Fixing a Desk, Mending a Mind

Chris Mercogliano

We're grateful when difficult children come to us at an early age. They are so much more innocent then, so much less set in their ways. Perhaps this, above all, is why we instituted a preschool program in the first place. Meanwhile, a great many don't find us until they're already in a big mess; like Ronald, who came at the age of twelve with a long history of school troubles, both academic and behavioral.

Big for his age, foul-mouthed and prone to harassing smaller kids, Ronald, thankfully, was not a tough kid. There was still a certain physical softness about him which could also be found on the inside, beneath the veneer of jive talk and intimidation—somewhere in the region of the heart. In other words, the "Yo, don't mess with me!" posturing was just that: a protective mask covering layers of raw, untreated woundings that extended a long way back, maybe even into the womb.

Loss had been Ronald's constant companion. His mother—now fully recovered—was virtually lost to drug addiction for much of his early childhood; then his older brother died when Ronald was seven, and his father not long after that. Then his favorite uncle, very much a godfather figure, died while Ronald was in our school.

What happens to a child who has a lifetime of loss packed into a single, abbreviated childhood? The answer, of course, is never a simple one; and the outcome—whether that boy or girl survives intact or is swallowed up by the same life-denying patterns of existence passed down from previous generations—will be determined by many factors, some originating inside, some coming from outside of the child's home. In Ronald's case, thanks in large part to a gutsy mother who managed to face her demons and reclaim her life and family, and to a new stepfather who is on a similar path, he had not hardened against his pain, and therein lay the source of his salvation. Thankfully, too, Ronald's mother noticed that her son was falling between the cracks, and she was able to search out the right alternative for him before it was too late.

What this deep wounding does to virtually all children, I think, regardless of their circumstances, is to lay them wide open to the influence of the worst aspects of the popular culture. This was so obvious with Ronald. When I actually listened to what he was saying when he was running his mouth, I realized the words came straight from the latest gansta rap hit. His presenting attitudes and mannerisms were right off the street corner. Once, he even showed up with an old, worn out pager on his belt for a few days; and when he realized that no one was the least bit impressed, it disappeared just as suddenly.

Meanwhile, most of the time the real Ronald was hiding just out of sight, very easy to spot if only you knew where to look. He appeared at first glance to be a stereotypically "hyperactive" kid—impulsive, aggressive, short attention span, the whole nine yards. But when I observed him even for just a moment or two when he was tired (fortunately, his battery did run down from time to time), I could easily see the depression, the grief, the pain, the fear, the anger, and the disappointment from which all of his hyper-activity serves to distract him—and others. As is the case with any good magician, three-quarters of Ronald's act was simply a diversion to lure the eyes away from what is really going on.

None of this is to say that Ronald was a dishonest child; in fact, when push came to shove he was perhaps the most honest person in his class. Though he didn't quite realize it yet, his pain had been his teacher for a long time. It had deepened him and given him thoughts about things of which most kids have only scratched the surface. The other kids appreciated this about Ronald and it helped them to tolerate his all-too-frequent bouts of obnoxiousness.

The repair work to Ronald's heart began the day he entered our school. Actually, it probably began the day Ronald's mother decided to take hold of her life again; but I can only tell the part which I was around to witness as one of Ronald's teachers. It began when we told him that he was free to do as he pleased in school, as long as he was respectful and didn't violate the rights or sensibilities of others. It began when we told his parents that he might go an entire year without doing any apparent schoolwork, but not to worry because he was a perfectly intelligent and capable child who would be more than able to catch up academically as soon as he chose to invest himself in the process. And it began with Ronald coming to school every day because he wanted to and not because he had to.

Even today, after all these years, I still sometimes find myself stopping to wonder how we could possibly tell a boy who was a certified failure by conventional school standards and who was years behind academically (again by conventional school standards) that he didn't have to do any schoolwork. And where do we find the hutzpah to ask his parents not to worry about the academic progress of a twelve year-old whom they have been told for years is headed for disaster? Always, the quicker I respond to these outbreaks of profound doubt the better; and every time, the answer to the question is the same: the heart will lead the head every time.

And so we began by simply setting Ronald free: free from the pressure of an academic timetable and its endless performance assessments, from constant behavioral monitoring and adult intervention; and perhaps even more importantly, free to think his own thoughts, to choose his own activities and to associate freely with a very wide range of other children—and not just alleged problem ones like himself.

