By Betty Miller Conway
I could see it from the parking lot—a large skinny box precariously leaned up against my apartment door blocking the peep hole. ‘What on earth?” I wondered as I took my canvas bag filled with student papers out of the car and trudged toward my apartment. It was a gray December day in South Texas, and the breeze smelled of salt and sand as it peppered a few drops of rain against my face.
I figured the box was a mistake. Certainly, I had not had time or energy to order anything for the holidays. As a first-year teacher, it was just about all I could do to make it through the harrowing school day and then find time to work on the mountains of papers and other student work that I brought home every day.
It was the mid-eighties. I was twenty-two and living away from my home in the North Carolina mountains for the first time. I had taken a job at Gibson Elementary School in October. I was offered the sixth-grade position because no one else wanted it. A predominately Hispanic school, it was in a rough area on the border near the Gulf of Mexico. The students, the principal warned me, had already “run off” four teachers that year. He looked at me as I sat across from him, all young, blonde and full of optimism, and shook his head. “I doubt you’ll last either,” Mr. Garcia said, “but I’ll give you a chance. I’ll hire you as a substitute, and if you can last the week, you can have the job permanently.” Never one to turn down a challenge, I nodded excitedly. Surely all my classes back at Appalachian State University had prepared me for anything.
But nothing could have prepared me for the next couple of months! When I walked into school the next day, it was like being hit by a freight train. Since Texas had a stiff retention policy back then, many of my students were older than traditional sixth graders and far bigger than I was. A couple of students had been retained so many times that they were due to get their drivers’ licenses later that year! Many of them came from impoverished and fragile home situations which were detrimental to their school environment. Consequently, many of my new students were angry, rebellious, and very hard to teach. The ring leaders were Billy Boy, who didn’t look like a boy at all, and liked to pick up chairs and threaten me and the other students; Miguel, who had an “interesting” collection of knives, including a switch blade; and Melesio, whose dark eyes would flash with uncontrolled anger before he lashed out with curses and fists. I survived that first week, I think, because I was too young and foolish to be afraid.
I lasted the first week, then another, then another. My parents were very proud that their daughter— a first generation college student graduate—had a real job, and I didn’t want to let them down. Despite my youth, I decided to be the toughest teacher on my hall. I rewarded good behavior and exhibited zero tolerance for bad behavior. I stood tall and stared down threatening students. Even more importantly, I established a system of rewards and consequences that I enforced with rigorous consistency.
But really, I was in over my head. To start with, I had not had Spanish since high school, so my conversational skills were rudimentary at best. Mr. Garcia had assured me that was not a problem since our students were technically supposed to speak only English at school. But it was. Students sometimes snickered in Spanish behind my back and called me names that clearly were not respectful. Since I didn’t understand the language, it was hard to know how to react. Thank goodness for sweet little Joline, who for inexplicable reasons appeared to like the new teacher! She would whisper the translation while looking down at her desk, so that I would understand and know how to respond appropriately. With time and practice, I learned what to tolerate and what not to.
But worse, I struggled to pronounce and sometimes even spell their names. I was never confident with languages, in part because I grew up with a speech impediment which had only been mitigated with years of therapy. I did the best I could, but it was hard going. I misspelled and mispronounced Melesio Rodriguez’s name so often that he began to think it was funny and felt sorry for me. That didn’t stop him from shooting spit wads at the blackboard when my back was turned, though!
As the weeks wore on and the Christmas season approached, I was exhausted and totally consumed by my job. I called my mom long distance just about every evening just to remind myself of home. I remember telling her at one point with as much bravado I could muster, “They think I’m just a young, blonde girl who knows nothing of the world (really, that was true), but they have no idea how tough I really am!” My mom, who had had years of experience trying to get that same young girl to conform, giggled and quickly agreed. But I had to make myself be tough. Sometimes I lay awake at night and secretly wished that the school would burn down overnight so that I wouldn’t have to go back. But of course, I went back every day. I knew that I was making progress when I overheard Miguel brag to another student that the Anglo (one of the nicer names they had for me) was the toughest teacher in the school.
Sure enough by December, the students were somewhat more respectful and compliant, and I felt like I was getting a handle on things. Over the weeks, I had made a point of contacting every single student’s parent or guardian. I called Joline’s mother and thanked her for sending her sweet daughter to school every day. I got hold of Billy Boy’s dad and told him that his son was a class leader and that I wanted to nominate him for sixth-grade class president. The only caveat was that Billy had to stay out of trouble. After several failed attempts to reach Miguel’s dad, he showed up at school and personally divested Miguel of his knife collection. I respectfully asked all the parents to support my rewards and consequences program. The parents, many of whom spoke English as a second language and didn’t even know what a rewards system was, were overwhelmingly kind and patient with me. If I could not get hold of the parents by phone or they could not understand my Appalachian English, I did home visits, taking along our dedicated assistant principal, Mrs. Luna, to translate.
