When I was grieving the loss of my parents I used to get so angry at folks who said that parents are never supposed to lose their children. I always felt as if it were a slap at those of us who had lost our parents– that our loss wasn’t as grave as the other. Losing a parent isn’t severe or devastating, is what I thought I heard them say. I’ve started to understand the statement more, especially since Thanksgiving 2011, when a college friend alerted me to the fact that a former high school student of mine was gravely ill as a result of metastatic melanoma.

Teachers aren’t supposed to lose their students.

I first met Joey Stevens (as I knew him) when I taught English and French at Symmes Valley High School in Willow Wood, Ohio. I had just finished my M.A. at the University of Texas at Austin, and I thought I was the cat’s pajamas. I seriously thought this school was so lucky to have me. After all, the principal had to look up what a vita was! Of course they were lucky to have me. They were lucky to have my erudite ways; my education; my sense of right and wrong… Can you sense my arrogance? I was a tad too sure of myself, not only for my own good, but for my students’ good. In reality, I needed Symmes Valley, not the other way around. I needed them to teach me how to teach; to help me learn how to learn. They were my teachers.

I don’t know when I really keyed into Joe. I noticed other students earlier. I started paying attention to Abe when he gave me a watercolor he’d done of Grendel’s mother in art class. I noticed Rachel when she set herself apart in her French I class, as the brightest student in the room. Joey? It was probably that day when I commented on Abe’s Dead Kennedys t-shirt. I couldn’t help myself. Here in this tiny, conservative, rural school was a kid wearing a Dead Kennedys t-shirt! “I like your shirt,” is all I said, but I could practically hear the reverberations between that trio of friends– Abe, Joey, and Jesse. It was as if they were telepathically saying to each other: What? Her? She likes the Dead Kennedys? What the fuck? I was in. I think I could’ve persuaded them to break all kinds of laws that year, but I used my influence for good, not evil. Those three guys became ‘my boys’ in the sense that I wanted them to succeed and get out of the stringent communities they were tied to. If they wanted to stay in Lawrence County, so be it, but I wanted it to be their choice to stay, not their lack of opportunity to leave.

About halfway through the school year I remember checking out at the Pick-N-Save grocery store and there was Joe at the end of the lane bagging up my groceries. I remembering being horribly embarrassed as I realized I had bought alcohol–albeit sad, pathetic wine coolers. How could I? I had tainted my credibility and authority with the class valedictorian by buying alcohol. Now granted I was perfectly within my right to buy such spirits, but still… How could I? If I remember correctly, Joe was grinning as he bagged my groceries. No matter the grin, I refused to do any imbibing the rest of the year.

When I think of Joe, two memories come quickly to mind. The first was a certain poem he wrote for and about me. In my arrogant first-year-teacher mode I decided I would bring some ‘culture’ to SVHS and so we started a ‘literary journal.’ Believe me, much liberty was taken with that title. When I think about the interview I gave for the yearbook about the ‘journal’… remember when I said I was arrogant? Joe wrote a poem entitled “S.V. Queen” about a certain new British Literature teacher he had and submitted it to The Voice. Not only was the poem selected for publication, it was voted the best poem in the journal. Imagine, if you will, a full gymnasium at the end of the year awards ceremony. Imagine, if you will, a certain young man taking to the lectern to read his masterpiece. Imagine, if you will, a photograph of that moment: Joe, in the center reading aloud. Principal Hankins, to Joe’s left, laughing at the moment, while that teacher was to Joe’s right looking at the ceiling, shaking her head.

My final memory of Joe as a high school student was his valedictorian speech. Joe wanted to ‘stick it to the man’ in his speech. In part, he wanted to call out all of the small minds that had never thought much of him, that had ignored him outright, or ignored him with their pettiness. He knew that the salutatorian was going to proselytize and play the holier-than-thou card he constantly carried in his back pocket. Joe wanted to quote his punk hero, Jello Biafra, in the speech. I remember reading the first draft and trying to get Joe to bring it down a notch. Graduation really wasn’t the time to give the school and community the middle finger. Don’t let them have the upper hand; Go out with class; You’re better than they are– you name it, I said it to Joe. He kept the Biafra quotation in, and now looking back, I’m glad. Besides, half of that audience didn’t even get it. But Joe did and that’s what counts.

In all honesty, I don’t even know what to say. I guess part of the reason why I wanted to memorialize Joe this way was to simply make the speech act that he existed and he mattered.

