A room with a view

Tess turned up her collar against the cold and stared at the red brick building. It would be good being back in school again. She remembered the last time she was in school, “Tess the Mess” was the taunt she had lived with her whole life. Her parents didn’t have too much, so she usually had to make do with whatever she had. A quickly sown up tear or run down pinafore made sure she was properly clothed, but sure didn’t protect her from the remarks of the kids in the class.A new school, a new beginning was all she was hoping for

As she stepped in the classroom, the silence settled over the class in a minute. She walked to the blackboard and in big, bold letters wrote down “Miss Tess Jennings”. She smiled and thought “gosh it was better to come back as teacher, than a student any day”. As she introduced herself to the 30 odd fourth graders settled in, she scanned their faces. Trying to memorize their names, as the roll call went on. Her brain was trying to match the description given by the third grade teacher, Ms. Geddie, to each of the students.

Amelia Hollindase – “The pretty one and she knew it, so be careful”
Richard Smith - “Always trying to please the teacher, you might have an apple sitting on the table everyday”
Brenda Gayheart – “Be careful of her mother , she will pull your hair out if she thinks you have given her daughter a bad grade”

And so she went on till she reached William Stevenson. That boy ,with his gangly limbs and head of unruly red hair was the one she was most interested in. He had been a straight ‘A’ student till the second grade, then his parents split up. After couple of months, his grades dwindled and then he didn’t he participate in school basketball , which he loved. Ms. Geddie had been concerned and called his parents. As the meeting slowly burst into an abuse match between the parents, Ms.Geddie had suggested Will set up an appointment with a psychologist . So Will had been in therapy for the last 9 months and in class he still was a now a "B” grade student . He would always stare out of the window even when the teacher was taking a lesson. Ms. Geddie had always excused him feeling sorry for what he was going through.
As Tess came back to the present, she caught site of Will, still staring out of the window. With Will being the tallest, she couldn’t even pull him to the front of the class to actually look at her when she taught . Tess had taken a couple of classes in psychology in her grad school and she was sure she could sort through whatever emotional tangle this poor boy was going through.

The next week , Tess reached home, carrying the bulk of homework assignments the class had submitted the day before. As she read through each of the essays about “Great American heroes”, she could make out some of them were actually written by the parents. When she reached Will’s essay, she thought it was extremely well written by the child himself, however the handwriting was illegible. She could hardly believe a ten year old could write this bad. As she pulled down her psychology 101 textbooks, she wondered if it was 'Parental Alienation' syndrome. Communication was the first to die in an alienated child and the only way to help him she thought was to open communication channels for this child. As she quickly put into a project plan to help this alienated child, she felt confident she was on her way to being a good teacher. Early next morning, she rang up Will’s mother and later his father. She then spoke to the other teachers in school. They were all going to pay attention to Will from now on and try to get him to participate. During class, she was quick to compliment Will on any answers given and give him extra attention. In contrast to helping him , the attention started to make him do worse. He now stared out of the window all the time, even during lunch and even stopped talking to his other classmates .The more he withdrew, the more Tess paid attention to his work and attitude.

Finally two weeks before summer vacation, Tess graded Will’s paper only to find he hadn’t even filled in the basic details. He had left it all a blank. She was angry and frustrated, 6 months she had tried her best but this child kept slipping. The next day after class, she asked him to stay back. Handing him the paper , she kept quiet waiting for him to say something. But as he continued to stare into his shoes and the silence stretched into 15 minutes, Tess finally broke it .

"What’s the matter with you” she asked. “We all are trying to help you out but you keep wanting to hold yourself back. Don’t you want to do well , have friends or even be back on the basketball team” .

As he slowly looked up, she gazed into a pair of dark green eyes. Funny she had never know how his face looked up close till now.

“Help me, Help me??” He asked. “All you have done since you came here, is make my life miserable, talking to me all the time. Now all the kids call me Tess’s pet. I was ok till you came; now my life is miserable”. As the words sank into Tess , she cringed with regret. She forgot how cruel the kids could be , especially to someone they thought the teacher liked. Shaking her head she said “I’m sorry, I just wanted to help you. You are so bright and intelligent, I don’t understand why you don’t do as well nowadays”.

For the first time since she had been there, she saw a smile breakout on Will’s face. “You really think I’m bright” he asked, she enthusiastically nodded . The she asked him a question that every kid and teacher wanted to know. “Why do you stare out of the window? There is nothing there but an empty field and two rocks”. As those green eyes rested on her , he said “Well you know you’re the first person to ask me that !. My parents, teachers and even the psychologist never asked me that one”. As she waited for an answer, his gaze again wandered to the fields in the view.

“Well” he said “I can’t see the blackboard ,alright!!! ”.

He continued “ So instead concentrating on something I can’t see, I look at something close , like window sill but concentrate on what you are saying.It helps me to study better ”.

As his answer thundered through Tess’s brain she called herself a hundred kinds of fool. All the teachers, the parents and the psychologist were so concerned with his mind, that they didn’t even think of the simplest thing, it was staring at them right through his big green eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell us” she asked.

He shrugged and said “I would look like a dork with glasses , and anyway my parents have far bigger stuff to fight about”.

“So you’re not angry at your parents” she asked.

“Of course not, most of my friends have parents who are not together and this way they don’t fight all the time. I had my friends to talk to, but because of your constant attention, they keep teasing me all the time ” he replied

Tess smiled. “Ok, do you want to be Tess’s pet forever. If you don’t want ,then ,you need to get a pair of glasses” she replied.

As Will mused over this, he finally said “I think Dork is better than Tess’s pet”.

Tess felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “ I will ask your mom to take you to the ophthalmologist tomorrow, but you have to retake the test on Monday to get a better grade ”.

Will shrugged and turned to leave. But before he walked out, he suddenly turned ,smiled and said “Thank you”.

As Tess pulled out her cell to call his mother, she felt she had learnt her first teaching lesson. She now knew to always ask the student first before putting Sigmund Freud into action , because teaching didn’t always adhere to the text book answers, it required common sense and heart to sometimes see a situation clearly.