In all my years, as a fifth-grade teacher I have only come to really regret one writing assignment.  And it’s not that I wouldn’t give the same assignment again.  I’m just a little better prepared for what I might get back these days.  Also, if I’m fair with myself, my skin is a little thicker too. 

       We had been massaging descriptive essays for a week and I wanted the kids to give me a feeling paper.  So I said, “Kids, let’s write a journal entry about something you had to do.  Something you didn’t want to do, but you absolutely had to do it. I mean something that still bothers you to this very day. Something that just wasn’t right.  Well, here’s your chance to complain about it on paper.”

       I thought I was pretty smart. The kids would sink their teeth into it.  A magic alarm bell should have rung when Bernie raised his hand.

        Bernie was skinny, blond, quiet, very polite, and a bit of a messy writer.  In fact, Bernie was hard to notice because he was so undemanding.  The type of student teachers miss because the noisy kids demand our attention.  Teachers

have a name for kids like that and we don’t use it in a mean way. Invisibles. Bernie was my Invisible kid.

       “Mr. Karrer, we can write about …well…anything… that we had to do?”

       “Sure.”  I replied.  Bernie had just said more in one sentence than he had all year.  Normally he never said diddley squat unless I cornered him and he was dead certain of his answer.  And then his reply would be a simple yes or no.

       

       I stared at Bernie a moment and he looked up.

       “You sure, you’re sure, Mr. Karrer?”

       “Yes, I am, Bernie. I am 100 percent sure you can write about anything.”

        Again he had just doubled what he normally said.  Bernie put his head down, began writing and never looked up. Meanwhile, I paced the room helping with a verb here, suggesting a noun there, making sure spelling was A-O.K.

      “Mr. Karrer, how do you spell…?”  a student would ask.

       And I’d say what I always said, “What does it sound like?”

       Ninety percent of the time they got it right, unless it had a “ph”, “ght” or a “tion” in it.

       So the kids wrote their essays.  They complained about dirty dishes, feeding the family pet, watching a snotty-nosed brother or sister. Mostly simple complaints of normal day-in and day-out stuff.  Times they had been slighted. Times they had been cheated, both real and imagined.  Injustices bubbled out. A few wrote silly stories.   Eventually thirty minutes whisked by and I found myself where the assignment had started - at Bernie’s desk.

       He looked up at me. Uncertainty and concern were written all over his face. He let out a weighty sigh.

      “Are you done?” I asked.

      He lifted his shoulders in the I don’t-know shrug and handed me his completed journal.

 

 “‘Dear Mr.  Karrer,

    You asked the class to write about something we needed to do one time.   Did you know that my mom died when I was seven?  I’m ten now and I live with my Grandma.  Did you know that? 

    My mom had that kind of cancer called leukemia.  I remember she moved to the hospital for a couple of years.  We had to really, really, really clean the house when she came to visit cuz’ of the germs.  See, she could get sick super easy.  She even lost all her hair.   It’s kinda’ scary to see your mom without hair. She got a wig, but I think she did that for me.  Did you ever see your mom without her hair, Mr. Karrer?

      Anyway, the last time I saw her we watched The Wizard of Oz at Gram’s house.  She really loved that movie.  She liked the part where Dorothy sang and walked on the Yellow Brick Road and collected all her new friends - the Lion, the scarecrow and the Tin Man.  She liked the Lion the best, especially when he cried like a wimp.

        Anyway, I came home from school one day and my Gram said,

“’Bernie, your mom passed away today.  Maybe you better go out and play to make you feel better.’”

       And you know what Mr. Karrer?  I did go outside and play. That’s what I had to do. I had to go out and play.  I didn’t want to go outside and play but I had to.  I didn’t really know what else to do.

        I hope that’s what you meant for us to do for this assignment.  I am sorry if it isn’t.  I’ll write another essay if you want.

 

                                          Thanks,

                                          Bernie Stewart’”

 

Bernie did not have to write another essay for me and he wasn’t invisible to me anymore either.