One of the teaching moments I remember most was in the spring when we read “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray. To this day, it’s one of my favorite poems because of the experience I had teaching it in the classroom overlooking State Route 141.  I explained that the poem testifies, that for most of us, death means obscurity since we will be forgotten by those who come after us. I found myself getting choked up as I reminded the students of the small, old cemetery down the road from the school. How many of us, in that room, knew those in their earthen tombs? As time marches on, we only know them by their headstones. This is my attempt to say that Joe is more than a headstone. He mattered to us, those who knew and cared about him.

Joe died in the early morning hours today. In his final days, he told a friend of his, Alicia Bowling, to look up to the sky after he was gone and she would know he was looking down upon her with his smile. When she went into the world today she saw the image below. It appears as if he’s found his Gilead balm.

The Epitaph

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.

from “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray

Rest in peace, Whitney.

And then there was this trailer for Tim Riggins‘s new movie.

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”  Dorothy Day

—

Why I love Hoop Dreams so…

First of all, I always go back to that scene. That scene where Arthur watches his father buy drugs. I will never forget seeing that for the first time and audibly gasping at the sight. And Arthur motioning to this father with his left hand, as if to say, “Come here!”, where the roles become reversed, where he tries to take care of his father, instead of his father taking care of him. And the way that left hand stays at his forehead as he watches and we watch… it takes my breath away.

I cried several times during the film and even as I was talking about the film with you, I choked up and had to move on before I cried in front of you. How many Arthurs and Williams are there? And we never would’ve known these two boys/young men had it not been for these filmmakers….

The racial politics are firmly at work in this film. The only black college head coach in the film was John Thompson of Georgetown. Yet the workers, the ones upon whom the biggest pressure is put, is the young black male. Ironically, Coach Pingatore kept leveling the insult to the St. Joe players that they weren’t working. Remember the wind sprints as he yells at them for not working and they’re all bent over, sweating, and gasping for breath? That’s why Spike’s ‘lecture’ about the politics of college athletics is so compelling. On the one hand, it’s a good thing that the Nike All-American Camp directors invited him; on the other hand it’s horrible that they would need to do so. And the coaches talking about how they have to get them in grade school… to “get them” before anyone else “gets them” like these boys (and that’s what they are—BOYS) are a possession. And what an irony that Arthur is called “Man” by his family, because he is the man in regards to how much his family depends on him.

I think about Curtis and Bo reliving their basketball hopes and dreams through William and Arthur, fairly and unfairly. William saying “It’s not right for Curtis to put his dreams on top of [him].” And Bo, saying “Junior”, when someone says Arthur’s name, in an attempt to get his name in the spotlight, just the slightest bit. And both of those men are now dead, killed in Chicago. A fate that could very well happen to William and Arthur—after all Arthur was mugged one week before he graduated from high school. That’s why there is a celebration for Arthur turning 18… because unfortunately too many young men in the inner city don’t make it to 18.

And the stereotypes—remember the radio playing “Go the fuck back to Africa/Go the fuck back to Africa/Go the fuck back to Africa” as Arthur cleans his shoes?

Recognizing the faces at the Nike All-American camp that did make it… Three of Michigan’s Fab 5 that won the NCAA championship their freshman year. Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, and Juwan Howard all make an appearance in the film. But they were three of how many? I think of my own nephew who went to that same camp. He’ll never win an NBA championship, but he’s getting a top-notch education because of his skills on the court. What do we do about those that don’t have those skills? How do they get their education?

And Arthur’s mother… when she sobs knowing she got the highest score on the nursing test… Sobbing because she knows that she can get a job. At the graduation, a woman sings “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” as the camera pans the empty seats at the graduation. I agree with movie critic Gene Siskel, that’s where there needed to be cheering crowds—at her graduation, not the basketball games. And I’m sitting there desperately trying not to sob with her at the joy. “He IS watching” Sheila.  He is.

I’m always struck by the power of the metaphor of the empty basketball court. William making a shot with his eyes closed in his empty childhood gymnasium; Arthur lingering after the city championship. Sometimes that silence can be as deafening as cheering throngs.

The parallel stories… William getting all of the praise and attention, yet it is Arthur who actually played professional basketball in the IBA.  It wasn’t the NBA, but he was paid to play basketball.

When Arthur plays his dad in a game of one-on-one, the anger and the years of pain come to the surface and you almost relish Arthur sinking that 30 foot shot–as an all-deserved middle-finger to Bo, yet, I don’t hate Bo.  I was a jumble of emotions just like those involved. And what about Curtis who’s unable to make the baskets he once was able to? You see his blank face and know that his mind is probably, unfortunately, numb as well.

