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I moved towards the door. ‘Turn off the record player, please, Jamie. Okay, Brian, Hannah. Rufus, get the lights, please. We’re going next door to Patty’s room for Circle.’
Hannah, of course, sat without moving, but the boys moved quickly out the door and down the hall.
I waited one more minute to see if Hannah would change her mind. Nothing. Only her eyes flickered, alert, wary, watching me. Her face and neck were grimy, the pink wads of gum were still in her hair, but her dress was clean. It was the same shapeless style, tied at the waist with a string, but clean. I left Hannah in the closet and walked down the hall after the boys. A clean dress. Somebody cared about Hannah.
The coat closet became Hannah’s place in our room. She sat there most of the first two weeks. She had her own cupboard, her own table and chair, even her own work folder, but she barely touched them. In the beginning her grief and anger and confusion were too large to let her work. The most important thing just then, more important than work or discipline, was to let her know that we accepted her.
Children can’t begin to learn until they feel safe, and they can’t feel safe until they are honestly and completely accepted. A child like Hannah – hospitalised at six weeks, shut in closets, locked out of her home, beaten by both her brother and her father, rejected by the public school – not only feared other people, she feared herself as well.
Hannah knew she was different; she knew that parts of her were frightening, both to herself and others. But she didn’t know how to change. She couldn’t cut herself in pieces, divide herself in two, bring in only the good part. She needed to know that she was welcome, all of her, the good and the bad. That was enough for now. Changes could come later.
Hannah seemed to understand some of this, and gradually she became more peaceful. Each morning she left her bus and came through the Director’s office, down the hall, and into our classroom, closing the hall door behind her. She hung her sweater on the hook beneath her name and then settled herself in the closet to watch the boys arrive. She never greeted me, but she watched Rufus, Jamie, and Brian as they called to each other or exchanged a hug with me. The boys invariably left our door open and Hannah would get up each time and carefully, softly, close them again. It was as if she realised that she was safe in our room.
Although she didn’t participate, she watched us closely. There is no better teacher than another child. As Hannah watched the others, I knew the time would come when she would begin trying to do herself what she had seen the boys do.
Hannah was learning although she never opened her work folder. She began to touch it more often, going to her cupboard to run her finger across the name I had printed above it and taking out her folder, her paint smock, her book and notebook. None of them were ever used, but still they were hers. She would hold them in her lap and then put them carefully away and return to her seat in the coat closet. She was learning the details of our lives.
Details and routine. Outside of school I never planned ahead, avoiding ruts as much as possible. In school, however, our routine was the same each day. In the topsy-turvy world of emotionally disturbed children, routine provides security. The sameness of each day made it easier for them to cope.
The children arrived at nine o’clock and the first half hour was one of the most important of the day, although it might not seem so to an uninformed eye. Crises of the night before exploded in the classroom, and it was important for the teacher to be there to comfort or control. Treasures were brought in, and the teacher had to be there to share the pleasure of each small discovery. Sometimes problems arose on the way to school, or a child arrived without breakfast and the teacher needed to go down to the refrigerator in the furnace room for the milk and cereal that were always kept there. Although our children were not primarily underprivileged, often there was so much chaos in their homes that breakfast was impossible.
By nine thirty most personal crises had been dealt with and we were ready for the larger world of Circle. Circle was a kind of morning assembly where the whole school gathered together. At least we had until this year. Now we were too many for one room, and so the Director had divided us into two groups, the older children in one, the younger children in the other. During this time there was singing and dancing and group games. The purpose was threefold: to help the children relate and participate in a group, to improve gross motor coordination, and also to give the teachers the opportunity to see the other children in the school. At staff meetings on Wednesdays we discussed everyone, and it was necessary that we had at least a surface knowledge of each child.
After Circle, the children went to the bathroom and then came back to their classrooms. For the rest of the day, each teacher had a special programme for each child.
In our room we started with the Best and the Worst. In searching for ways to help the children learn to communicate, I had discovered Best and Worst. Most of our children had grave difficulty with communication. Some couldn’t talk at all; some were elective mutes, able to talk but refusing to do so; some, like Rufus, were too verbose; some articulated clearly but without meaning. Because communication is so important, I worked hard at finding ways to involve the children.
