conferences, in a nutshell

Every year, we kick off Thanksgiving week with two days of conferences. The kids get the entire week off, and the teachers spend hours sitting at tables and having, oftentimes, the same conversations over and over again. These chats are often filled with euphemisms for what actually needs to be said. We’ve all joked about what it truly means when a grade-school teacher says a child is “high energy”; likewise, when we say your kid “has some trouble keeping his phone put away during class,” what we really mean is that you’re lucky we haven’t ripped it out of his sweaty palms, hurled it to the floor, and squashed it with our boot.

Many teachers—more now than ever, it seems—are anti-conferences. For some, it’s the fact that they’re paid for two days during which they might see seven or eight parents. For others, they gripe that the parents of students that really ought to visit don’t: the majority of guests have children with decent grades and are there doing their parental duty, just checking in, or in the case of many honors-level students, finding out why on earth Junior has, horror of all horrors, a B.

In my first few years of teaching, conferences terrified me. That was likely due to a few specific incidents. One mother waited until greetings were out of the way to begin screaming at me, literally, about how long it had taken me to return an essay to her daughter, who was sitting beside her. Another requested a special meeting with counselors and an administrator, during which she inquired if I had kids of my own and how long I’d been teaching. She used my responses to support her theory that I didn’t handle boys well and was obviously teaching just to the girls. Despite the fact that three other staff members in the room had boys who were earning A’s in my class (a couple of whom hung out after school in my room), no one spoke up on my behalf.

But in the last few years, I’ve been able to find some enjoyment in conferences: from a sociological standpoint, they’re riveting. I’m a bit too distracted to engage in the amount of people-watching I’d like to—I tend to be fairly booked—but the fact that conferencing has finally become mundane for me (and, to be honest, the fact that I’m far more confident now and would never allow a screaming, psycho parent to remain at my table for very long) means more opportunities to ponder the strange worlds that my students come from each day.

One common specimen is the concerned parent whose kids won’t talk to her. And it’s not just the kid with failing grades: sometimes I’m shocked that the most respectful, high-achieving students in class apparently go home and shut their bedroom doors. I’m saddened when a parent asks what we’ve been working on all year or whether their child has friends in class. These are details that shouldn’t be news in late November, but either the parent is afraid to push, or her kid refuses to answer. Once in a while, a parent at his wit’s end will even ask for advice. Last year, I told one father the story of my dad, who, at his own wit’s end during my sophomore year, angrily declared that he didn’t care anymore about what grades I got. It was at that moment that I felt a great weight had been lifted—perhaps rebelling through academics would no longer give me the attention I sought—and decided that I would do better for myself, and I did. The moral of my story was that this father, whose demeanor could make the most self-assured sophomore feel defensive, should back off a bit and see what his daughter would do. He seemed skeptical.

Another father this year showed up with James, a senior with a 52% in class. James kept slipping his earbud into his ear during the conference. Three times his dad snapped at him to remove it. The fourth time the kid absent-mindedly inserted the earbud, the father hollered that if it happened again, he would rip it out and throw it away. It was an odd interaction, and the boy’s actions reminded me of a student I had last year who couldn’t go through class without using his phone, ever. When I say couldn’t, I mean that if I was to take the phone from him, he would literally begin trembling. One time, he started crying. So I’ve seen this pitiful and oddly profound connection to electronics before among my students, but the strange part was that James has never had a problem with his earbuds in my class. I tell him once to remove them, and he obliges, and they stay out. I wondered what sort of psychological battle was occurring at my table—or within James’ head—that led him to be compulsive to the point that his father sounded ready to harm him.

On the other end of the spectrum is the parent who loves his kid to pieces but forgets the parenting part. One popped into my classroom last week with his son, who has an F because he doesn’t turn in work. After I mentioned a particular assignment, Greg said, “I swear I turned that in.”

“I swear you didn’t,” I replied. He leafed through his notebook, found it, and handed it to me, five weeks late. His father giggled.