And their struggle with basic education vs. my own privilege of getting into college.  Ten plus years ago, the ACT changed their testing procedures so that the average score went from around a 16 to a 20.  I think about William’s struggle to get the most basic score. I think about Jon Holman, whom I graduated high school with. He was nothing short of a phenomenal athlete. First team all-state in football after being an all-state honorable mention the year before; a state champ in wrestling, after finishing third the year before; but not a star pupil.  His chances at a scholarship went out the window. More importantly, without the life skills of a good education (including high school), what opportunities did he have?  I have no idea of what Jon is doing now.  I can’t help but think of A.E. Housman.  …”And the name died before the man.”

I think of the privilege William had throughout… to the point that the encyclopedia lady got his brother Curtis a job.

I think of Arthur and William becoming fathers at an early age and the struggles they are ‘stuck’ with before they even get out of high school.

And I get angry that the film wasn’t nominated for Best Picture or Best Documentary. In one final insult, these young men have to fight to get the highest recognition. It’s not fair and I want that for them, their families, and those filmmakers who spent seven years on this film. The biggest criticism of the film by academy voters… too long. Three hours compared to seven years compared to the lifetimes the ‘characters’ have lived…. It makes me mad even now.

The National Film Registry exists to preserve American films that are significant works of art about the American experience. Films are only eligible 10 years after they were released. In its first year of eligibility, Hoop Dreams was selected to be preserved.  Finally, someone got it right.

It feels a bit odd to be confessing my love for two former students.  Surely that’s a violation of some teacher-student code written somewhere in pedagogical ideology.  Should I emphasize that these are former students?  Does that free up some emotional space, some emotional appropriateness?  I admit that I’m always one to carefully look twice before I cross the road from teacher-student relationship into teacher-student friendship.  In this age of 24/7 access, I used to have a very strict policy against social media connections amongst current students and very few students were ever given my cell phone number.  I have colleagues that give their cell phone numbers out to students all the time and have scores of current students follow them on twitter, facebook, and allow students to call them by their first name.  Is this student-teacher bff-dom a sign of the times and I’m horribly outdated?  I have no earthly idea.

Social media has certainly allowed a new era of student-teacher relationships to emerge, that is for certain.  Now, students can ‘find’ you years, months, or days after graduation and reconnect.  I must say that each time it happens, I am so flattered– flattered at the prospect that a former student thinks enough of me that they want to stay connected rather than cutting the bookbag strings and staying as far away as possible.  These two students, that have been on my mind, fall into that ‘flattery’ category.

I’m always struck by that moment when former students move from the Miss, Professor, or Doctor Darnell relationship into an  Amy Darnell relationship.  Sometimes when they call me by my first name it’s awkward for both of us.  For me, it’s as if I expect Mr. Hankins, Dean Van Tassel, or Dr. Brouder, or some other administrator to be nearby and I can’t stand the thought of disappointing.  (I have a bit of a Catholic guilt problem and I’m not Catholic.)  Other times I tell them that plenty of time has passed and I think it’s good if they no longer call me “Professor.”

Interestingly I don’t think either of these students hesitated a second calling me by my first name.  I can’t say that it was a surprise.  Hearing one of them call me “Honey,” well, that one took me by surprise and I attributed it to some really good medicine.

As a communication teacher and practitioner I can’t help but think about the linguistic relativity of it all.  Surely, the name we put on things, on people determines the ways in which we think about that thing, that person.  I don’t know that I’ve ever gotten away from this concept my entire life.  My family always referred to my brothers by their formal first names, but all of their friends called them by their shortened nicknames.  To this day, I’m not sure I really know who Mike and Phill are.  I have students that offer up really casual nicknames to me on the first day of class and as I told one young woman, “That’s a bit too intimate for me.  I’ll stick with your first name.”  So, am I letting my profession down when I move from Miss Darnell to Amy or “Honey”?  Am I letting down my one-time student if I take a breath of air when she moves beyond Professor to call me Amy?  I can only remember a handful of former students referring to my parents by their first names.  Is it merely a different time?  Is it the difference between high school and college? Is it really about that frou-frou topic of love?  That once we start to care for students and students begin to care about their teachers, that we change the names with which we refer to people?  Titles don’t necessarily breed the deepest concern and care.

I’m not sure I have an answer.  All I know is that to J.S. and H.B., I wish you only best.  The best is simply karmic reciprocity.  Be well.

Love,  Amy