Chapter 3
The bell to end second hour rang. The thirty-four students in the classroom seemed to exhale simultaneously, a sound between relief and exasperation. Almost no one finished early, except Eloise, who always finished early, but that fact didn’t surprise Dave. This was one of his tougher tests.
“Time’s up,” he said, “please put your unit test in the basket up front on your way out.”
Dave’s AP U.S. History class stood up and filed out slowly, putting their tests in the basket as they made their way out. None of them looked too happy. Antoine was grumbling under his breath as he put his test on the pile.
“Problems, Antoine?”
“Mr. Bell, I need to you to tell me something. When did we talk about this Saratoga thing?” he demanded, standing akimbo with one foot forward, reminding Dave of his Aunt Gloria. “I did not remember that at all, and I remember everything you teach. Everything. You know I do, Mr. Bell.”
If you remembered everything, thought Dave, you wouldn’t be cutting a ‘C’ average.
“We covered Saratoga last week, Antoine. You should remember it was one of the last decisive battles of the Revolutionary War.”
“I was sick last week.”
“You know the rules, Antoine. If you can’t make it—”
“You got to make it up,” said another student behind Antoine.
“Who asked you, Shaquanta?” said Antoine, turning to face her. “This ain’t none of your damned business, now is it?”
“Shut up,” she retorted.
“Enough,” said Dave, in the voice that showed he meant it. This was an AP course, Advanced Placement, supposedly the cream of the academic crop at Custer, and he still had to put up with this middle-school crap.
“Get to your next class, Shaquanta,” he said. She left, smirking at Antoine.
“You swore again, Antoine,” said Dave. “I thought you were going to work on that. You know that’s another phone call home.”
“Mr. Bell, I don’t care if you call my house—” began Antoine.
“Watch your tone, young man,” said Dave. He knew he couldn’t afford to let Antoine get started. There had been at least one Antoine every year of his career: part lawyer, part preacher, part bullshitter; if you let them drag you into negotiating, you were sunk. You had to nip it in the bud with them. Antoine looked at Dave, decided he meant it, took a breath, and clamped his mouth shut.
“If you’d rather not get the phone call, Antoine, we’ll go right ahead and refer this matter to Mr. Ricks,” interrupted Dave.
Antoine squared his shoulders, turned and left, maintaining as much dignity as he could.
Dave sat down, made a note to call Antoine’s house that night, and then leaned on the desk, rubbing the bridge of his nose. It was only third hour coming up, his junior World History class, and it already felt like it should be the end of the day. Dave closed his eyes. He never used to feel this way in the middle of the day. He must be getting old. Burnt-out.
Dave felt a presence nearby and looked up. Darrel Ridgeman, all five foot two of him, stood there at the edge of the desk, staring at him. Darrel was an odd kid, smart, very well educated, but socially awkward, quiet most of the time, but prone to odd little outbursts—nothing serious or disruptive, just weird, like the time they were studying the Ancient Greeks, about a month ago.
Dave had been leading a class discussion about the ancient city-states and asked the students to give examples of the two most dominant city-states in ancient Greece. No one had volunteered anything, and Dave was about to call on someone when Darrell stood up and said, “The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing,” and sat back down.
A few members of the class snickered; a couple laughed outright. Dave looked at Darrell a moment, nodding and smiling to himself.
“Little nigger be crazy,” said Daquone under his breath, quiet, but not quietly enough. Dave could hear him fine, even from the back row. Darrel heard him, too, and hung his head. He might be socially awkward, but he knew when he was being made fun of. A few of Daquone’s cronies laughed out loud; he was the starting guard of the basketball team, tall, good-looking, and lazy as the day was long.
“Making comments like that, Daquone,” said Dave, “means I’ll be coming down and seeing Coach Martinson tonight.”
“Mr. Bell, don’t do that, I didn’t mean nothing. You—”
“I don’t negotiate, Daquone. You know that.”
Daquone knew that was it; any further argument would get him sent to the office and mean even more extra laps at practice. He put his head down on his desk.
“Darrel,” said Dave. “What did you mean by that, by what you said before?”
Darrel stood up, something he always did when he spoke in class.
“Sir?”
The class tittered again. Dave gave the usual suspects a look and they quieted down.
“You don’t have to stand, Darrel.”
He sat back down.
“The quote, Darrel. Could you repeat it, please?”
“The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing.”
“Good,” said Dave. “Thank you. Now please tell us what that has to do with the ancient Greeks?”
“Socrates said that,” said Darrel, staring straight ahead.
“Continue, please. Who was Socrates?”