“Greg,” I said, “I don’t know how else to help you. At some point, you need to take some responsibility yourself. I repeatedly announce upcoming deadlines in class, I write them on the board, and I update my website each day with that information. I don’t know what else to do other than sending a messenger pigeon to your house.”

“I’d actually prefer you try the pigeon,” Greg answered. His father laughed hysterically.

Greg didn’t come to conferences, but his father swung by my table. He sat right beside me, where he munched from my bowl of Reese’s peanutbutter cups while repeating how dang smart his son is. “Sometimes too smart for his own good, in fact.” Yeah, right. Then he said, “Remember when he thought he turned in that assignment and found it right there in his notebook? Ha, ha! That sure was funny!” I’m no psychologist, but I suppose if a kid’s absent-mindedness provides comic relief around the house, there is little motivation to change.

One set of parents arrived curious about their son’s grade. A glance at his report revealed that his essay score was atrocious. Typically, I have trouble recalling the specifics that might cause a low essay grade (which is why having students attend conferences is convenient—I can turn the tables), but this time, in Hal’s absence, I was able to recall the problem. “Hal was arguing in his paper that soccer should not be considered sport,” I began, and his family (there were siblings present) burst out laughing. “One of his major supports for his argument was that soccer is not an American sport and was brought here by immigrants. He said that in America, we should play sports for white people.” They stared at me, grinning. “So you see, once you’re using racism to support your argument, that’s going to significantly lower your score in Ideas and Content.” Again, the family cracked up. After catching her breath, Hal’s mom explained that it’s just that “Hal likes to think he’s black on the inside—that’s why it’s so funny!”

“If he were really ‘black on the inside,’” I countered, “I would think he’d have a better grasp of why his argument could be offensive.” And they continued chuckling and shaking their heads at the thought of their silly Hal.

Parts of conferences end up being redeeming. I was in the middle of talking with one couple when a large woman, who looked exactly like Kathleen Turner and reeked of cigarettes, interrupted and asked if she could borrow my pen. She wasn’t referring to the one in front of her on the table, but the one I had in my hand. I wordlessly handed it to her and continued my conversation with the others. After a few moments, Kathleen Turner said thanks and hurled the pen across the table in my direction. The other parents looked surprised by her demeanor, and I silently dreaded my upcoming appointment with her. But lo and behold, she turned out to be one of the nicest parents I encountered this year. She didn’t have any questions, for she knew her daughter’s grade, but she just had to meet me, for her “daughter’s eyes sparkle when she talks” about my class. She was one of the rare parents that stops in primarily to thank us for all we do.

Others are less certain about their mission, perhaps setting foot in their child’s school for the first time. One woman, shuffling around with the aid of a walker, was confused about the layout and how to find her son’s teachers. She apologetically approached my table for help, and I spotted my name on her son’s schedule. I introduced myself, and we had a long conversation, much of which was about the ins-and-outs of the school day (she wasn’t aware of how many classes students attend each day or what we do in Creative Writing, for instance) and the rest about her son. He has, perhaps, the oddest hairdo I’ve ever seen, wears enough plastic beads around his neck to rival Mr. T’s gold chains, and has bright red, skinny jeans full of holes. He ran away from his dad’s home last year, was on his own and homeless in Seattle for several months (I know this from a personal narrative he read aloud), and happens to be one of the coolest kids and best writers in my class.

With over 200 students, it is difficult to know them all well enough to be able to give personalized, genuine feedback to their parents, especially this early in the year. But when I’m able to do so, it’s the best part of conferences for me. Revealing that a kid has finally pulled his grade up is pleasing, but telling a parent that their child is a compassionate, creative person, or that his enthusiasm and sense of humor bring joy to me and to his fellow students, is something they won’t often hear anywhere else.

