Story #21: My Boys

This story is the follow-up to Hanging With My Boys. It's been lingering in draft form, as has much of my life it feels like, and is now being published about two weeks later. So no, I did not just get over having strep. That was awhile ago. But this story is still worth sharing. Read on...




When I finally got back to school after being out most of the week, marooned on my couch with strep throat and hulu.com, I went right away at lunch to find my boys. They were...playing four-square.

Huh?

"Hey guys, I missed you!" I said, coming up to them on the yard. The four-square ball bounced away, forgotten, as all six of them (or is it eight? There's so many and they kind of swarm so it's hard to tell) ran over to hug me at once.

"Teacher!" one of them said accusingly, "Where you been? Why you not been at school? You know what you always tell us--we gots to come EVERY day if we want to learn! That means you too, Teacher. What up?"

"Oh," I said, "I know, you're right. It IS important to come to school every day so that you can learn. And I should come to school every day too, but I was really sick. I had an infection in my throat and a fever and I had to stay home for two whole days. It was really boring. What's been happening while I was gone? I see you're playing four-square today."

The boys all started squirming and looking at the ground. One of them started poking their unofficial spokesperson. "YOU tell her," the poke-er whispered.

"Okay, well, um, so, you see, it's like this," the spokesperson said, jamming his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and avoiding my gaze. "We were doing Kung-Fu fighting without you and, well, we got in trouble."

My heart sank. "You got in TROUBLE?" I asked, incredulously. "From who?" I felt awful that they would have gotten reprimanded for something I specifically arranged with them.

"From (insert name of an administrator here), she told us fake fighting is like real fighting and she made us sit on the bench for an entire recess and said we can't do it no more so now we play four-square and we ain't been in any trouble since then," he explained.

This is such bad news, I thought. I can't believe they got in trouble for something I not only told them they could do, but something for which I helped them create a set of guidelines. Oh, no.

"Well, did you tell her that I told you you could and I helped you make up rules to keep it safe?" I asked.

"NO, oh no," the spokesperson responded as they all shook their heads adamantly. "We would never do that to you, Teacher, cuz you would've got in trouble too for telling us we could. We would never get you in trouble because we know you care about us and because you look out for us."

Stunned into silence and totally humbled, I hugged them goodbye and sent them back to play four-square. So this is the street mentality, I realized--protect the one who protects you, always. They could have been spared losing their recess, they would not have had to spend an entire day on the bench if they just would have told the administrator who got them into trouble that this had all been my idea. She would have come talked to me, and I would have confessed that it was a stupid idea and that I should not have done it in the first place--encouraged a group of Fifth Grade boys to do Kung-Fu fighting at recess!--and everyone would have been fine and we would have moved on. But my boys stayed silent to keep me out of trouble and now they are playing four-square.

I really need to think about this.