Darrel took a breath. “He was a philosopher, a student of Aristotle’s, who was a resident of ancient Athens, a city-state skilled in the arts, culture, and which is widely regarded as the birthplace of democracy.”
The rest of the students were staring at him as if he were a three-headed jellyfish. Tiana Parker was actually glaring at him as if to say who the hell do you think you are? Daquone was sneering.
So this is the way our society treats intellectual prowess today, thought Dave. What a shame. Things had never been easy for the smart kids, the nerds, the outliers, but it seemed to Dave as if the climate had become worse for them these days, that things were tougher for the achievers. He knew Darrel had been having problems with the other kids after school. He’d gotten a call from his mother a few days ago asking if there was anything he could do to help the kid. Apparently some of the other freshman boys were jumping him after school, beating him up and taking his stuff. He’d lost an iPad and some money already but wouldn’t say who did it. He knew to keep his mouth shut at least. Probably saved him a couple of more beatings.
“What is it, Darrel?” he asked. Darrel looked over his shoulder at the other students starting to filter in for class.
“I was wondering if I could talk to you after class about a personal matter,” he said very softly, almost whispering.
Dave nodded and said sure. Darrel thanked him, more audibly this time, and went back to his seat.
Daquone walked in, talking to Olive Williams, which was unusual. Olive usually kept to herself. She didn’t have much to do with the more popular kids, especially the athletes. Dave was pretty sure that was her choice. He could see that Daquone was trying to put the moves on her, and that Olive was having none of it. She looked uncomfortable. Dave needed to talk to Daquone anyway; now was as good a time as any.
“Daquone,” said Dave. He stopped and Olive continued straight to her seat, holding her books to her chest.
“What is it, man?” asked Daquone, smiling and sitting on the edge of Dave’s desk. He smacked his gum.
“Well, Daquone, I got caught up with grades last night and it seems as if you’re just holding at sixty percent. You’re getting a ‘D’. Barely.”
Daquone shrugged and smiled. “Yeah, so?”
“So you need a 2.0 grade point average to play sports.”
“Yeah?” He laughed and looked back at his buddy Travion, who was already in his seat.
“Sixty percent is a ‘D’. A ‘D’ is 1.0. So unless you bring your grades up in this class, you won’t be able to stay on the basketball team.”
Daquone wasn’t laughing now. He actually looked a little worried.
“Hey, Mr. Bell,” he said. “You gotta give me a better grade.”
“The grade you get is up to you. It’s what you earn. I give you nothing.” He glanced up at the clock.
“Take your seat now, Daquone. We’ll talk after class.” The bell rang. Dave went to close the door. Daquone still stood at his desk.
“Mr. Bell—“
“We’re not going to talk about this now. I have to teach my class.”
Daquone glared at him and stalked back to his seat.
Dave got up and went to the Smart Board, ready to start the warm-up activity when it came to him—a thunderbolt. A solution so neat and so simple it was almost too good to be true.
“Okay,” he said. “Today’s warm-up is a short journal question. It’s right up here on the Smart Board. Who would like to read it for me?”
Tiana raised her hand.
“Tiana.”
She cleared her throat theatrically and said, “What are some parts of our culture today that originally came from the cultures of the Aztecs and the Mayans?”
A few students applauded. Tiana got up, bowed, and sat down.
“Thank you, Tiana. If you’ll remember, we spoke about this yesterday and have been studying it all week. Write down—“
A knock sounded at the door. Dave frowned. If there was one thing he hated, it was being interrupted in the middle of class.
“Someone’s at the door, Mr. Bell,” said Damien.
“Thank you.” He strode over and opened it. A man stood there, looking uncertainly about him. He was middle-aged, graying around the temples, and wore tortoise-shell frame glasses. Bifocals. His face was tanned and looked a bit weathered, and his apparel was nondescript. In fact, that was the word to describe his visitor: nondescript. Or maybe two words: completely nondescript.
“Can I help you?” asked Dave.
“Mr. Bell?” The man’s voice was lower than Dave expected. It was resonant and contradicted his seemingly meek appearance.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“I’m Scott Brown. I’m here from EduNet. I don’t know if you’ve gotten word yet, but we’re going to be coming in to observe your school in action.”
EduNet. The company that wanted to take over Custer.
“Yes, our principal mentioned you might be coming.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, I was hoping to come in and take a look-see at your class.”
Dave took a step back and motioned him inside. “Sure, come on in and have a seat. Sit anywhere.” Brown came in and sat at the teacher’s desk. “Make yourself at home. This is my World History class. Students, this is Mr. Brown, here to observe us today. I would like you to show him every courtesy.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Write down the answer to the warm-up activity. I’ll give you two more minutes to finish up.”