And on the week of Thanksgiving, that rare opportunity to send a message home—one that won’t stay crumpled at the bottom of backpacks or get “lost” in the mail, but one that actually reaches the hungry ears of anxious parents—is a blessing.

dark commutes and other october habits

When I was warming up my car before work one morning last week, I peered through the foggy windows into the darkness and felt petulant. It was chilly out and evidently already that time of year where I drive to work in what appears to be nighttime. Pretty soon, I mused, I’ll be driving home in the dark as well, only seeing slices of daylight out my classroom windows for five-day stints. Some coworkers and I complain every winter about feeling like vampires, cloistered inside during the day and only out and about during the shadowy hours. No wonder some people are diagnosed with depressive disorders at this time of year.

But then I turned left off of my street and found myself driving straight toward a full moon, and just like that, the grumpiness was gone. When summer evenings are over, I rarely get to enjoy the moon properly. I slowed down a bit to make the sight last, and I chuckled when I realized that the full moon—and my appreciation of it—just confirmed my burgeoning vampirishness.

The week unfolded hectically, as grades were due for students’ progress reports. That last week would be hectic was one fact I could count on; that this week will be packed with more minor nuisances than usual is another. You see, the grades are posted in my classroom. These aren’t any more official or correct than any other grades that are posted at any other time, except that these print-outs will include the exact letter grade to be mailed home on Wednesday. In other words, the data on these particular print-outs could mean the difference between attending the Homecoming game and suffering under house arrest.

There will be widespread panic at six different times tomorrow. I will wonder each time why many seem so surprised and horrified. Weren’t they aware that they hadn’t done any work? Didn’t the other grade sheets I posted that showed missing assignments indicate to them that something should be done, quickly? Didn’t they know that grades would be sent home? Didn’t they realize that that is why they had Thursday off—in part so that teachers could enter their grades? Are they joking about still getting points for that assignment due six weeks ago? The answer to all of these questions, according to tradition, is no.

Tradition also dictates that at this juncture, many students find where they stashed their academic with-it-ness, dust it off, and begin applying it anew. Several of those, newly reminded of how to play the game of school, will finish the semester with an A. But a fraction of others, perhaps accustomed to disappointment or finding it easier to play victim, will let this largely-irrelevant grade report dictate their success for the rest of the year. Some of those will decide my class is “too hard,” “boring,” or that they don’t like me—anything other than admitting they gave up. Sure, I’ll be able to catch some in time via a litany of encouraging, nagging, and (depending upon the stubbornness I'm up against) well-meaning bullying, but it won’t work on all of them.

The next few weeks will tell who’s who.

Late this morning, I was headed into work. Sundays are a good day to go in, for like a car with bad alignment, my mind misbehavingly veers to thoughts of the week ahead anyway. The building is typically empty on Sundays, so I get the rare opportunity to attack my to-do list without the bane of interruptions. But since working a half-day on Sunday seems like a small tragedy, I typically treat myself to a trip through the drive-thru coffee line.

Which is when another ritual revealed itself in the form of a familiar barista.

“Hello!” she said excitedly, seeming to recognize me from previous Sundays. “Are you headed in to work today?”

Now certain that she knew me, I answered in the affirmative.

“Oh, where do you work?” When I replied with the name of the high school, she looked perplexed, like she does every time. Then, like every time, she asked, “Is there an open house or something?”

I’m not sure why she’s under the impression that we have so many open houses, but it’s the custom that I always grapple with how to answer her question.

I could opt for sarcasm: “Yes, because I would wear a hooded sweatshirt and this messy hair-do for an occasion where we’re welcoming the community.”

I could try for passive aggression: “Well, an open house sounds swell, but it turns out that those papers don’t just grade themselves!”

I could go for the easy, not-going-to-bother-engaging response: “Yes, an open house.”

But I’ve worked in customer service, and I know what it’s like to carry on superficial conversations with people (who pompously assume you remember them) because you have to. So I selected a combination of honesty and brevity: “No open house. I’m a teacher, and there’s just a lot to do.”

