(D)e Pluribus Unum (From many, one)

When DeJohn enters the room two minutes after the bell, he becomes a “class.” It is the way we talk and think about the basic unit of education, the class and classroom. “I work in a school. I am a classroom teacher.” The class has a life of its own, and when we talk of a class, when debating education, it is a monolithic animal whose entire purpose is to learn. It’s easy to sermonize about transforming education or improving instruction when we talk about classes. But classes are a construct that doesn’t exist. DeJohn isn’t a learning machine. His companion entering the classroom is his mother’s illness. He knows about it, but hasn’t been told that it is terminal. His family is being transformed. It’s a secret that I have to respect.

And Jennifer’s father has just entered prison for a minimum of ten years. Scott is grieving over a brother lost in a car accident; Scott was in the car. Jesse just left home to live with an older friend; he is sixteen. Tim was released from the hospital with Stevens Johnson syndrome. Amy is pregnant. Kyle was absent for three days with serious eye damage from a baseball. Kaylana’s father just died. Tyrell’s eighteen year old brother died this summer. Jose’s brother was shot, but went back to gangbanging anyway. Sandra lives in a foster home and has moved twice this year. We are barely six weeks into the school year.

Every class is a puzzle pieced together almost daily, because the picture changes continuously. This isn’t excusing anything. It’s just real. It’s the challenge of being in a room full of people and keeping in mind their humanity. It’s the challenge of understanding that Jesse’s priority today may not be understanding the causes of the Seven Years’ War, but rather the war at home where, yesterday, he found his possessions in a pile in the front yard and had to find a place to land.