‘Show and Tell’ didn’t work. Our children had little to show and nothing to tell. To get through to them it was necessary to turn up the volume and intensity of communication.
A question like ‘Tell me what you did yesterday’ didn’t bring any response; it was too general, too vague. But when each and every day I asked them to report on the Best Thing and the Worst Thing that had happened to them, they not only responded, they began to savour the opportunity. Like most ideas, this started small and grew. When I had first asked the question four years before, answers had been a word or two at the most. But I insisted they all have a chance, whether they used it or not, and gradually they all began to talk a bit and – more amazing still – to listen to each other.
There were different children then – only Brian still remained of that first group – but each day we talked a little more until it became necessary to have limits, so that no one child could monopolise the time. Then, because the world of fantasy was so vivid – even more so than to other children, and therefore less distinct from reality – the Best Thing became their wishes, the Worst their dreams. This, of course, was good – so good and so surprising that the school psychiatrist who visited our class shook his head in amazement as he heard children labelled ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘autistic’ talk and listen to each other.
But it wasn’t enough simply to get the children to talk. I wanted them to understand the difference between reality and fantasy. It seemed to me that if they were ever to travel all the way back to live in the world, they needed to know and be able to differentiate between the two. So there got to be two parts to Best and Worst, ‘real’ and ‘pretend’, and the children sternly reminded each other of this. If a child began to talk about trucks as though they were people, calling the headlights ‘eyes’, another child was sure to remind him, ‘First the real, then the pretend.’
So Best and Worst became a part of my teaching equipment, and today, as usual, we pushed tables together, directly after Circle, all of us eager to begin. In order to have time for reading, language, arts, and maths, and then to go outside or play before lunch, each child was only allowed five minutes – but to me it was one of the most important parts of the day.
After lunch there was a rest period, then art, science, films, playground and auditory and visual motor training. The afternoon went by even more quickly than the morning. The day was too short; there was never enough time to do all that I had hoped to do.
During those first two weeks I made no demands on Hannah, letting her absorb the details and atmosphere of the school, letting the boys grow used to her, letting peace and a semblance of tranquility return to the class. Her despair no longer seeped constantly into our room, corroding the warm safety. As long as I asked nothing of Hannah she was quiet, sitting half in, half out of the closet, eating out of her paper bag when she felt like it, watching us all the time.
But this interlude was almost over; Mrs Rosnic was scheduled to come in to see me the third Monday after school started. I felt that after that I could begin to ask more of Hannah.
Chapter 4 (#u82169d21-2612-57d6-bea3-c88eb9c7f6f5)
Hannah’s mother came heavily, hesitantly, into our classroom. She was a large woman dressed in a cotton housedress just like Hannah’s, although hers reached only to her knees and was covered with a dark cloth coat.
I had telephoned Mrs Rosnic at the end of that first day to ask if she could come in for a conference. Although she was hesitant and it had taken two weeks, she was here and I was grateful. Helping Hannah was not going to be easy. She was going to have to give up old established ways and learn new ones. There were difficult weeks ahead, and before I initiated any major changes at school I wanted to talk to Hannah’s mother and learn what Hannah was like at home. I needed to fill in the gaps left by the psychological reports, to find out what sort of relationship there was between Hannah and her brother and sister, between Hannah and her mother. Our school day was only five and a half hours long. There were eighteen and a half other hours I wanted to know about.
I had been sitting at one of the low tables, but as Mrs Rosnic hesitated in the doorway I got up and walked towards her. ‘Please come in.’
But she remained where she was, her eyes moving rapidly around the room. By now the boys’ papers and drawings covered one wall. We had begun a large mural on another, but the only sign of Hannah was her name on her cubby and above the coat hook in the closet.
‘May I take your coat?’ I asked.
For the first time Mrs Rosnic looked directly at me and it was my turn to stop, startled by the fear in her eyes.
As gently as I could, I took her coat and hung it in the closet beside my own light sweater, and then, impulsively, I moved them both so that they hung together on Hannah’s own hook. I came back and sat down at the round wooden table. ‘Thank you for coming in,’ I said. ‘I know how difficult it must be for you to get away with the three children at home, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Hannah. I’m happy to have her in my class this year.’