Ronald's bullying was not much of an issue initially because there were two older boys in the school who took it upon themselves to keep Ronald in check. The following year was another story, however. Then Ronald was the alpha boy; and sure enough, he immediately set out in September to take full advantage of his physical supremacy by trying to lord it over the smaller kids. This state of affairs persisted until a coalition of them banded together in a council meeting and figured out a way to bell the cat. The meeting had courageously been called by Zach, one of the next younger boys, who after grilling Ronald with a series of "Why do you always do this?"and "Why do you always do that?" questions, made a motion that Ronald would have to pay a five-dollar fine the next time he intimidated a smaller student. It passed with only one dissenting vote (guess who), and needless to say there was no next time. Ronald looked relieved after that.

Wilhelm Reich once said that a bent tree will never grow straight. Of course, as a depth psychologist Reich was using this metaphor to emphasize the importance of preventing damage to children's psyches from occurring in the first place.

Today the picture is, if anything, only bleaker than it was in Reich's tumultuous day. Ronald's story is such a common one now. Due to myriad causes, the society is busy producing entire forests of bent children just like him. Our major cities have become dangerous places to live and their schools hostility-breeding holding pens. Meanwhile, we continue to witness the failure of one socially engineered mass-solution after another. Boiler plate school reform initiatives and pilot projects only tend to work for a brief time and then to help only a fortunate few.

It's true that bent trees never grow straight; however they can compensate for adverse conditions in the most amazing ways—provided they aren't stressed to the point of disease or death. The trees in my large, inner-city back yard are an excellent example: shaded by much taller trees left to grow wild in a neighboring lot, they managed to reach the sunlight they need by growing sideways for awhile at a rather steep angle until they could once again extend upward to the open sky. In the meantime, we tended and mulched and fertilized them, so that today they are beautiful and healthy specimens, if not a bit unusual looking.

And so it is with children, who often possess unfathomable resilience and the ability to adapt unless they are pushed beyond human limits. We can help them grow straighter—one at a time.

But how? In Ronald's case, did we expect to change him simply by blanketing him with love and understanding, freeing up enough open space for him to grow into, and then looking the other way when he would choose to unload some of his pain on another, usually smaller child? Hardly, but on the other hand, we now know from long experience that stepping up the "discipline" and increasing the supervision and external motivation—the standard response of most schools to non-conforming students—is so often simply a set-up for some form of permanent failure, or at best, a way of disguising or delaying it.

No, the medicine we administered to Ronald might simply best be called the truth. When he was behaving like a moron, someone would tell him—straight and to his face. And when he acted courageously or insightfully, the same was true. When his jokes really were funny, people laughed at them; when they weren't, they didn't. And when his language or behavior exceeded acceptable limits, someone—not necessarily the teachers—would stop him in his tracks. As the saying used to go, we were "real" with Ronald at all times, and he grew to count on that. And suddenly he found himself with the space he had never had before to experiment with new behaviors and to fashion new expectations for himself.

We began seeing sometimes dramatic improvements in Ronald's overall attitude and demeanor, but not in his academic prowess. Though his ability to stay with activities that excited him—gymnastics and the computer being his favorites—increased steadily over time, his resistance to any kind of organized academic study remained massive as he entered his second half-year with us. He would occasionally try to join in on a class in history, math or science, but always with the same result: he would quickly lose interest and then resort to his old dysfunctional, attention-grabbing behaviors, which would earn him the same negative reward as in his former schools: the teacher would send him packing. The only difference here is that we don't attach any additional meaning to this outcome. Ronald wasn't punished for his transgression and where he went after he was asked to leave a class was his business (there's no principal's office anyhow). He was always welcome to come back as soon as he was ready to make the same commitment as the others. In other words, attending classes in our school isn't an obligation, it's a privilege.

Meanwhile, our older students usually spend at least part of each week involved in an apprenticeship or internship in an area of strong interest to them. Over the years they have worked with veterinarians, lawyers, artists, writers, dancers, models, cartoonists, magicians, boat builders, photographers, horse trainers, pilots, museum curators, chefs, and computer engineers. Again, no obligation; though almost everyone jumps at the chance to be around an adult who's doing something they think they might like to try one day. Thankfully, there never seems to be a shortage of willing adults either.

