The Last Day of School

Tomorrow is the last day of school for my sons, Aaron and Isaac. For Aaron, it will be his last day at the Bank Street School for Children as a student: he graduates from the 8th grade and begins attending high school next year. Eons ago I also attended a K-8 school, South Loop in Ysleta. Recently, on a radio show from El Paso, I even sang the South Loop Eagles fight song. I remembered every word.

Why do K-8 schools hold this special place in our hearts? For one thing, you are old enough, when you graduate, to remember many details of your childhood school experience. I remember vaguely what happened in 4th and 5th grades, but I remember almost everything about 7th and 8th grades.

Interestingly enough, I don’t remember a single day of freshman year at Ysleta High. I think I was in shock. I was suddenly surrounded by older, more sophisticated high school kids. The girls were sexy, but I was intimidated. The boys were bigger and tougher than me. I just didn’t want to make a fool of myself. I looked like a Mexican Donny Osmond. Remember, it was 1979.

But at South Loop the previous year, I had been an eighth grader, at the top of the heap. I knew what was what. I also did not face the social pressures I would later face at Ysleta High. I think this is one great advantage of K-8 schools. The kids, especially in the latter grades, are protected for two extra years from pernicious high school influences.

At Bank Street, I believe, Aaron has had that extra time to develop his own sense of self. He will be ready when he is tested in high school, and I don’t just mean by his more difficult academic workload. In high school, if you know who you are, if you have a sense of what you want and what you don’t want, you will be more likely to have and keep the right priorities.

My walk to South Loop was two blocks, over a canal, and briefly into the neighborhood Calavera before entering the school’s gates. Aaron takes the uptown No. 1 subway in front of our building on Broadway, three stops, before he walks into Bank Street. He has faced more immediate dangers than I ever did, from taxis which zip across the intersection heedless of the red light to incoherent, disheveled men screaming at phantoms only they can see.

Aaron is a responsible young man, and he has managed New York City well. His high school is but eight blocks from our house, so his commute will be a breeze next fall. He will encounter a strange new world. But I know we have given him the skills and encouraged him to be independent so that he will be able to solve his own problems. Whatever he cannot figure out, we will solve together as a family.

My younger son Isaac began to come home from Bank Street by himself this year. Minutes after 3:00 p.m. every day, I look at my cell phone and wait for my boys to call me, to tell me they are on their way home. I anxiously await the buzz of our doorbell for their arrival. The sound for me means another safe journey through the streets successfully completed. Perhaps another good practical lesson learned for the future. Another day of skill enhanced by good luck.

Even after their school days are only distant memories, I will never stop worrying about my boys in the world.

Praise for Teachers Past and Present

We have just finished an exhausting process: deciding which school our fourteen-year-old would attend for high school. In New York City this is a crazy process, in part because of the incredible choices you have: specialized and selective public schools, and private schools with a variety of unique cultures. As we discussed and debated the different choices my son Aaron had, I was reminded of how important teachers have been in my life, and how the teachers at the Bank Street School for Children, Aaron and Isaac’s current K-8 school, are transforming them into the accomplished young men they are today.

In grade school, at South Loop School over thirty years ago, Mr. Preston Smith taught me I could be someone I had not yet envisioned myself. Mr. Smith was a math teacher who encouraged me to join the Number Sense club, when I was a fat kid who just wanted to be left alone. I won three gold medals in citywide competition (that’s more or less me in my short story, “The Snake”). This feat astonished me, and embarrassed me, for I really did not like the attention, and even got me into an argument with the principal, who sternly ‘encouraged’ me to donate the medals for the school’s trophy case. I said no. He said he’d call my parents. But nobody could ever convince me to give up my medals. I wasn’t just fat; I was stubborn.

Mrs. Dolores Vega taught me to be a proud Mexicano. Every Friday in her third-grade class, she would force all the kids to dance cumbias. ‘Force’ is not quite the right word; the girls would jump up and dance with Mrs. Vega, and some of the more suave boys would dance too, to show off their moves. She would not take no for an answer, and it made you feel good about yourself when you finally said yes to Mrs. Vega. I have never met a more consistently exuberant teacher who worked so hard for you to experience the true joy of who you were.

Mrs. Pearl Crouch and Mrs. Josie Gutierrez Kinard, at Ysleta High School, were my mentors in Publications. They taught me how to be a good writer of fierce editorials aimed at teachers and the school administration. How? By never accepting anything less than written arguments that were precise and provable. By showing me the meaning of integrity when they stood behind me, even when they came under pressure from the powers-that-be. By expanding my horizons: I first visited San Francisco and New York City with them to attend scholastic writing competitions. I did not know the fancy neighborhoods of El Paso, but I had seen “A Chorus Line” on Broadway and dined at Sardi’s.

At Bank Street, Aaron and Isaac have also experienced classroom after classroom with dedicated, insightful teachers. The School for Children is part of Bank Street College of Education, which is a school that trains teachers. But how do you capture the essence of a place where teaching about children, and children, and how they learn, their voices, their art, their music, are at the center of each day? Bank Street is a remarkable place. I see it reflected in Aaron and Isaac. They sit patiently to work on their homework; they discuss important subjects at the dinner table; they repeatedly ask why, and can offer plausible answers that delve deep into their own selves. Aaron and Isaac are not perfect, but I have little doubt that they will be good citizens in whatever community they decide to call their home.

Even I have learned from Bank Street. I do not think I was a good father when Aaron first attended school as a three-year-old. I was learning to be a parent on the fly; I was exhausted by my many responsibilities; I was too gruff, instead of being focused on understanding the world from my child’s point of view. My essay “The Father is in the Details” recounts my struggle to be a better parent. But I wanted to learn; I am excellent at adapting; I am a sponge. So I paid attention to how successive Bank Street teachers reached my children, how they handled questions, how they listened. Over time, I received as much of an education from Bank Street as my children did.

John Womack. Terry Karl. Maurice Natanson. Laurie Ryan. Karsten Harries. Juwanna Newman. And so many more I have not mentioned. To all those teachers who dedicate themselves to their important work every day, thank you.