Mrs Rosnic came across the room then, stopping in front of me. ‘You not getting rid of her?’
So that was the fear; it was still there in her chopped, guttural speech. There were traces of an accent. I must remember to check and see what language was spoken in the home. It was possible that much of Hannah’s garbled speech was a poor imitation of the words she heard exchanged between her mother and grandfather. But that could come later.
Now I had to get through that fear, let Mrs Rosnic know that I didn’t want to get rid of Hannah. On the contrary, what I wanted was to get closer, know more. The best way I knew was to say it simply and straight.
‘I won’t get rid of Hannah,’ I promised. ‘She’ll be here in this class all year.’
Mrs Rosnic sat down opposite me then, her eyes never leaving my face. ‘In other school, every time they call me for conference, they warn Hannah is too bad. They say she have to go.’
‘Not here. When I call you, it’s because I want to know more, try to figure out how to help more.’
Mrs Rosnic drew in her breath and then let it out in a long, slow sigh, but as her body relaxed, more of her weariness showed. ‘Ah, she is so hard, that one. I don’t know what to do with her. Yelling, screaming half the time. Most other time she just sits, dumb, do nothing. Once in while she play joke. Put mouse in Grandpa’s bed and laugh and laugh when he yell.’
I tried to picture the house. I knew Grandpa lived downstairs, but where would Hannah get a mouse?
‘A real mouse?’ I asked.
‘Lots of mice around. They’re not trouble. Hannah like them. The cats are good, get rid of most of mice. Only if rats come, then the cats scared.’
‘Mrs Rosnic, Hannah doesn’t talk to us here at school. Does she talk at home?’
‘She not talk Carl or Grandpa, but sometime she talk to me. Say yes, no, other words. Grandpa say she not make sense, but I know what she mean.’
It was hard to tell from this whether Hannah spoke more or whether Mrs Rosnic’s interpretations were better.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘what’s Hannah like in other ways at home? I know she goes to the bathroom by herself. Does she wash, brush her teeth and dress herself?’
‘No.’ Mrs Rosnic’s sighs were deep now. ‘She never wash. She sleep in dress all night. Won’t get out of it. Next morning Carl or Grandpa hold her and I get other dress on her.’
‘Carl. Does Hannah play with him or with her sister?’
‘Play? Nobody play. Just fight, fight, fight. At each other day and night. Carl tease her all the time. Now he tell her she going to retard school and she cry and cry.’
I felt like crying myself. Poverty, dirt, ridicule. I looked away for a minute, trying to clear my mind, to see what to do next. I turned back to Mrs Rosnic. ‘What about friends? Does Hannah play with other children on the block?’
Mrs Rosnic sat up straight, definite now. ‘I careful with her. Keep her in back yard so neighbour kids not make fun. Sometime when I fixing Grandpa’s food she get away, but not much. Mostly I keep her near.’ A wistful look came over Mrs Rosnic’s face. ‘Sometime I wish … I think how good if she could help some. You know. Like set table. Maybe even dry dishes.’
I reached across the table. If she had been a child I would have touched her then, but instead I touched the water glass of the roses and left my hand out open on the table.
‘I know I wish too much,’ she continued. ‘Should be glad she not worse. Grandpa say she can’t be worse, say she better dead from operation. But I don’t know. It nice, kind of, you know – to have somebody like me.’
My heart ached and angered all at the same time, even more than when I’d read the reports. No wonder this good, uneducated woman was close to giving up. Under the weariness and despair had once been mere laughter and other dreams? It was too late now to recover those dreams; too late for Grandpa and maybe for Mrs Rosnic. But not for Hannah. Maybe I couldn’t do anything about the poverty or the loneliness, or Carl or baby Helen, but I could help Hannah. And so could Mrs Rosnic.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You’re not expecting too much at all. You’re exactly right. Hannah should be learning to help you around the house. She can learn to do all those things. And more. Much more.’
Mrs Rosnic looked at me and then fished in her large black pocketbook for a handkerchief. I got up and brought back a box of Kleenex from the counter and set it down hard on the table.
‘Hannah can learn to wash and dress herself and help you with the housework. And she can learn to read and write.’
