“Jealous?”

“Please, Neil. Don’t tease me. I’ve never been in love before and this is all very serious to me. I’ve been lying here for the last half hour with a knot in my stomach, ever since you told me about Fiona.”

He brushed his hand across her cheek and cupped it behind her neck. Her dark, loose hair engulfed his face as he drew her down for a kiss. “Carmen,” he said, “I am completely serious when I say that I love you. You have no reason to be jealous of Fiona or any other person. If I tease you, it is only because I have such confidence in us that I think the teasing will not hurt. If it hurts, I will stop right now.”

She slid her fingernails across his ribs. His skin jumped, and she smiled as she slid her hand behind him and drew him closer. “No,” she said, “I don’t want you to go all serious on me. Just tell me about you and Fiona so I don’t have to worry.”

“Fiona had me over for a bite.”

“You rat!” She punched his shoulder; but she also smiled.

“That’s better.” Neil told her the whole short story of his only “date” with Fiona.

“There was a spark. I’d be the last to deny it. But it was only a physical thing brought on because I was lonely and she was —  is — a good looking woman. Nothing came of it, and I am glad. And not just because you were waiting to sweep me off my feet. Even if you hadn’t been there, Fiona and I would have been a disaster together. We would have fought every day until we finally hated each other. I think we both knew that from the start.”

Carmen nestled close to him and said, “Good. Fiona is an old friend. I’m glad I won’t have to scratch her eyes out.”

# # #

Nothing in school happens by itself, nor does any part of the story of a class proceed in a straight line. Any class is a mixture of children of various abilities and various needs. There are the few favored ones whose parents balance praise and responsibility; who demand excellence without overpowering their children. They become the achievers. They move smoothly through their days and years, with praise and rewards. They leave school with good feelings toward education, and go on to become doctors or lawyers — or teachers.

Then there is the other minority, whose parents are abusive or irrational because of drugs or alcohol, or for no apparent reason. Or who simply do not care. Those children drop out early. By the sixth grade, they are gone. Their bodies remain in class — the law requires that much — but in essence, they are gone. When they finally drop out of high school, it will be a relief to them and to their teachers.

Most of the children are somewhere in between those extremes. Some of them lack courage. Some of them are brash.  Many of them are desperate for love. Some of them are surfeit, unchallenged, and listless from too much unearned praise.

All of them together are like the instruments in an orchestra, or like the parts of a symphony. A symphony in a minor key. Soft and slow, or bold and brassy by turns; rising to brief crescendos and dropping back to pianissimo weeks of calm. Dissonance resolving into consonance, flaring up again, resolving again —  all under the conductor’s watchful eye.

Sometimes Neil thought of them that way. more Monday

Fiona looked pained. “They have gotten off your back. What more do you want? Are you going to hide behind that scandal all you life?”

Their eyes locked. “I”m not hiding behind a damned thing, Fiona Kelly! I’m trying to be fair to these parents and to myself, and no one is a better judge of how to do that than I am!”

After a minute, they both grinned. It was a good thing that their one-kiss romance had come to nothing. Life with Fiona would have been fiery.

“Anyway,” Neil said, “I wouldn’t want to teach sex education by myself, even to the boys. There is too much I don’t know.”

“Come on!”

“‘I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ no babies,'”  Neil quoted. “Nor about nursing them, for that matter. How can I answer their questions on that?”

“Do you want me to teach it with you?”

“I think it would be better. And I don’t think it would embarrass them too much. They all think of us as sexless old fogies anyway, just like their parents.”

Fiona thought about it for a minute, then said, “I think that’s a great idea. It also overcomes your objections about the scandal. I’m sure the girls will appreciate your perspective.”

“Now wait a minute . . .”

“What? You’d better not say anything sexist.”

“. . . I did not say that I wanted to teach sex ed. to the girls. That is a whole different story.”

“Oh, it is, is it?” Fiona demanded icily. “And why is that?”

“Because males are threatening creatures in our culture. They wouldn’t want me there.”

“Bull! I’ve seen those girls following you around the playground. You have a regular fan club. You are half way between a father figure and someone safe enough to have a crush on. They may be a little embarrassed, but they aren’t going to feel threatened by you.”

“Their parents’ might.”

“That’s their problem. If they do, let Bill handle them.”

Once Fiona got something in her mind, it was hard to stop her; against his better judgment, Neil found himself helping plan which day to set aside for them to team-teach sex education.

# # #

Late that night, in a state of mellow, playful afterglow, Neil told Carmen about his conversation with Fiona.

At first Carmen was worried for the same reason Neil had been, because of the scandal. Then she shrugged it off. “You have to go on with your life as if Alice Hamilton had never existed. If people give you trouble, you have to face it, but you can’t stop doing things because they might disapprove. As teachers, we get in a habit of being super careful when half the time the rest of the world doesn’t care.”

She burrowed deeper into the holow of his arm and teased, “You and Fiona and sex. Who would have ever thought it?”

“Fiona and I were — friendly — back when you wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

“Oh!”

“She had me over for a bite of dinner.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t for dinner and a bite?” And she bit him.

