Monsters in the Classroom
The marker squeaks as I drag it across the board. My students are poised behind me, pencils and papers ready. They have a simple assignment: write down as many words as they can think of that describes who they are. While they write, I write. Tit for tat. Lead by example. I begin my list:
Teacher
Woman
White
Appalachian
Poor
Educated
I pause and look around the room. My students now get the idea and have started to write their own lists. I take a deep breath and keep going.
Feminist
Liberal
Fat
Depressed
Atheist
A few students go ‘huh’ at the last one, but then go back to writing. I see a few of them jot down Christian on their list. One student writes down Muslim. Another student writes down something, then erases it and replaces it with a question mark.
One more beat and I raise the marker again. In a steady hand, I finish my list.
Queer
I look at the word on the board, black standing out against white, and carefully erase the smudge I made of the ‘Q’ and rewrite it. I’m wasting time, but I am about to discover something heavy, weighty about my students. When I turn around, I will see who trusts me and who now doesn’t. I place the cap back on the marker, count a beat of five in my head, and turn around. The students now have a clear view of the board.
I see one student in the back smile, grin wide and teeth showing, before ducking their head back down to their list. We’ve shared a secret, something between the two of us, a mental handshake. I see you there, we both say without words. I focus on their grin instead of the student now looking at me in disgust.