They were being pretty good today. Tiana, who was a mediocre student at best, was hard at work. A couple kids in back were talking quietly, but when they saw Bell looking at them, one of them raised up his paper, indicating they were done. Dave nodded to him. Daquone had his head down on his desk, either pouting or sleeping. Dave would ordinarily roust him, but he wasn’t going to rattle his cage anymore today; he was going talk to him after class, anyway.
He glanced back at Brown, who had parked in Dave’s chair and was surveying the class and writing busily on his little laptop. Wonderful. He was sure Ricks had picked him on purpose. Use a veteran teacher to show off the school. The little worm was probably already writing about Daquone being off-task and how he was not redirecting his behavior. Well, he couldn’t worry about a worm and teach at the same time.
“All right,” he said. “Time. Who’s got an answer?”
Tiana raised her hand.
“Yes, Tiana.”
“One thing we got from the Aztec and Mayan culture was squash.”
“Excellent. Anyone else?”
“We got calendars,” called out a voice from back.
“Close, but not quite,” said Dave, “but you are on the right track. Did the Europeans not have calendars before the Mayans?”
Darrel raised his hand.
“Yes, Darrel.”
Darrel started to stand up like he usually did, but stopped himself.
“Another thing we got from Mayan culture,” he said, “was a better understanding of astronomy, which helped us make better calendars.”
“Very good,” said Dave, smiling and nodding at him approvingly. Not only had Darrel given a concise answer that was on point, he’d kept himself within the social norms while doing it. He was learning. Dave glanced back at Brown to see his reaction and noticed he was tilting the back of his laptop toward the back of the classroom, as if aiming it. Wait a minute, thought Dave. Is this son of a bitch videotaping the class? Not that he minded personally, but there was a strict district policy against taping students in class. At least not without parental permission. He’d definitely have to tell Ricks about it.
“Can we think of anything else we have today that came from the Central American civilizations? Dave asked.
The kids sat in their desks, avoiding eye contact with him.
“What about architecture?” Dave continued. “Were these people pretty good builders?” He looked around the classroom. Daquone still had his head down. Tiana was whispering something to Laqueesha.
“Laqueesha?”
She turned her head around slowly to gaze at him. Depending on the day of the week, or the phase of the moon, Laqueesha could be compliant, engaged, and industrious, or disrespectful, confrontational, and disinterested. Her special ed instructor had told Dave Laqueesha was bipolar and was supposed to be on meds. Dave believed it. Today did not look like a good day for her.
“What?” she said.
“The question was whether or not the Mayans or Aztecs had an influence on architecture in our culture.”
Laqueesha looked at Tiana and shrugged.
“Yeah, I guess so, Mr. Bell,” she said, slowly and sarcastically, curling her lip.
Dave looked at her a moment; she had definitely skipped the meds that morning. He could let it go, and probably should; otherwise redirecting her would turn into a huge production, sucking up a lot of instruction time that would probably end up getting her suspended. Usually he would never let something like that go, but today they had the visitor. And, honestly, he was tired. He didn’t really feel up to another battle royale with Laqueesha. He decided to simply call her up and speak to her after class.
“Any other opinions?” he asked the class at large.
No one answered. More kids staring up at the ceiling or down at their books.
“All right. Well, I guess we’ll just have to do a pop quiz then. That might show me what you really know.”
A chorus of groans and objections rained down from the students.
“No?” asked Dave. “What’s wrong?”
“Man, we don’t need no quiz.”
“C’mon, Mr. Bell, we got a quiz yesterday.”
He scanned the room, smiling a little, when his eye caught Laqueesha, glaring at Daquone. He and Travion were looking and her and laughing. He had obviously just said something to her, something she didn’t care for. She looked ready to blow. He needed to get him out of her way.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Daquone, could you come up here, please?”
“What for?” he asked.
“Excuse me?” said Dave. Daquone looked at him and shook his head.
“Sorry,” said Daquone, and started walking to the front of the room. Laqueesha watched him like a hawk as he went by her desk, but, as Dave had suspected, she didn’t go off on him after he’d been called up to the front.
Daquone stood in front of the class with his hands folded in front of him.
“So, Daquone,” said Dave, “I bet you’re wondering why I called you up here.”
“Not really.”
He had been intending to use him with this lesson anyway; the situation with Laqueesha had just precipitated it.
“Well, we need your expertise.”
Daquone shrugged.
“How long have you been playing basketball?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. Since I was about five, I guess.”
