I Wonder

Each student is a mystery. Many come with some kind of label attached -- high achiever, sleepyhead, troublemaker, even, as one of my colleagues puts it, ‘oxygen thief.’ Mostly the labels are accurate, but you never know.

Sometimes one comes along who turns the stereotype on its head.

I had a student like that in Creative Writing recently. His label said, disapprovingly, that all he wanted to write about was firefighting.

It was true. Jeff wrote about nothing but firefighting. He wrote a lengthy short story -- almost a novella -- about one particularly dangerous fire in which some firefighters are trapped in a burning house. It was filled with the kind of specific detail that tells a reader immediately that the author knows what he’s talking about -- the clothing, the equipment, the specialized language.

When I saw his first draft, I noticed he had crossed out some dialogue that contained profanity. ‘Is this how firefighters talk?’ I asked him.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Put it back in,’ I said.

Late in the course, I suggested he try some poems about firefighting.

He was dubious at first, but then produced a series of terse, exciting poems that capture the danger, excitement, and moral complexities of a firefighter’s life. My favorite is called ‘I Wonder.’

The dispatch was unknown medical emergency.

We get out of the rig. I can smell the dew on the grass.

I can see the sun starting to poke above the horizon.

I walk up to the door, clueless:

Would this be a little girl, splinter in finger?

Or a grown man, not breathing?

Or a crazed heroin addict, waiting there

With a 2x4, waiting for us to come through that door?

Or would this call be that call

Where we go in, and the bullets ring out?

I reach my hand up for the doorbell,

Sweat running down my forehead:

The door flings open.

I read it to the class, and when it ended, there was a groan of disappointment. ‘What happens next?’ they demanded.

The author just grinned. ‘You never know,’ he said.

That’s what teaching is like, too. You get a class roster before each course begins. Some of students listed on it you have had before, some are new. You ask other teachers about them. You count the IEPs, the Individualized Education Plans for special education kids. You try to avoid labeling, but sometimes you can’t help it. ‘This will be a tough one,’ you think, or ‘I can’t wait to get started!’

Then the door flings open.