Chiffon and Billy

True charisma is a personality trait that one rarely encounters but to find it in a child is truly exceptional. Chiffon had it, and the more I came to know him the more extraordinary seemed his talents. But I'm getting ahead of my story.

I retired from the Federal government a few years ago and returned to Northern California (to be near my adopted daughter and grandson.) Being healthy and still relatively young, I was looking around for some useful work to do. I saw a classified ad in the newspaper recruiting public school teachers with special skills for a new "Gifted & Talented" program that was being established in the local elementary schools. They were looking for someone to teach photography, so I applied. When the date for school to commence had passed and I had heard nothing further from them, I assumed they had selected someone else.

As the second week of the school semester began, I received a phone call from a desperate school official. They had hired a qualified young woman to teach photography. She had performed satisfactorily the first week but then phoned and said she was resigning. She was going back to Pennsylvania to get married and wouldn't be able to continue teaching here. They were in a bind, the official pleaded. I was their only hope and would I please come in and take over her classes--immediately!
As I drove in to school that first morning, I felt apprehensive. I had never been in charge of a group of young children. Also, I had missed all the orientation sessions for the new teachers in this newly inaugurated program. And, the children were likely to have been upset by this interruption in their class. To avoid a fiasco, I would somehow have to overcome all these obstacles. I didn't feel at all confident I could do so.

When I walked into my first class session, I felt even less confident. I had spent the first fifteen minutes of the class in the principal's office being informed where the classroom was located and my class schedule for the week. As I turned into the corridor, I could hear a commotion coming from my classroom. When I opened the door, the noise hit me with physical force. I am handicapped by a soft voice and I had no chance of being heard over the tumult, so I put my fingers between my lips and whistled as hard as I could. The sound was startlingly loud, but it worked; the silence was now as loud as the prior commotion had been. I introduced myself to the class and explained I would be their teacher for the rest of the semester. They immediately assailed me with barrage of questions about their former teacher. And, most important, what would become of the pinhole cameras that she had them constructing. To neither of these questions could I make an answer.

I asked them what the previous teacher had covered so far. They replied that for today's class, they had been asked to bring from home an oatmeal box, with which they planned to construct a pinhole camera. My confidence rose, I knew how to make a pinhole camera. We spent the rest of the session putting their cameras together. Before the children left, I promised for the next session I would bring in some solar printing-out paper and we would make some real photographs with their cameras. I doubted though, that this exercise would help teach an eight-year-old much about making good photographs.

Mrs. Simpson, the school principal, later told me that the school had acquired enough 35 mm. cameras to provide one for each student. She had also asked the school district to construct a darkroom here in this school as soon as possible. She wanted the students taught to make photographic prints. As she told me her plans, I doubted whether allowing very young children complete access to complex and expensive equipment wasn't a recipe for disaster. Also, allowing them to handle toxic photo-chemicals seemed downright dangerous. Then too, I felt the kids were too young to understand the necessary technical aspects of this art. But, I did not wish to discourage this enthusiastic administrator, so I put aside my doubts. I decided I would just do as she wished, and hope for the best.

As it happened, the problems of the darkroom never arose: The budget was too limited to cover its' construction. Without a darkroom though, the students would have no feedback on their camera work. So I decided we would make color transparencies, which could be processed and returned between class sessions. We could then view them with the school's slide projectors.

Group viewing sessions worked out well. I could not have found a more effective teaching tool than these critique sessions. Sitting in a darkened room seemed to encourage otherwise shy pupils to ask questions and to readily offer their opinions. In a short time, the kids were offering each other intelligent criticism about their slides. They made steady progress in their photo-making skills and by the end of the course every pupil was able to make a correctly exposed and sharply focused photograph. A few of them even exhibited an excellent photographic "eye." This talent is something that can't be taught, only uncovered.

Our class sessions were incredibly noisy and on occasion other teachers burst into our classroom and angrily told us to pipe down. But, I was delighted at the enthusiasm the kids showed for learning photography and surprised at the readiness with which they grasped technical concepts. Also, I was amazed that during the semester not one piece of equipment was damaged.

I was unprepared for how rapidly children form emotional relationships with their teachers. By the second class, several kids were accompanying me to my car after class, fighting over who would carry my attaché case. They would speak to me or touch me at every opportunity and were uninhibited about asking me very personal questions. In return, I quickly grew fond of several of my little charges. They were bright as pennies. Some had keen intelligence, some were highly creative and some had loving natures. The pupil most respected by all, however—teachers and children alike—was Chiffon.

He was small for his age, with light brown skin, and he was a handsome boy. It is hard to say what it was about him that made him stand out. He did not talk more than the other kids nor try to lead them. He was neither wittier nor more capable of understanding the subject material. But when the class had reached an impasse in some problem, everyone turned to Chiffon—and he would soon suggest a solution. On the rare occasions when he would say or do something witty or clever, everyone was delighted for having been there to enjoy it. These moments basking in his charm made us somehow feel a sense of community, like we had shared an inside joke.

