says. His class goes
on field trips to farms outside the city; my second-grade class went to
Harrisburg, to us the biggest city in the world.
Whenever
I see William, I imagine him at my old elementary school, awed by the
space and the trees, playing on all the fun equipment in our cluster of
slides and monkey bars. I like to imagine showing him how the bark peels
on a birch tree, and asking him if he remembers path, a word he
didnt know in a story we once read. Id love to watch him follow a path
in the woods: You see? Much different from a sidewalk, Id say. And
then I remember that my fantasies are bigoted, that no one asked for me
to assume he is missing out on anything. All they asked me to do was teach
him to read.
William
and I both think that our second-grade teachers are the nicest ladies
in the world. Mine kept pet mice in a fish tank and let the class name
them; Williams teacher steps on the mice and roaches that creep into
their classroom, saving the day and calming the squeals.
William
is much more conscious in company than I was at seven. He often asks me
how my weekend was before I have a chance to ask him first, startling
me with his maturity. He has brothers, sisters, and cousins of all ages
in West Philadelphia, and hence an unexpectedly sharp ability to estimate
the mentality of a 19-year old. He implicitly knows that I no longer play
with toys yet am too young to have children his age. I, on the other hand,
spoke in a sing-song voice when first introduced, and said, Sarah wants
you to pick out some books. I had expected a baby, but William is no
baby. Having no younger brothers and sisters myself, I have stopped trying
to figure out what a seven-year old is and have defaulted to speaking
as I would to a friend, which, I must say, is working quite well.
I
know that William is excited because his mother is getting married, though
he says he fell asleep in his church while she was making arrangements;
however, William doesnt know that when I was in second grade, my mother
stood in the kitchen and cried over the telephone because she was getting
divorced. I hadnt been to church since I was too small to remember. Second
grade was my last year in the school next to the pine trees because after
that we had a new house, where I would read in the bedroom I shared with
my mother.
I
am always very happy when I arrive at Williams school, when the guard
signs me in, when I poke my head into his classroom and ask his teacher
if he can come read with me. I am the one bubbling with childish elation
when we head downstairs to the library together. William shows his attachment
to me in quieter ways: I once said to him, I hope talking about vowels
today didnt bore you too much. And he laughed at me, shaking his head
at my insecurity and saying, Never, Sarah. Sometimes William is not
as simple as I am.
William
and I are nearly 12 years apart. He interrupts my explanation of the Silent
e Rule to tell me how much he hopes to go to Chuck E. Cheese on
his birthday. I recently bought a book to give him, which is now on my
desk, awaiting the inscription I hesitate to write. It makes me nervous
to think that, when he is my age, what I write in the inside cover of
his book might be a large part of his memory of me. Should I tell him
that learning to read is a great accomplishment? Should I wish him good
luck, or is there something more substantial to be said? There is a lot
of pressure in knowing that parts of you will be caught in the web of
someones childhood memory, preserved within the mix of ancient voices
and images. And maybe someday, when William is older, he too will wonder
whether I remember him.
William,
who is about to turn eight, says his real dad is the boss of a fast-food
store. When I turned eight, my mother became a cook in a school cafeteria.
She always wanted me to go to college, and I hope Williams parents have
the same idea in mind for him. Since I have had a chance to find out that
the world is not all the same as the countryside, I want William also
to have a chance to explore a little, to be able to move wherever he wants,
even though hell always compare the country to home in the city. I feel
good knowing that his learning to read will have something to do with
his enjoyment of his life, and I hope he knows that teaching him has had
a lot to do with my enjoyment of mine.
Sarah Blackman
is a sophomore English major from Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Previous issue's column | May/June
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