As I drove away with my grande, nonfat, no-whip beverage, I wished that today, just one tiresome tradition could finally be broken. Perhaps I’d soon be sifting through my newest stack of essays to gleefully discover that—shock of all shocks—there’s no need to cover comma splices this year! Their writing reveals that they already know how to punctuate the end of a sentence! But some traditions will stubbornly hang on. Maybe if I just hang garlic around my neck…

already october

The length of time between the last blog post and this one can be chalked up to a lack of time, and I’m not just referring to busyness, as in having tasks that fill up the time that would be normally spent writing. I’m referring to the mental gridlock that accompanies that busyness and blocks out any time for reflection. In our new 7-period schedule this year, the pace and the workload it requires have rendered me—and I would venture, based on many conversations, my colleagues—unable to process it all. We’ve been at it for a month, a time period that I told myself at the beginning would be an adequate window after which to pass judgment. And my verdict is in: I hate it.

Each year, when there are new initiatives, requirements, trainings, and acronyms we must learn, I add them to my pedagogical mix and, sighing, remind myself what one of my now-retired mentors said in my first year: “Just focus on good teaching.” I play along and incorporate what I’m told to, switch my curriculum or throw it out based on district mandates, and continue to focus on good teaching. For me, that translates into focusing on the students. On those moments that make learning exciting and fun, when kids don’t notice that class is almost done, and when I don’t mind grading papers because I know how hard they worked on them. And focusing on good teaching translates to reflection. It’s why, in part, I started this blog: because it would force me to reflect, publicly. It’s why I’ve opted for student teachers: because they naturally reflect and remind me to do the same. Reflection is crucial to improvement in this job, all the new-fangled initiatives be damned.

So I hate (yes, I know it’s a strong word, and that’s why I chose it) the new schedule because I’ve waited a month to reflect. But fortunately, I’ve made a month’s worth of notes, and I worked late on Friday to ensure that I had a work-free weekend with time for blogging. I think I remember how…

To begin with, my first impressions this year. When I was sifting through completed student questionnaires and collecting their six-word stories, I was surprised by the increasing number of students who professed to be gay from the get-go. There were a handful that wrote briefly about coming out to their parents and friends, and in many cases, not being accepted afterward. The courage it must have taken to confess it yet again to a new teacher humbled me, and also gave me hope that perhaps the culture—at least within our school—is inching toward one that welcomes disclosure. My skepticism says that’s naïve, but I figure if they can be honest in my classroom, perhaps they’ll exercise their identities elsewhere as well.

On a less-uplifting note, I have also been surprised by the rampant, unabashed use of the f-word in our hallways—easily heard in quantities that far surpass even last spring. And it knows no demographic bounds: the word is embraced by every gender, grade level, and race of student. I guess what horrifies me as much as hearing that throughout my day is that I’m hearing it: when I cussed in school, I had the courtesy (and good sense?) to lower my voice so teachers couldn’t hear me. I was walking in front of a trio of boys in the second week when I heard one of them hiss, “I’m sick of that fucking faggot’s shit.”

I turned and asked, “Really?” It was the only alternative I could quickly come up with to slapping him across his filthy mouth.

“Yeah, really,” he replied as they pushed past me.

But in my classroom, where expectations are clear and students learned on the first day what words were off-limits lest they want to test my fury, the days have been going smoothly. I wrote last winter about having trouble connecting with my students, and that hasn’t been an issue this year. Most students in my creative writing classes have volunteered to share their work—evidence that they feel safe enough to do so in a diverse group that wouldn’t likely associate outside of my class. One senior, a gang member and father named Billy, didn’t want to share his writing one day when doing so was required.

“I’m not a writer like you guys,” he explained to the group. “Besides, I only wrote four lines.”

We urged and coaxed, and he read. His prompt had been “glass,” and his four lines were about looking out a window at children playing and wishing he could step outside and join that world again. It was beautiful. The class erupted into applause and showered him with compliments, which he didn’t receive well, and I was even stopped by a student in the hall later that day who said he’d been thinking about Billy’s writing all day and was glad he had shared. I thought my heart might burst.