This was too much. I had gone too far. Mrs Rosnic shook her head at me. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You don’t know. Grandpa say she moron.’
‘I do know and Grandpa’s wrong,’ I insisted. ‘I have known other children as troubled as Hannah. I have read her records and I have watched her here in the classroom. I don’t believe she’s retarded. I believe she’s able to learn and grow and do a great deal more than she ever has.’
Mrs Rosnic looked at me directly, challenging. ‘Why you care? Why you want to do this?’
It was a fair, honest question and I wished that I could answer. But I had never been able to find words for the way I felt. I could talk easily about the children, or to the children, but when it came to describing my own feelings, I was inarticulate. Perhaps the words imprisoned in the children spoke to something locked inside me. I tried to soften my silence with a smile so that it wouldn’t seem a rebuff. ‘I don’t know,’ I answered as honestly as I could. ‘I wish I could put it into words. I can’t explain, but I hope you’ll trust me.’
I went to the coat closet and got Mrs Rosnic’s coat and my sweater from Hannah’s hook and then held the coat for her. Mrs Rosnic stood facing me, still looking at me. Finally she turned and put one arm into a sleeve. ‘Ah, well, never mind. Words come hard. I know. And anyway, the ones that say them so easy – well, I hear plenty words before.’ She put the second arm in.
‘It’s not going to be easy with Hannah,’ I said. ‘That’s one thing for sure. It’s going to mean a lot of work for both of us, and it will be harder for you because you’re with her more. Sometimes you’re going to have to be very strong. Hannah’s been used to having her own way, and she’s not going to be able to all the time now. She won’t like it, and sometimes she’s going to get very angry with both of us.’
I shrugged on my sweater and then was caught by surprise as Mrs Rosnic reached out and smoothed it across my shoulders. Her fingers were rough and they snagged on the soft wool, but her hand itself was strong and warm. ‘Listen. It okay. I tell Grandpa. It okay. Hannah, she lucky this year.’
Chapter 5 (#u82169d21-2612-57d6-bea3-c88eb9c7f6f5)
The next morning after Circle I went and sat on the floor in the closet next to Hannah. The period of research was over. I had learned all I could from outside sources. Now it was up to me. I set my goals for Hannah. They might change, but I had to have something to aim for.
The first thing I had to do was get Hannah out of the coat closet. Observation has its values, but it was time for her to move closer, become part of us. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I want you to come and sit with us during Best and Worst today. You don’t have to talk, but I want you at the table. You’re part of our class and I want you with us.’
Hannah pulled her long dress over her head.
I pulled the dress down and spoke directly into her face. ‘If you can come by yourself, fine. If not, I’ll help you.’
I wanted her to understand that this was not a question of choice. She didn’t have to decide anything. I had made the decision. She had sat in the closet for two weeks. That was long enough.
I hesitated for a minute. The trick was to know when to ask for more and when to stop. Each step like this was a risk, the line between success and failure is so small. I had thought carefully about when and where to begin with Hannah, and now I decided to go ahead. This was the time, right after Circle. She was fascinated by Best and Worst. I had seen her looking, listening, from the closet. And contradictory though it seems, I knew that the first move is sometimes easier if someone else insists on it. I insisted now. I stood up. ‘Okay, Hannah, let’s go.’
She pulled the dress back over her head.
I reached under the dress, found her hand, and pulled her to her feet. Caught by surprise, she came up easily but let out a howl of rage.
‘This morning you’re going to sit with us. This morning and every other morning from now on. You’re part of our class.’
Standing beside me, Hannah braced her feet like a baulky mule and pulled hard to get away.
The classroom was large, over forty feet long. The boys had set up the table in the middle of the room and they sat there now, watching us. We had about twenty feet to go to reach the table. I was sure I could manage that. Hannah was husky, but I had a lot of inches, pounds, and years in my favour and my will was as strong as her own.
‘If you can control yourself, Hannah, great. If not, I’ll help you control yourself.’
I started walking towards the table, holding her hand tightly in my own and propelling her along with me.
Her howling ceased. She planted both feet close together again and braked us to a stop and smashed her foot – crack! – into my ankle. I yelped in surprise, but I caught her foot in time and pulled off first one shoe and then the other. She could kick all she wanted now.
