207 Teaching

Days passed. It was Wednesday, June 4, the last day I'd be babysitting Katy, seven in July, and Dylan, eleven in August. I had been watching them for two weeks. Their mother, an administrative assistant at the public school, had to work for two weeks after the children were let out for the summer. Each day she dropped them off at my home at 7:00 on her way to work and my son picked them up at 1:00 on his way home. Dylan played computer games for hours. Katy required more supervision. She had asked me a week earlier if I knew her favorite thing to do.

"No," I said. "What?"

"Hammering nails."

Hmm.

It seemed a guest had come to her class, a carpenter, and let the children handle his tools.

Later Katy's dad told me he'd had to hide his own.

"If I don't," he said, "Katy takes everything apart."

One day Katy had gotten his screwdriver, he said, gone to the slide on the wooden swing set, and removed all the steps from the ladder.

The summer Katy was born the city had cut down, chopped up, and hauled away an old dying Chinese elm in the parking between the street and the sidewalk in front of my home and left a flat stump four inches off the ground. On its surface I had marked a circle thirty inches in diameter and hammered into it shingling nails with shiny heads, thinking I'd leave the peace sign for nuclear disarmament on the ruin, but I had run out of nails two thirds of the way around the circle. I had bought some more but never got back to the project.

Now with Katy I thought of it again.

With one of her white crayons I drew the vertical line at the circle's diameter and the two radii angling down from its center to its perimeter. Katy's lack of skill and experience made useless the tack hammer I first offered her so I brought up from the basement my two-pound steel drilling hammer. Katy had to use both hands to wield it but it worked great. Six years of Iowa rain, heat, cold, snow, and ice had softened the stump some, so with just a little pressure I could set each nail with my fingers and let go; and then with just two or three blows each Katy pounded them all in. It took twenty minutes to hammer the nails into the symbol and we talked as we worked.

"What does this peace sign mean, Grandpa?" Katy asked.

"It means no more war," I said.

"No more war?"

"It means no more bombing," I explained.

"No more bombing?"

"No more war," I said.

Katy was silent while she thought about this.

"Grandpa," she asked, "did you know that a man killed nine people in a store?"

"Yes."

"It was on the news," she said.

"Yes, I heard about it."

"Grandpa, do you think someone would really do that?" she asked.

"It happened, Katy."

"I think it was in Toys R Us," she said.

"No, it was in Von Maur."

"The people were shopping," she said.

"Yes."

"The ninth person the man killed was himself," she explained.

"Yes, that's right."

"That's crazy!" she exclaimed.

"What's crazy?" I asked.

"It's crazy to kill your self!" she exclaimed.

I thought a moment.

"Kill your self?" she said again. "That's crazy!"

"My father killed himself," I said.

"He did?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He was old and feeble and really really sick," I said.

"Didn't the doctors know why he was sick?" Katy asked.

"They knew why but they couldn't help him," I explained.

"Oh."

When Katy had finished our peace sign we stood up and stepped back from the stump to get a better look.

"It looks great," I said.

"Yeah," she agreed.

"You did a good job," I said. "Thank you!"

"Welcome."

We walked across the lawn, lush with moist, thick green grass and clover, up the three steps onto the porch, and into the house. Katy went to the computer room to tell Dylan what she had done. The two of them walked back outside and across the lawn down to the sidewalk and the stump. Dylan stood, his hands on his hips, and looked. I watched and listened from the porch.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's a peace sign," Katy told him.

"A peace sign?"

"Yes."

"What does it mean?" Dylan asked.

"No more war," she explained.

"No more war?"

"Yes," she said.

"Oh."

They turned, smiling, teasing, laughing softly, and walked together back up to the house towards me.

Tears.

That June I attended an evening zazen, a midmorning Sunday service, the same in July, in August an evening zazen or two, a midmorning service or two, and the precept ceremony.

In fall and winter the same—

Seldom.

My appearance at the temple was infrequent and irregular.

I was happy.

At home I practiced religiously.

Every day I walked.

I sat.

I taught.

Inspired by discussions I had at Heartmind I suggested to students in my class in academic discourse that we study together the subject of taboo language. Because there were few if any persons of color in my classes at the west campus I had taken the word "nigger" off the table; but with that one exception together my students and I explored taboo words, the origins of the taboos, the meanings of such words, their etymology, and the sanctions levied on their use for the breach and violation of the taboo. For academic convenience we divided our subject into three types.

The first was profanity—

"God damn it!"

"Jesus Christ!"

The second vulgarity—

"Asshole!"

"Shit!"

"Piss on it!"

The third obscenity—

"Fuck off!"

"You cunt!"

I invited students to relate their own family and personal histories of this general topic and I composed my own and distributed copies of it to my students as an example of what I wanted from them. These histories served as the introductions to their essays. For three weeks we discussed the subject. Then students composed sections of their essays in our computer classroom. The subject elicited some unusual exchanges.

A young woman raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"Is 'shit' vulgar or profane?" she asked.

"Vulgar."

"Thank you."

The young woman beside her also had a question.

"Yes?"

"When we discuss obscenity should we do 'fuck' first or 'cunt' first?"

"Fuck."

"Thank you."

"This is my best class this quarter," yet another young woman told me.

"Wonderful."

"It's so much fun," her friend agreed.

"Good."

I had to be totally awake and alert in my job, vigilant really, in order to do what I did, but my students responded so positively to me and to my teaching that I would just keep on keepin on—nonviolence, openness, honesty, compassion, courage, reason, patience.

Perseverance.

Yes.

"I'm a true believer," I told Ivan. "I have always preferred schools to churches.

Inquiry.

"That is why I never left them."

Reason.

It often seemed even to me a miracle that I had survived as long as I had in public education. I had been often in trouble. Yet among my colleagues and associates my biggest doubters seemed also to see some good in the unconventional things I did. My emphasis on nonviolence, my own openness, and my honesty, I think, disarmed them and persuaded them when I failed, badly, to give me again just one more time the benefit of the doubt.

In discussion religion was a frequent topic.

Philosophy.

Atheism.

"May I ask you a question?" one of my young fundamentalists inquired.

"Of course."

"Why are we studying all this bible stuff?"

"Well, Heather—" I began.

Heather looked up into my eyes with total trust.

Open.

Innocent.

For me it was a moment poignant and profound.

I felt the mysterious power of my authority.

Teacher.

I replied, slowly, deliberately, tenderly, and as apologetically as I could.

"There is this horrible horrible world war going on, Heather, and innocent people, children, babies, too, are being tortured and shot and bombed, and it has been going on for as long as I have been alive, sixty-three years, and nobody has been able to stop it, not for even a single day, really, and many educated, intelligent people believe that our understanding of words like 'god' and 'faith' and 'right' and 'wrong' and 'justice' and 'judgment' and 'evil' and 'good' and what we teach our children about these concepts and ideas may have something to do with it, so I thought that perhaps in my college English classes if we studied together and thought together, really slow and careful, we could consider this possibility."

Heather smiled.

I waited.

Heather nodded her head yes and then grinned.

Hooray!

I was certain that Heather would return to class at least one more day.

Good.