Sharing The World Of Literature With A New Generation
The First Day Part 1
Charlie was running a bit behind for his first English class of the year, he knew it would be rough. But he was determined to open the world of literature to his students. He knew it would be doubly hard since he was the new guy on the block and word had already spread through the school. But he wasn’t intimated. To be intimated in this school was the first step to signing your own death warrant, and that was far from Charlie’s agenda.
As he neared his classroom, Charlie prepared for the mental stress he was about to endure. Then he opened the door and walked in black trench coat flowing behind him as he entered the room to stand before his class. He stood before them, calmly removed his coat, and hung it on the back of his chair telling them to settle down.
“Good morning, class. I apologize for being late. I’m Mr. Baker, and I am your English teacher. I’m giving you two choices; I can treat you as young adults or children. The choice is up to you,” he started out as they began to settle. “I was once in one of the same desks you are sitting at now and had to make the same choice I’m giving you. If you choose wisely, you may be the teacher someday or whatever you aspire to be.” He stared out over the familiar desks as he continued, “You know, actually I think my name may be carved in one of those desks you are sitting at.”
The class chuckled, but it was a respectful chuckle. Everyone even checked their desk to see if they might have his name carved in their desk. One kid dressed in all black with a comic book character on his t-shirt found it and had Charlie come over so he could show him. Charlie walked to the back and nodded as he saw, smiling at it. He also noticed that the kid had mostly comic books in his bag and remembered the days when that had been most of his reading material. One of the rougher looking kids, dressed in mostly denim, across the aisle tried to take a cheap shot at him, throwing a right hook as Charlie had anticipated since he was the new guy on the block, and Charlie caught it tossing the punch aside.
As he walked to the front in reply to the attack he said, “Like I said I’ve been in those desks before you. I know all the tricks you will try and pull. Now you can try your best and pass or better, or you can just waste your time and repeat the class with a less understanding teacher. You see I’m not here to be the boss, I’m here to be a leader and work with you to help you learn what the course wants you to learn.”
One kid raised his hand and asked, “Why do you want to help us?”
“I was wondering when a question like that would come up. See, I was once on the same road as some of you until a teacher helped me. Now it is my turn to do what he did for me,” he answered smiling as he remembered his mentor.
One of the wiser kids, a boy named John dressed in all black wearing a leather coat with a gang patch acting all big and bad, raised his hand and said in a sarcastic pity me voice, “I don’t like to read. How am I going to pass this class?”
“I knew I would find at least one person claiming not to like reading. See, no one likes to read until they find the right type of book. With the right subject or the right writer. And, I’m just crazy enough to try every book in the library to find the right one for every one of you,” Charlie countered.
After this, the class went mostly silent with whispers among themselves, and Charlie let them have some time to digest all he had said to them. He figured he would start them off slowly, no reason to blow their minds completely yet. So he went to the chalk board and wrote books in a circle in the center of the chalkboard with lines coming off of it.
A kid dressed in all preppy fashion with glasses and who had a five-star notebook out and in the front row named Ron raised his hand and asked, “What’s that Mr. Baker?”
“This is a brainstorming exercise from when I was a kid. Our topic is books, and our goal as a class is to map out everything we can think of about books. From genres we like to read to even titles to music we like to listen when reading to places we like to read,” Charlie answered smiling.
Ron nodded along with the rest of the class. Someone called out, “Boring.” Charlie wrote it down on one of the lines and circled it. That started to give the class the idea of how it worked. They started calling out answers one by one, growing the brainstorm until it covered the whole board. It had every sort of idea you could imagine on it. Charlie smiled, looking at it before turning to face the class.
“Now copy this down, because it will help you with your homework assignment. I want two pages, double-spaced on books and how they relate to you. You have all the inspiration you need right up here on the board thanks to you and your classmates,” Charlie instructed.
Charlie watched as they copied everything down and wrote the assignment down. He knew he had won round one, but that there would be harder battles than the first day of class. But he had plenty of tricks left up his sleeve still, and he planned to pull out all the stops to get these kids through his class as well as high school if need be.