Chiffon had poise and style far beyond his tender years. It was not the strutting or intimidating "woofing" of some of the other, larger Afro-American boys in class. His superiority was not based on physical strength nor aggressiveness. He stood outside the male pecking order. Even the toughest boys liked him and carefully avoided challenging him. He was equally courted by the girls, not as a conquest but as a friend. Unaccountably, he did not treat girls with condescension or hostility, as did all the other boys in the class. Unlike most boys his age, Chiffon seemed at ease with girls and seemed to enjoy their company equally with that of members of his sex. He was the only child in class who could comfortably mix with either gender.

There was another exceptional boy in the class, Billy. This boy was the opposite of Chiffon. No one liked him and he returned the favor. He disliked authority and felt compelled to challenge it at every opportunity. Billy was what some of the kids called "white, trailer trash." He had a skinny, scruffy look that repelled most everyone. He challenged me on his first day in class. He persisted in disrupting the class until I finally had to take him to the principal's office. I told her that I wanted Billy removed from the class: I told her it was not possible to conduct the class with his continuing disruptions. She took me into her office and closed the door. "If you demand this boy's removal, I will of course comply. However, there are some facts I think you should know before making a decision. Billy, you see, is an abused child. He has had to have medical attention for his injuries several times. His parents are uneducated, formerly rural people who now have alcohol and drug abuse problems. The boy rarely gets anything to eat at home. Ray, the school janitor, feeds Billy at his house, out of concern for the little fellow's survival. The two of them build things in Ray's garage. He teaches Billy how to use the tools. Billy will do most anything Ray says, so the boy can be reached. It would be difficult, I know, and I wouldn't blame you for refusing to take it on."

By this time, I was feeling like a mean S.O.B. for asking the principal to expel Billy. I could not imagine how I could begin to cope with the boy's disruptions and defiant attitude—but I, shamefacedly, told Mrs. Simpson I would give him another try.

On our return to the classroom, Billy, eager to make known his triumph over me, took up where he left off. Only this time my response was, "We will all just sit here until Billy decides he will permit us to continue." I'll be damned if he didn't tire of the game and commenced doing the photo assignments with his classmates.

I now felt everything was going to work out well for the class and I was going to succeed in teaching them to make good photographs. Alas, this was not to be. The other teachers resented the special instructors the school had brought in for the "Gifted & Talented" program. They filed a grievance through their union and demanded that the board of education place a union member teacher in each of the classrooms in which we taught.

Shortly thereafter, a teacher was assigned to my class and appeared unannounced one day. She immediately demanded to know why I had not assigned the pupils to individual seats so that the roll call could be properly taken. She openly criticized me for permitting the children to speak in the classroom without being given permission to do so. I finally had to take her outside the room and explain to her that this was not a class to teach the children facts: Our purpose was to try to develop their creative abilities—and you could not march them around in lock-step and accomplish this. She said that the noise made by my class was disturbing teachers in the neighboring classrooms. I said that I would very much appreciate any help she could provide in keeping the noise level down in the class—as long as she did not overly inhibit our pupils from expressing themselves. To this, she readily agreed and thereafter we had no more disagreements.

My associate teacher and I ran into an ethical dilemma on the final class assignment. For the last class project, I decided that the students were to arrange themselves into teams and each team would produce a series of four photographs. Each series would attempt to tell a complete story, in the manner of a newspaper comic strip. I promised the class that the team producing the best story would be awarded a prize. The associate teacher and I would judge each team's photo story and decide the winner on the basis of their clarity in illustrating their stories and the quality of their photography.

Well, the teams all submitted good photographs but they had problems with telling a story. In none of their submissions could we follow the story without someone on the team explaining it to us. All, that is, but Billy's team. He and three of the class' most delinquent boys had formed an outlaw team and they were determined to walk off with the prize. They worked diligently, and secretively, on their project for several days. Billy made an elaborate prop for their project in Ray's garage and another boy brought a prop from home. We were amazed at the amount of effort these heretofore implacably rebellious boys had put into their assignment.

There was just one failing in team Billy's submission. The photographs were all excellent and the story was easily followed. Here is the gist of it: Frame 1) A boy comes bopping down the street, carrying a "ghetto-blaster" radio on his shoulder and popping his fingers to the music. Frame 2) First boy is suddenly confronted by a second boy, who is pointing a lethal-looking gun at him (Billy had carved and painted this wooden gun in Ray's garage.) Frame 3) Second boy kills first boy with gun. Frame 4) First boy lies dead in a pool of blood on the sidewalk while second boy bops down the street with the radio now perched on HIS shoulder.

What to do? My fellow teacher and I were appalled at the sangfroid attitude toward crime and violence that this story presented and we didn't wish to do anything to validate it: but, on the other hand, if we didn't adhere to the rules we had established for this contest we would undermine the children's respect for our fairness. She and I both felt that it was paramount that the children see us as following our own rules. So, we reluctantly awarded the prize to Billy's team. As they stood before the class and accepted our praise, the pride of accomplishment showed on these boys' faces. It made me feel we had done the right thing. This experience caused me to question whether there were children who were really beyond rescue.

Charles Francis
San Francisco, CA