“Are you any good?” asked Dave.
Travion laughed out loud in back and a few of the other kids chuckled.
“Yeah, you know,” said Daquone, nodding, “I guess you could say I’m pretty damned good.”
“Language, please.”
“I just said damned, that’s not swearing.”
“Careful, Daquone. That’s your one warning.”
The boy scowled and stared at the floor.
“Now,” said Dave, moving behind his desk and side-stepping Mr. Brown, who was still sitting there with his laptop, “the Mayans played a game the Spaniards called ‘Juego de Pelota’. Does anyone know what that means?”
“Ball game,” said Carlos, a smaller kid who was usually very quiet.
“Ball game. Correct,” said Dave. “Now,” he continued, opening a cabinet behind his desk and getting out a small rubber ball, “does anyone know how this game worked?”
“Yeah,” said Carlos. “We learned about it in our middle school. They’re not sure about everything the way it happened, but it was kind of like soccer. The players couldn’t use their hands. They had to get the ball through a really tiny hoop. And they were like twenty feet away from the court. It was up high.”
“Very good, Carlos,” said Dave. “Thank you.”
“Sure, Mr. Bell,” said Carlos. “Glad to help.”
“So is that where basketball comes from?” asked Travion.
“Not exactly,” said Dave, “but that’s a good question, Tra.”
“So why do you have the little ball?” asked Daquone.
“To demonstrate how tough this game was,” said Dave. “Although court sizes varied tremendously, the hoops were at least six meters, or about twenty feet away from the playing field. How far up is a regulation basketball hoop, Daquone?”
“Ten feet.”
“So this was twice as high up.”
“If you say so.”
“The numbers say so, Daquone. History says so.”
He rolled his eyes and grunted.
“Okay, take a look on the back wall,” said Dave, pointing. There, attached to the top of the metal cabinet, was a hoop he had made out of the top of used yogurt container. It was barely wider than the ball. In the twenty years he’d been demonstrating this lesson, not one student had ever sunk the basket.
“I’d like everyone in the range of fire to move your desks out of the way.”
The students scooted their desks back toward the wall, leaving a four or five foot lane down the center of the classroom.
“Carlos, I’d like you to go stand underneath the hoop back there.”
After he had placed himself under the yogurt cup, Dave waited for the class to quiet down. All it took was his sternest look and a momentary pause. The kids knew what—and what not—to do.
“Are we ready? Good. Here, Carlos. Catch.”
He tossed the ball across the room. Carlos caught it.
“I’d like you to put the ball into the cup and tell us how tight the fit is.”
Carlos stood on his tiptoes and placed the ball in the cup. It went through.
“It’s really tight, Mr. Bell. It barely fits.”
“Thank you, Carlos. You can sit down. Now,” he said, “the reason I’m showing you this is not because it’s fun or goofy; it’s to teach you something about Mayan culture. Now the teams that played this game were warriors, sometimes captured prisoners, sometimes people from that community. It was played to please the gods, and the winners got a special prize. Anyone know what it is?”
“Money.”
“Women.”
“They got to do whatever they wanted.”
“They got NBA contracts.”
That one got a laugh from the class. Even Dave caught himself smiling.
“Nope, nope, and nope,” he said. “Any other guesses?” He glanced at Carlos and then at Darrel. He was pretty sure they both knew the answer but neither one was volunteering. That was fine. Darrel was learning not to shine too much in the classroom, which was a good thing for him.
“The winning team,” said Dave, “was granted the privilege of giving their lives for their gods. They were sacrificed.”
“What?” asked Tiana. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that after the team won, and all you had to do to win was score one basket, the winners were sacrificed to the gods.”
“That would suck, man,” said Daquone.
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true,” said Dave, “and quiet down now.”
He waited until the murmuring died down. “Why the winning team? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for the losers to die?”
“No man,” said Travion, “the gods would want the best we had to offer and the priests from Maya knew that. So that’s how they picked them.”
“Good, Travion. Very good. So what does that say about their culture? What motivated them? What made them do what they did?”
They sat quietly, thinking about it. A number of the students, the ones who despised thinking, looked bored and exasperated, but they knew enough to keep quiet until the discussion was over. That was the way things worked in Mr. Bell’s class. The others were really wondering about it; Dave could almost hear them thinking.
“Any ideas?” he asked, after a moment. “No? We’ll come back to this. Now, I’m going to ask Daquone to see how he would have done at this game. Stand on the tape right there. You see it. I marked off seven paces, about twenty feet, earlier today. We’ll see if Daquone, one of the best basketball players in the school, can hit that bucket from here.”