This year Ronald had asked to work with Frank, a member of the Free School community. Frank is a craftsman in his sixties who co-owns a small, independent woodworking shop which specializes in traditional wooden boats and cars. Since Frank's shop is next door to the school, Ronald and Frank already had a passing acquaintance, and I suspect that Ronald was at least as drawn to the person of Frank—the father of five grown sons—as he was to the kind of work that Frank does. This is one very valuable aspect of the apprenticeship model of education: it restores the teaching/learning exchange to where it rightfully belongs, embedded in the relationship between two people.

And so, Ronald had been spending one morning a week with Frank in his shop, watching and helping him while he worked on his cars and his boats, as well as doing the chores that all apprentices in woodshops do—sweeping, fetching and putting away tools, stacking wood and whatnot. When the time came for Ronald to begin work on a project of his own, so that along with the others he could show off his accomplishments to parents, students and teachers on "Apprenticeship Night" at the school, serendipity struck again.

It just so happened that Ronald had a rather unique relationship with his school desk, which was one of a wide assortment of hand-me-downs from inner-city public schools that had closed their doors to children long ago. They span several generations of design style, from old oak ones with beautiful bent-wood braces to the more modern formica models with legs of tubular steel. Ronald, of course, had managed to lay claim to one of the really nice, old ones.

To Ronald a school desk was anything but a place to do schoolwork. He used his more like a night stand, or a coffee table perhaps, a place to stack things carelessly—tape players and tapes, portable video games, sweaters, coats, hats, and gloves. And on the rare occasions when the top happened to be uncluttered, it served as a decreasingly sturdy, elevated seat.

Over the years I have observed something about schoolbooks that I think applies equally well to Ronald's desk. For instance, I can tell when a child is having difficulty with arithmetic, or just plain doesn't like it, by the appearance (or disappearance) of his or her workbook. If he or she does manage to hang onto it, it quickly begins to look like something that got stuck in a department store escalator, with the cover torn and dog-eared, and numerous pages missing. Since Ronald had yet to choose to have any books of his own, it was his desk that became the concrete symbol of his years of frustration and failure in school. He carved it, he scribbled on it, he rocked it, he kicked it, he knocked it over; until finally one day he sat on it with a little too much gusto and it collapsed into a heap of its composite pieces, with him on top.

And what did I do when I saw the mess? Did I scold him for destroying school property? Or lecture him about the proper use of school desks? Actually, I laughed out loud, amused by the fact that in all my years of teaching, I had never before seen anyone manage to reduce his desk to rubble. Then, remembering that he had an apprenticeship at the boat shop, I asked him if he would be willing to ask Frank to help him restore the desk. Ronald thought for a moment or two and said that he would at their next session.

Ronald's relationship with Frank (and vice versa) had been coming along quite nicely, so Frank was more than glad to help Ronald with his desk. It would be lovely at this point to present a tidy and orderly picture of Ronald's progress in his apprenticeship. The trouble is that learning, growth and change usually don't happen that way. They occur in fits and starts, the result of the timely interplay between forces of outward momentum and inward inertia.

Here are excerpts from the journal I asked Frank to keep which illustrate what I mean:

—Ronald wants to be in the shop with us. He's interested enough to watch while I work. Every chance I get I teach names of tools, measuring, design and layout, business and so on. Whatever is up is what is being taught. The tests are: "Ronald, please bring me the sliding square," or "Measure the length and width of that board for me."

—He's willing to write! Does a better than average job with his journal. That's a hopeful sign in a lad who's been branded a school failure. I've told him daily journaling is a requirement of this apprenticeship; and he not only does it, I think he's actually in accord with it.

—Ronald says he's terrible at math. As we work with measurement, design and layout I find that, yes, he's lacking. His basic skills are sound, though, and little by little he lets on that he knows more than he was willing to show initially. There's skill there for the developing, when he wants it.

—Ronald's school desk is broken (later I learn he tore it apart himself) and he asks if he can bring it to the shop and fix it. Sounds like a good project to me; but my work time is precious, so I ask if we can work on it during lunch hours. He agrees happily and brings in a sad pile of desk parts.