I had been through this many times before. Other children in other years had kicked and bitten, but they had become more gentle. We had all survived, and eventually they had made it back to mainstream school.
The howling began again, but there was little she could do, and more in sorrow than in anger Hannah allowed herself to be pulled to the table.
‘Get another chair, please, Bri.’
I sat Hannah down next to me and said to the boys, ‘Whose turn is it to begin Best and Worst today?’
My eyes, my attention, were focused on the boys. I kept a steady grip on Hannah’s hand, but that was all. Except for this hold on her hand, we ignored her. She alternately cried and yelled for the half hour. She was loud, but we were louder and managed to hear each other.
At the end of the half hour, the boys went to get their work folders from their cupboards. I looked down at Hannah’s tear-stained face, ‘Thank you, babe, for being with us.’ Then I released her hand.
For one brief moment she looked at me and then raced back to her closet seat. Her scuffed brown shoes still lay on the floor. I took them to her and then went back to help the boys with their reading. All the rest of the morning she sat merely watching us, not saying anything, not yelling, just sitting there holding her shoes in her lap.
At the end of the morning I sent the boys out for recess with another class. The tension in the room had been hard on them, though none of them had mentioned it and they had worked well all morning. Still, they needed to get outside to run, to throw, to yell a little. At the same time I didn’t want to leave Hannah. It was important that she knew that I wanted to be with her. There is a great difference between someone arbitrarily imposing demands on you and someone working through a difficult situation with you. I wanted Hannah to know that, whatever I asked of her, she wouldn’t have to do it alone.
I needed something more, something to hook her interest, make her forget herself. I wanted to capture Hannah, lure her, not force her again. Suddenly I remembered the doll family.
I had ordered the dolls from the school supply catalogue the year before and stored them in my closet, waiting for the right time to bring them out. Surely, if there was a right time, this was it.
The next morning, after Circle, I announced that we were going to add something new to Best and Worst. I placed the box in the middle of the table. In the closet I said to Hannah, ‘Hey, come see. I’ve got a box for you to open.’
She peeked out of the closet to see what I was talking about. The box sat invitingly on the table. Hannah couldn’t resist it. She skirted the table twice on her own and then suddenly sat down and peeled off the tape and pulled the box open. She lifted out the brown crumpled packing paper and sat staring at the contents. Then, one by one, she lifted out the members of the miniature family, unwrapping each one carefully and laying it on the table. Man, woman, girl, boy, baby.
The dolls were made of a hard, wax-like substance, a kind of moulded rubber, pliable, durable, sturdy enough to take bending and pounding.
We all sat looking at the dolls. No one seemed sure what to do next. On impulse, I picked up the woman and girl dolls and put their arms around each other. ‘My best thing is that Elizabeth, my daughter, came home from college for a visit last night.’
I talked for about two minutes, telling how my daughter and I had gone to a movie and bought some ice cream. As I talked I was bending the dolls to sit, pushing them along the table, pretending they were moving in the car.
The children watched, their eyes never moving from the little figures. When I finished I laid the two dolls back on the table.
Rufus was sitting next to me, and he picked up the man doll and in a loud, authoritarian voice said, ‘If I’m doing the cooking, I’ll do it the way I want to. So shut up!’
We all stared at him. None of us had ever heard Rufus speak like that before. Obviously he was being someone else.
Now he picked up the woman doll and in a high, wistful voice said, ‘You never listen to me, no matter what it is. Cooking or anything else.’
Maybe not, but we listened to Rufus. Forgetting time limits, we sat spellbound as he acted out a household drama, using first one doll and then another. When he finished he pushed the dolls to the middle of the table and leaned back with a tired, satisfied sigh.
Jamie picked up each doll and inspected it carefully. He petted the baby and kissed the mother and then put them back without saying a word.
Brian had his turn and acted out a TV commercial.
And now, look at Hannah. She picked up the boy doll and put him under the box. She pushed hard on the box, which wobbled in an unsatisfactory way. She got up from the table, went to the block wagon, and pulled it back to the table. What was she doing? She laid out one, two, three, four blocks in a square and put the boy doll in the middle. Was he supposed to be her brother, Carl? Bang, she put a block on the top, then another and another.