In my other classes, we’re connecting as well. The dynamics in two groups are a little odd—they don’t want to engage in discussions, so my questions are met with silent stares. I would be convinced that they detest me except that outside of my attempts at structured discussions, they’re chatty, good-natured, and quick to bring up the inside jokes that have already emerged within our groups. My pregnancy has caused a constant undercurrent of curiosity and for some students, a means for establishing a relationship. It’s how I found out about Billy’s eight-month-old daughter, and it inspired Taylor to stick around after class and show me photographs he carries around of his three little sisters.

When I got sick the third week of school and missed two days, several students were apparently convinced my water had broken (I was 19 weeks along). Two students constructed paper fortune tellers (remember those?!) to determine my baby’s gender. Both revealed that I was having a boy, and both students were ecstatic and boastful when the news came that they had been correct.

Perhaps most importantly, there is learning going on. I added an article this year to my unit on persuasion. It was a well-written op-ed piece by an inmate on death row who wants to be allowed to donate his organs after his execution. This was one day where spurring conversation was not a challenge. Most were swayed by his arguments and many wondered why so many obstacles blocked him from doing something that would help many needy people on organ waiting lists. After school, a handful of students approached me in the hall and asked for copies of the article. They’re in Youth Legislature and are inspired to write a bill to further the inmate’s cause. After one of our students last year successfully pushed through a bill to enforce buffer zones between epithet-hurling protesters and military funerals, I have no doubt these students can succeed.

I’m learning, or re-learning, as well. One reminder was that no matter how well I think I know students, I often don’t have the whole story. I had Gavin three years ago in a remedial reading class. He was a drummer and loved playing baseball. He’s one of the few students from that group who still deigns to say hello to me each time he passes in the hall. Saul, an artist, was in my class two years ago as a sophomore. On the second day of class, after we read an article about a family who lost their son on 9/11, Saul started crying. His family had recently lost his brother, he said, and he didn’t like what the loss was doing to his mom.

Now they’re both seniors in my creative writing class. Gavin is there to make up a credit; Saul is there because he loves to write. And from the writing they’ve shared so far, I learned that Gavin had cancer when he was little, and that it affects him emotionally and physically ever since. Aside from the constant fear of it returning, the effects of cancer force him to make frequent trips to the bathroom. Saul’s mother sort of “lost it” after his brother’s death: she still talks to his ashes on a routine basis, and when she’s mad at Saul, she purposely makes him late for school (he arrives late to my class about a third of the time).

Gavin and Saul were both among my favorite students when I had them, and I felt like I knew them well. But I didn’t know a crucial piece of their stories, and I wouldn’t have ever known if I hadn’t had them again as seniors. It makes me wonder what else I’ll never learn about kids, despite my best efforts. I have 206 students this year, so there is no way I can feasibly learn all their histories, and even if I did, what could I possibly do with that information? Who knows. Maybe just be more lenient with the hall pass or the tardy policy. Maybe be more patient in my approach or more encouraging in my corrections.

This is what time for reflection affords me: a reminder that good teaching is about the students. Everything else comes after.

missing those freshman foibles

On Tuesday, our school opened for freshmen. As I drove in that morning, I looked at several of the faces of adults driving out past me in otherwise empty vehicles. Several looked solemn or tired, one was grinning, and it occurred to me that these parents had just dropped off their kids for the first day of high school. I felt a pang of melancholy on their behalf. That's another moment I get to look forward to ... and dread.

Inside, the signs were cheerfully posted around the building: Welcome, Class of 2015. 2015?! It sounds like a sci-fi movie. Glancing around at some of the creative hair and makeup confirmed the genre.

On my way to the classroom, I fumbled for my keys—trying not to spill my coffee and drop my armload of books that I’ll enthusiastically store in my classroom as teaching references, but never actually reference—when I witnessed a new variety of a familiar species: the Class of 2015 Helicopter Parent. A kid was sighing and jiggling the dial on his locker. Another kid’s mom down the hall hollered, “Is it stuck?”