—I told Ronald to come in for his regular apprentice time and then at noon we will grab a quick bite and work on the desk. He doesn't show at the appointed time and I assume he's out of school. So, I make an appointment with a customer for noon; and then, just as I'm going out the door, Ronald shows. I can't change things again so tell him we'll do it Thursday and make sure he understands the timing. I can see he's disappointed. There seems to be some mistrust there too.

—Thursday, Ronald shows on schedule and helps with work on a wooden car body. At noon we rush next door, grab a bite and back to the shop. We start taking the remainder of the desk apart and cleaning the joints for regluing. I'm teaching as we work and Ronald, motivation high, is chugging right along with me. At one point he remarks on a loose leg joint and asks how to fix it. I tell him that the only way that really works well is to take it apart, clean it and reglue it. I say that this particular joint will be OK when the rest of the desk is assembled around it, though, so don't bother. But he is curious about how one takes apart such a joint and we discuss it some, then I get distracted by a phone call. A couple of minutes later I hear Ronald say, "Shit!" He has broken the joint while trying to get it apart. Didn't want any half-measures in rehabbing his desk. I'm annoyed at him and he hears it in my voice. Then I say, "It's OK, Jess. It can be fixed." So we discuss how to heal the break. Ten minutes later I see him holding the offending part and muttering with a dark look on his face. I ask, "Mad at yourself, Ronald?" He admits it and then I tell him, "Hey, what we've done here is create an opportunity to learn!" I go on to tell him how many times in my life I've created similar opportunities for myself. He gets it and starts to smile. I am reminded why I take on an apprentice every now and then.

Apprentice Night is coming up and Ronald seems in a quandary about what to do. I don't think the desk will be finished by then. I get the feeling that this is a familiar scenario for him. Another incompletion. Another failure to finish. I say, "Lets get some photos of the pieces and what you're doing to them. I think those, along with whatever you've got done on the desk and your journal will make a good exhibit." Again the smile and I sense relief... "I'm gonna finish this time!"

We take the photos and glue up the desk. Tune in tomorrow...

The beauty of the apprenticeship model is that it kills so many birds with one stone. For starters, it gives kids the message that the adult world is worth learning about; and then it provides the perfect environment for that learning: the workplace. It also supplies the framework within which a nurturing relationship can develop between mentor and apprentice; and finally, it gives the student a respite from the constant supervision and performance monitoring upon which most schools depend so heavily. Apprenticeship enables schools to communicate a very important message to their rapidly maturing students: we recognize that you are grown up enough now to work and learn independently and derive your own value from your own experience.

Additionally, of course, apprenticeships give kids a chance to explore future career possibilities with great immediacy, and often lead, either directly or indirectly, to both current and future job opportunities. And, of course, you can't beat the economics—labor in exchange for teaching.

Frank's journal clearly reveals how mutually beneficial their arrangement was. We can readily see the deepening, multi-level relationship between mentor and apprentice, one which would be far less likely ever to occur between teacher and student in a standard classroom, due to all of the excess baggage which that authority-bound dynamic tends to carry. And this applies even to our school. I could tell that Ronald was sweating bullets over the Apprenticeship Night. But, as the time approached and he began presenting to me excuse after excuse for why he wouldn't be able to attend, all I could do as his teacher was to set the limits for him by telling him if he didn't show up I would have his hide. It was Frank—as mentor—who was able to help Ronald through the barriers of his own resistance.

Accompanied by Frank, Ronald not only made it to the apprenticeship night, he glowed as he showed off his partially-completed project and answered question after question about how on earth he was able to put that helter-skelter collection of parts shown in the photos back into such a strong and stable four-legged structure. And on that evening, Ronald declared his intention not only to reconstruct the desk, but to refinish it as well. It was then that I realized I couldn't wait to see him seated either at or on that freshly varnished, gleaming antique, because at that moment he would have—perhaps for the first time in his young life—an entirely legitimate basis for lording something over his peers.

Along with that image came the realization that Ronald, now thirteen, was not only learning how to repair broken furniture, he was taking all of the necessary steps for mending a damaged mind. And wasn't it perfect that the piece Ronald had chosen to invest so many hours of effort in was an old public school desk, one at which countless children had sat over the years, some no doubt suffering through the same negativity he had endured until now.

Amen.



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