Antonio is compact young man, short with a light build, maybe 5' 2", 110 pounds. He has black hair grown short and flat on his head, like Caesar's busts; it doesn’t change the shape of his head. He walks quietly, tilted a little to one side as if he is dodging something. Which he is, I think -- he is dodging scrutiny. He doesn't look people in the eye, because he’s hiding.
He was a ninth grader when he started my Academic Reading class in August, but he was reading on a fourth grade level. He wrote slowly, in short sentences, with a small vocabulary and troubled grammar. He answered politely and carefully when called on, but never volunteered anything. And the sense that I had watching him walk was confirmed when he sat down: he hid behind the student in front of him, or beside him, depending on where I was. It would be easy to overlook him; he worked hard to be overlooked.
He hid, but during the year, he did his work with tremendous tenacity. He never skipped anything, although he usually finished several minutes after everyone else. His handwriting was slow, but curiously beautiful. It was not calligraphy; it was standard script. But it very precise; each letter was clear and unmistakable.
When I pointed out mistakes, he looked at me with no expression on his face, so that I wondered if he understood what I was saying, or if he resented my fussy criticism about impossible English spelling or grammar or idioms. I was a little slow to realize that although he looked at me without any expression, he never made the same mistake again.
When I called on him, he always hesitated before he spoke, and he always responded as briefly as possible without being rude. For some weeks, all I noticed was that he was slow and brief. I wondered if he was thinking in Spanish and translating his ideas into English. But then I realized that his speech was like his writing -- he spoke in complete sentences, short but to the point, with nothing extra but nothing missing.
We measured reading levels five times during the year. Each time, he had made very solid progress, and he finished the year reading at an eleventh grade level. His writing was similarly improved, with appropriate complexity. I did not see any change in his speaking.
The first time I saw him smile was in January or February. I taught in a public school, and I was careful to support parents, and not to promote ideas that might conflict with the ideas and values my students learned at home. I am comfortable with a remark attributed to St. Francis: “Preach always; when necessary, use words.” Still, by mid-winter, we had all gotten to know each other's views about many things, and I answered straight when a student asked me what I thought about illegal immigration. More than half the class was Latino, and a few had legal status; but the status of others was not so clear, in a situation where a lack of clarity is actually pretty transparent. I said that my thinking about it was shaped by my religious views, and that my understanding was that the Bible says repeatedly that God protects widows and orphans and strangers -- that the word “stranger” meant “immigrant.” I said that I was deeply moved by the words in Matthew’s Gospel, and I paraphrased them: “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was an immigrant and you welcomed me: meet my Father. I was hungry and you didn’t feed me, I was thirsty and you didn’t give a drink, I was an immigrant and you didn’t welcome me: go to hell.” Antonio’s head popped out of hiding, and the corners of his mouth were just barely turned up, his eyes just barely lit up. “Just barely” was enough; that was a real smile -- a million dollar smile, one of the great treasures of my teaching career.
Several months later, we had a discussion in class about college. The counseling department was squeezing decisions about the fall schedule out of everyone, and everyone was talking about life plans. I knew what most of them had in mind, but I ran through the whole class, asking each student where they expected to go to college. I was careful about the students who were planning to go into the military or a career right after high school -- but every student spoke. When I got to Antonio, I just sailed right into the default question of the day, without adjusting. By then, I had figured out that he was among the most determined and disciplined and promising students I would ever teach, and I was getting ready to launch into a spiel about the scholarships that are available at the Ivy League schools, and at many of the best colleges in the country . For students without much money, the best schools can cost about the same as community colleges -- next to nothing -- if you get in. I was ready to talk about what students can do in tenth and eleventh grade to help strengthen college applications. I was expecting him to say he was planning to go to Montgomery College, and I was ready to praise MC but then argue that he should apply at a list of other schools.
He looked me right in the eye and said carefully, “I’m not going to college.”
I was shocked: “Why not?”
I think he almost laughed at the expression on my face. I think he understood my shock and accepted it as a compliment. He kept eye contact, lifted his chin, smiled a broad smile, and waited for me to figure it out.
He is in hiding: he takes some risks, but he is careful. I can’t think of it without searing pain. He has accepted it. I don’t.
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