He gave Daquone the ball. He glanced at it, then looked at the yogurt cup taped to the cabinet.
“There’s no way, Mr. Bell. Nobody could hit that.”
“It’s tough, I know, but why don’t you try it anyway? Maybe the gods want you to make it.”
Daquone looked at him moment, shook his head, and looked at the basket again. Some of the students started whispering and giggling. A couple shouted encouragement to Daquone. He squared up and shot the ball. Time seemed to take a breath as the ball arced through the air closer and closer to the cup and then—without any interference from the rim—went straight through. A tremendous cheer went up from the students. Dave shook his head. The first time it had ever gone through and it had to be a kid like Daquone.
“Good job,” he said. “Everyone put your desks back into the rows.” He waited until the students complied and settled down. “That, ladies and gentlemen, is a first,” he said. “Let’s hear it for Daquone.” He stood up as the rest of the class applauded him.
“All right,” continued Dave. “What would have happened to Daquone had he lived in the ancient Mayan culture?”
“He would have been sacrificed,” said Carlos.
“That’s right. The cultural standard would have said he belongs to the gods now, and we would have to sacrifice him to gain their favor. What does that tell you about how they felt about their gods? And, by extension, about their world?”
Darrel raised his hand. Dave nodded to him.
“I think,” said Darrel, “it showed they were scared of the gods. It’s like when people are scared of bullies. They give them stuff so bullies leave them alone. It usually doesn’t work, but sometimes it helps.”
Carlos was looking at Darrel and nodding. Daquone leaned back in his desk and was staring hard at Darrel.
“So, Darrel,” asked Dave, “why do think these people were scared of these gods? How were they being bullied?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe disease, rain, the crops were dying, other stuff they didn’t understand. They thought the gods controlled everything and they must have thought they were really mean.”
Dave nodded. “Very good, Darrel. I think you’re on to something there. I’d like you to complete your exit assignment. You have three minutes. Answer this question: How much did the Mayans trust their gods?”
He went back to his desk and started putting together the warm-up activities. Mr. Brown, the EduNet rep, was busily writing on his laptop. Dave had almost forgotten he was there.
“I hope you enjoyed the class,” said Dave.
“I certainly did, Mr. Bell. You have some very effective, though unorthodox methods.”
“I try to use as much differentiated instruction as I can.” It couldn’t hurt to throw some eduspeak at this guy; sometimes a little jargon could go a long way.
“Indeed,” said Mr. Brown, still busily writing on his desktop.
Dave could see the conversation was over. Well. So much for that. Dave turned and appraised the class; most of them were still writing. It would be interesting to see what they took out of this lesson. Darrel had really hit the mark with his bully analogy: Dave hoped the kids felt the same way.
The bell rang. The students got up, gathered their things, and started to leave. Mr. Brown also rose from his desk, folded his laptop, nodded to Dave, and left.
“Leave your papers in the basket,” said Dave to his students. “You know the drill.”
Darrel stopped at his desk, waiting to speak to him.
“Just a second, Darrel,” said Dave. “Daquone.”
As he expected, Daquone was almost out the door, trying to leave without speaking to him first.
“Yeah, Mr. Bell.”
“I think that until your grades come up, you’ll need to come in during your lunch hour for extra tutoring.”
“Forget that, man. I need to eat.”
“You can eat here,” Dave said as he sat on the edge of a desk, “but I’ll let you know right now. You don’t come in, you don’t play ball. It’s that simple.”
Daquone shook his head but sighed and said, “All right.”
“Come in tomorrow,” said Dave. “We’ll get started then.”
Daquone left. Dave turned his attention to Darrel.
“What is it, Darrel?”
“I was wondering, Mr. Bell, sir, if I could come here during my lunch hour. It’s really noisy in the cafeteria and I don’t really like it there. My mom said I could probably ask you. I bring my own lunch and I would clean up afterward if that would be okay.”
The poor kid was probably getting harassed or beat up or worse during lunch. Dave smiled to himself; it was funny the way things worked out sometimes.
“It’s funny you should ask that, Darrel. I was about to ask you a big favor. One of my students needs to be tutored during the lunch hour, and I thought you might be the person to do it.”
“Daquone?”
Dave nodded. Darrel thought a minute. Dave could tell the idea kind of scared him, but was kind of appealing, too.
“Would he mind being tutored by me?”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. You are one of my best students.”
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah, I could do that.”
“I’ll see you at lunch today,” said Dave, writing him a pass. “Now hurry to class.”
Darrel nodded and walked out.