After Class

 There are moments when my teaching momentum gets waylaid by some little thing. Then there was this moment last Friday. 

Some fifth grade boys were taunting one another, as fifth grade boys will, as turns were being taken during a PE challenge. As one of them was getting up, I heard another say this to his friend: "Dirty Jew."

Suddenly, the rest of the class disappeared and I could only see this eleven year old sitting in front of me. Just as abruptly, he was aware that I was staring directly at him. The disjoint was as powerful as the feelings that rushed through me. I had become familiar with the overly casual use of the "N word" by students at our school. I had a prepared speech for such occurrences. But this one? I didn't have a quick response. 

Which is when the rest of the class came back into focus. The boy to whom the epithet was delivered didn't seem to have noticed or cared what his pal had called him. So I made a choice to move on, but not without taking this young man aside and letting him know that we would speak. After class. Not enough of a gesture so that the rest of his classmates would get all Jerry Springer about it, but the message was sent: After class. 

When I sent the rest of the fifth graders off to recess, I was glad to see that one didn't need to be reminded to stay behind. I started by double checking, "Did you say 'dirty Jew?'" I wanted to be sure.

I was relieved when there was no wide-eyed denial of what was said. Instead, there was a sad shrug of the shoulders, as his gaze turned to the ground between us. 

"Do you know what that means?" 

He looked up for a moment. "Yeah." Then a pause. Then, "No." 

"You know it's not nice." His eyes went back down. "It's a mean thing. A very mean thing." I went on to deliver the quickest version of the Holocaust I could, reminding him that hate of any kind was not okay. Muslim. Christian. Jew. Boys. Girls. Black. White. Brown. Rich. Poor. Fourth grade. Fifth grade. I wanted him to get that his casual diss of his friend had roots that were historical. And tragic. 

I have known this kid since Kindergarten. I know that he had no understanding of what was coming out of his mouth beyond the fact that he was repeating something he had heard one of his buddies say. So I asked him. "Where did you hear that?"

"Jason." Still looking at the ground.

Jason made sense. Jason was a kid who could assimilate that kind of put down in a school full of Latino, African-American and Yemeni students with scarcely a Jew on site. It would be a page of the scrapbook of hate that Jason was assembling for purposes that no one could fully understand. 

I waited for my young charge to meet my eye. "Let that go. There's no good in it." He nodded. "Go to recess." 

He left, leaving me with the question of how to deal with Jason. That would take a little longer than "after class."