“Yes,” he responded.

“Ohhh,” she breathed as she rushed past me in his direction. "You know what? So was ours!”

Ours? Is she sharing the locker with her child?, I wondered grumpily. I mused for a moment about how mortified I would be if either of my parents had accompanied me on the first day of high school. It would have been bad enough if they had dropped me off in front of the building (they didn’t—I had to take the bus), but to come in and twirl my locker dial for me and then talk to others? That would have gone on my top-ten list of Worst Possible Fates. But this particular kid didn’t seem overly relieved or affronted, so he must be used to Helicopters.

This is my first year without any freshmen. I was gloomy about it originally—even a little bit this summer when I forgot what they can be like—for there are many aspects of freshmen that I enjoy. They are only months out of middle school, and since I’m one of the few people who grew to love middle schoolers during my student-teaching stint, I appreciate how raw they can be. Most of them aren’t jaded yet, and many that act jaded are, in fact, acting. Most tend to be curious about everything and haven’t yet learned that trait isn’t as cool in high school, so they fire out innocent questions and follow-up questions and think they’re getting me off track and don’t realize they’re learning. It’s cute.

However, I got over the gloom of missing out fairly quickly. My room is home each year to one of many groups of freshmen that meet there throughout the day during orientation. And every year, there are a few butts who make it, seemingly, their goal to establish themselves as The Rudest Person. Two years ago, it was Fernando, whose name I learned quickly as I watched him mouth-off to his group leaders and irritate or unsettle his peers. Later that day, when the freshmen met their teachers, he was surprised when I—lo and behold, his English teacher—greeted him by name and said, “I already know who you are.” This year, it was a girl named Samantha who thought it was acceptable to sigh loudly and interrupt anything she deemed boring (including a peer whose turn it was to talk) with an irritable “Anyway!”

Of course these rude little pupils are only revealing a façade to cover the fact that they’re likely terrified of high school and of fitting in, and when I remember that, it does make me lower my hackles. Especially when I consider that they’ll be terrified into silence when 1,500 other students arrive the next morning. But it never ceases to amaze me that there are some students who will choose to be dysfunctional on Day One. On the day filled with get-to-know-you games and tours of the building—the day in which it’s impossible to fail at anything (when you get lost, there are blue-shirted upperclassmen who lovingly escort you to the proper location)—some freshmen will insist on failing because that’s what they’re used to doing, and that’s what makes them comfortable.

The phenomenon drives me nuts, and those particular students drive me nuts, but they also tend to be the ones I don’t forget: they’re the ones that challenge my classroom management skills, my compassion, my patience, and they’re the ones that make me proudest at graduation four years later.

Anyhow, I don’t have any freshmen this year. I have a long list of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, however, and if the first week with them is any indicator, this year should be interesting. As of today, I’ve gone through half of their questionnaires and have met, through their responses, about a hundred students whose lives range from rich with blessings to hopeless and homeless. Late Friday night, I received a desperate email from a dad who mentioned a student whose name I don’t yet recognize. It read:

Hello, Could someone please help Michael to find his way? Nearly every day from his freshman year until now his senior year I have received a phone call from the attendance office letting me know my little boy is lost. If someone can point him in the right direction it would be appreciated.

What a sad plea. It is, presumably, one of the most profound worries of the parents I saw driving out on Tuesday morning. They send their children off each day and hope that we don’t lose them. And perhaps that’s why Helicopters are the way they are: fear that if they cease hovering, their child will stray and not find the way back. Then again, perhaps it was parental hovering that drove Michael away. In 15 hours, he should be in my class. If he’s not, he’s another missing senior who likely won’t make it to graduation. It makes me wish I had known him back when he was a freshman.

worth a thousand words

A reader-cum-penpal whose mother recently passed away sent me an old photo—a candid shot featuring him, his little sister, and his mother—from his childhood. What struck me first was the woman's remarkable smile: she was one of those people whose whole face grins. While the little girl was the physical center of the shot and the only person looking into the camera, his mother’s bright face made the scene glow with joy. Then I noticed the two children, also exuberant. An image like that can’t be posed—it is captured, perhaps involuntarily, at the perfect moment. The wonderful scene of three strangers filled me with such pleasure that I was reminded of the role photography has played in my life, and in my teaching.

