I’ve been digging through some old files and journals, and I came across this old piece I wrote back in 2002 while living in New York City and working in The Bronx:

We are all sitting in the classroom. Above the door it says 169 and it is crossed out and written in pen it says 171. It used to be the math teacher’s lounge but space is tight, so now it is our classroom. The room is at Stevenson High School on Lafayette Ave. in the bronx. We would capitalize it but it doesn’t feel like a place that should be capitalized. It is usually gray and usually brings you down a few notches no matter how good your mood. But here in room 171 things seem to be okay today. The sun has been absent a few days, but being that we are on the ground floor we don’t see much of him anyway. The desks are in a circle and we are looking at each other and are trying to break the code and find out how we can all communicate. Some of us are from Bangladesh, some from Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Ghana, Iran, Venezuela, China and New York City. We don’t all know each other’s names and most of us don’t know what fills the heads of our neighbors. They sit there they have a look of fatigue we can relate to, so we think that they must also being living this life. Usually the desks are set up in fours, we sit next to strangers and we write and read the things they put in front of us. Some of it interests us, some of it bores us. We have been reading Lord Of The Flies. Today there are two pieces of paper in front of us. They say that we have to put ourselves into groups and discuss a list of problems we face everyday, in shitty schools and hard lives. He wants us to talk to each other. He wants me to talk to the Bengali girl who is always sleeping. He has a lot of nerve. But we do sometimes wonder what their lives are like? Because we sometimes feel this way, we read the papers.

He is sitting on his next Indian style writing furiously, which is curious because nothing is happening. We want to say something. But the people who are always talking are talking. They seem a bit sad. The teacher says that we all lead difficult lives and that our surrounding influence our behavior. He says that people, all of us, crave attention, maybe its called love, maybe something else, but we all want to be notice. He says sometimes when we don’t get this love we act out so that someone may notice us. He says every criminal has been mistreated. He doesn’t need to tell us this, we know. We are brighter than we act. We want to speak. We don’t, not yet. The spotlight is never big enough to include all of us.

image by David Reeves

He tells us that we have to realize where we are and what we have to do, to go to other places. He tells us the world is huge and that there are many songs we have never heard, and foods we have never eaten and lives we have never lived. He says that in order to get there we have to learn the rules of the game we are playing. He says that by learning to talk in turn and get things done, we can ignore all the rules and be free. He says that if don’t we will always watch people beating the shit out of each other in all the hallways of our lives. Up in the bronx the trains are never quiet. Up here we have been abandon. He says we should see everybody’s point of view so we can find our place in the universe. Sometimes he says things that we don’t understand but they don’t seem that difficult to learn.

Our minds are drifting. We are talking about the book. He says that people who can’t deal with authority need to be talked to, not disciplined. He says that they just need some one to listen. He knows because he says that when he was younger he had a hard time dealing with authority. We don’t like being talked to like we are animals. It feels nice when people hear us, even when the world is so loud. It feels nice to be spotted in the gray. We want to solve our own problems but it has been hard. We come form everywhere. We are fighting against forces beyond our control. He tells us this, but we know that life can’t be this hard unless, people are actively pushing us down. We see the TV, others are happier. Others have more. He tells us that we need to fight but we can’t fight the way we are. He says that we must be the next wave. We must educate our children. He says books will help. Forming our ideas will help. He says language is power and we have to understand sentences like, “he mired in his own irrelevance.” That’s a line from the book he brought. A fat boy who is smart but ignored says it. He says that we all have an id and sometimes it gets out of control. He tells us to look outside and see it in action. The other day we saw a boy hit another across the jaw with a lock and kick him when he fell. We didn’t know what that was called, but we knew what it was. Now we know that when the id gets out of control people break jaws.

He says we should trust him. “ I won’t let you done. If you need someone please come talk to me.” Others have said that and they have let us done every time. Some of us are 18 and we can’t write. We don’t want to be mechanics, we want to be Marines. He tells us that there is nothing wrong with that but we should make sure that we have choices. Not all of us want this. Some of us want to travel and see the world. Some of us want to experience things we have never seen. He says that we have to make sure we all work together. He says that until we teach the criminals none of us will be safe. He says that we need to listen. He talks a lot. We listen. We have no choice us they say we have to be here. But it beats what the other ones are saying. He seems to really be into being with us. It feels good.