“Ouch!” He bit her back, but very gently and on a spot that would best appreciate the tender press of his teeth. Then he gave equal time to that it’s twin sister.

# # #

Carmen rose up on an elbow. She was just a silhouette against the light coming from the half open bathroom door, and Neil could not read her face. She said, “Tell me about you and Fiona.”

“Jealous?”

“Please, Neil. Don’t tease me.” more tomorrow

Sex Ed.

A miracle took place right in front of Neil and he did not see it. Then one morning, when the spring sunlight fell hard upon the playground, he looked around him and all his children were no longer children.

They had come to him looking like babies, but only two or three still did. The rest had shot up, slimmed down, and slowed down. Where they used to come into the classroom and sit squirming for forty-five minutes, they now sat down and went to their work with quiet maturity. They ran now with a loping awkwardness, and they had begun to notice one another in a new way. Puberty was setting in and hormones were flowing through their young bodies like the sap in the trees.

The school year was three-quarter’s gone. Neil could look back with satisfaction on the things he had learned and the progress he had made. His children were doing well. Only seven of the Chicano children were still coming regularly to his after school class in Mrs. Alvarez’s apartment, but the ones who remained were learning rapidly. He only regretted not starting the class sooner.

Kiernan had proved a refuge in which to recover his strength. He had weathered the storm of controversy surrounding his actions in Oregon. If there were any parents who still believed him guilty, they had given up attempting to have him removed. The children had forgotten all about it.

# # #

Neil was in the teachers’ lounge grading papers over a cup of coffee. Fiona had been sitting with Glen Ulrich when Neil came in, having a discussion that verged on being an argument. She got up, crossed to where Neil was sitting, and said, “How would you like to do me a favor?”

“Sure. What?”

“You’re agreeable this morning. I want you to teach sex education with me.”

“What?”

Fiona laughed at his consternation. She explained, “I teach sex education as part of the regular science class to seventh and eighth graders, but is is school policy to teach it to sixth graders as a separate unit. We give it all to them in one afternoon.”

“Why?”

“There are some parents who object to having sex taught to their children in school. This way we can give them the option of holding their child out of the class.”

After a minute, Neil said, “I don’t like that.”

“Me, either. Sixth grade is the year most girls have their first menstrual period and it can be a terrifying experience, especially with all the old wives tales they hear. And they can get pregnant without ever knowing what is going on.

“What we do is, we send out a letter that says if you don’t want your child to participate, sign here. If we don’t get a letter back, then we assume that its okay. The kids usually read all the notes they carry home, so a lot of them never get there. If anyone does send back a refusal letter, I call them and try to talk them into letting their child take the class.”

Neil smiled and said, “It sounds like you have it all covered. You won’t be needing me.”

“Wrong. I always teach the girls and Glen or Tom always teaches the boys. However, since our sixth grade core teacher is male this year, and since you have established a rapport with them . . .”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“My scandalous past. These parents have gotten off my back and accepted me as a temporary replacement, but I’d lay you odds they don’t want me talking to their boys about sex.” more tomorrow

“Do you still think I am not fit to teach your daughter?”

Maria Alvarez said, “I’m not sure.”

“You were pretty sure that I wasn’t fit, so I guess that’s progress. May I sit down?”

She gestured gracelessly toward the couch. He sat. Rosa stuck her head around the door, then jerked it back when her mother yelled something to her in Spanish.

Mrs. Alvarez moved a kitchen chair up and sat very stiffly facing Neil. Jose Alvarez was watching protectively. She made a side comment to him that Neil could not understand.

“Mrs. Alvarez, I have a problem that you may be able to help me with. It has nothing to do with what happened in Oregon. It has to do with the education of the Mexican children in the sixth grade.”

She nodded.

“I don’t have any Spanish, so if you want, Rosa can translate.”

“I do okay. If I don’t understand something, you can say it some other way. I don’t want her in here.”

Neil said, “All right,” and began to explain how his year had gone. He gave here a brief explanation of the pros and cons of leveling, told her of his early failures, told her how he had leveled his class, and told her of the results he had had since he has discontinued leveling.

She heard him through, and Neil thought he detected a softening in her as he talked. She had respected him once, and she wanted to respect him again, but trust is easier to win the first time than it is to regain once it has been lost. When he finished, she said, “Why you telling me this?”

“Rosa has been having Delores Perez over to study here, hasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“How would you feel about having a larger group of students over to study?”

“How many?” Maria asked.

Neil took a paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to her. “There are twenty names on the list, but I doubt that more than half of them would come.” She glanced at the list as Neil continued, “What I am asking is this: would you be willing to contact the parents of these kids and talk them into sending them to your apartment for half a day each day during spring break? If you will do that, I will come here and teach them at their own level. If it’s a success, I will continue to come after school for the rest of this year.”

She shook her head. “Twenty kids, here?” She looked around at the tiny apartment.

“Probably ten kids or fewer. It doesn’t have to be at your apartment, but it needs to be somewhere in this little barrio so the kids can walk to get to it.”

“You’ll do this?”

“If you find the place, and talk the parents into it, I will teach them.” more tomorrow