I’ve always loved looking at photographs. Our coffee table had books of nature photography, and I remember leafing through them at a young age and studying my favorites repeatedly. Shortly after receiving a 35mm camera for my ninth birthday, my family went to the zoo. We stood before the elephants, my dad with his fancy camera and me with my turquoise one, but I hesitated to take a shot. After several minutes of hopeful waiting, my subject slurped water up his trunk and squirted it out onto his back, and I clicked the silver button. When we received the developed photos, my “action” shot was undeniably cooler than my dad’s, and I remember my pride in having captured the perfect moment.

Fast forward to my junior year of high school. I was taking an American Literature course and came in after school to make up a quiz I had missed. The teacher stepped out, so I waited in his classroom and looked around. Perhaps it was that my assigned seat was by the windows (or the fact that I was frequently distracted by the teacher’s nipples, which almost always poked through his shirts), but somehow, I had never noticed the bulletin board covered in a collage of black-and-white historical photographs. The collection drew me in, each shot with its own story and my unanswered questions, until my eyes fixed on one I had never seen before. Two people in uniform, one a sailor and one a nurse, kissing . . . but not just kissing. He was dipping her, her hand was clutched tight in surprise, and my favorite part: her leg, covered in white seamed stockings with a modest white heel, was kicked back in acquiescence.

“What is this?” I asked Mr. Nipple when he walked in. And he told me the story of V-J Day, of what Times Square was like amidst the jubilation, and of Alfred Eisenstaedt, who captured the perfect moment. I was rapt. And I remember thinking that I wanted to teach someday and have photos too, so that students would see them and hunger for the stories. In the years to come, that’s what historical photographs became for me: hors d’oeuvres that whetted my appetite for the narrative entrée.

My intrigue surrounding the V-J Day photo grew in college, and I learned that every so often, people emerge that claim they were the sailor or the nurse, though no one has confirmed their identities. When I tried to order a poster of the famous photograph online for my dorm room, I was disappointed to discover that the version available on a well-known poster website cut off the nurse’s feet, my favorite part. After searching several different sites and finding the correct photograph but not a correct poster, I emailed the company’s president. Following a few correspondences, he assured me that I was incorrect; in the original shot, her feet were not visible. I replied with a link to the complete image, and I didn’t hear from him again.

Years later, in grad school, we were arranged in groups of three for mock interviews with local principals. The first question my interviewer posed was asking what students walking into our classroom would see. One cohort said, “Shakespeare quotes”; another listed all of the memorabilia he had from a local college team that would be decorating his classroom; I answered, “Photographs," and explained my theory about imagery and making personal connections and raising curiosity about world events and the stories (literature!) surrounding those moments. “Yeah, I would have posters, too,” added the football fan when I was finished.

By the time I was ready to decorate a classroom, I went online again, and with spirits low, I searched first for my favorite photo. And there it was, and there they were: her feet.

The sailor and the nurse have been passionately kissing on my classroom wall for six years now. The photo still grips me sometimes when I pause to take a look. It’s hard to imagine everything that combined to create that instant in time—the end of a world war, the well-timed end of a nurse’s shift at work, the euphoria of victory—and it’s even harder to imagine the stories outside of the shot. The sudden shock across the ocean, the grief, the loss, the untidy politics.

Students tend to ask more frequently about the Tiananmen Square poster than any others on my classroom walls. Often, the question will come in the middle of a discussion about something else entirely, and it derails us. But I’ve never minded. These are the teachable moments I dreamt of creating when I was in high school myself. I would rather talk about democracy than in-text citations anyway.