It was a real eye opener for me. The contrast between my life growing up in the North Carolina mountains and the lives of these children growing up In South Texas could not have been more pronounced. Although I came from a humble mountain farm and never considered my family financially well off, some of these children came from such abject poverty that I could not have imagined it. One of the homes I visited was basically a small block building with only a curtain dividing it into two rooms. It was getting dark and no adult was to be seen. My student Lupe was diligently warming up a can of soup for several smaller siblings. Suddenly I understood why she rarely came to school with her homework done. I marveled that these children made it to school and learned anything at all.
Surprisingly, most of them did make it to school most of the time, and I took comfort in the fact that they were provided a free hot lunch in the school cafeteria every day. And that even if I could not give them with all they needed, I could at least provide them an orderly, safe place where someone knew (and at least tried to pronounce) their names.
Our classroom was a windowless inside room with thirty-four of us crammed in. I worked hard to decorate the room and make it a little more hospitable. But the cheap tinsel and garland wrapped around the bulletin boards didn't help much, and it saddened me to think of their homes so bereft off Christmas cheer. Although the other teachers and I worked with churches in the area to make sure the kids had presents at Christmas, I knew that any box of donated food and toys was woefully inadequate.
All of this made it hard to be excited about Christmas. In addition to being homesick and overworked, I was heartbroken because several close family members and neighbors back home were very sick and close to dying. Looking back, I suppose it’s fair to say that I was grieving—for my children at school, for my loved ones at home, and for my childhood that I left back in the North Carolina mountains.
Certainly, the South Texas terrain dotted with scrub trees and weedy grass did nothing to inspire Christmas cheer. I had not found time or energy to decorate my own little apartment, so it looked lonely too. Christmas trees were hard to find and expensive since they had to travel so far. On a tight budget ourselves, my new husband and I decided that we would not get a tree that year, especially since we were going home for the holidays.
Although I knew that I was being silly and childish, not having a Christmas tree really disappointed me. Since I grew up in the green mountains of home, my family was lucky enough to most always have a live tree at Christmas. It was dug up from the rich mountain soil, sacked in burlap, and then replanted after the holiday season. It graced our small living room with its fragrant green foliage. I remember how excited we all were when my mom put on the first strands of colored lights and my little sister and I were able to start hanging the ornaments. My dad watered the tree every day or two with ice cubes. Getting that tree was the highlight of the entire Christmas season. Every year I was sure that our family tree was the most beautiful Christmas tree I had ever seen.
That December in Texas, it wasn't so much that I wanted a tree; it was that I yearned for all that its greenery represented--family, togetherness, security, and the white snow-covered mountains of home. And as I walked across the parking lot that day after school, I wished with all of my heart that my students—and so many others across the world—could have all those things, too.
And then there it was at the top of my landing: the box. When I opened the box, the smell of balsam took me back home. All scrunched up inside that box was a North Carolina fir! My mom and dad had UPS-ed me a tree from our farm. It was a small, skinny, and missing some limbs, but I thought it was the most beautiful tree I'd ever seen.
After school the next day, I went shopping for ornaments for the tree. I had only a tiny box of ornaments, and I thought the tree looked bare. By then it was late in the season, and the shelves at the local department store were also bare. But serendipitously the jewelry counter still offered engraved ornaments with an individual name on each one. They were even “on special” so that a young teacher could afford a bunch of them! Suddenly, it occurred to me that my tree from home didn't need any adornment. Instead, I decided to purchase ornaments for the students in my classroom. It was a small gift and impractical for a child who didn't even have a tree. Or a family that had no way to fill a stocking. Nevertheless, I knew that my students—even the big boys—cherished shiny things. And at the naïve age of twenty-two, it was the best I knew to offer.
I ran out to my car and amid the papers that needed to be graded, I found a roster of all my students’ names. Then I waited while the woman at the jewelry counter engraved thirty-three names on fake gold Santas, Christmas trees, and wreathes. She started with Joline Álvarez and ended with Billy Weaver. Then I took them home and wrapped them individually with a little personal note to each student.
How I wish that those ornaments and notes could have solved all their problems, given them the family life I had growing up, filled their stockings and larders with all they needed. But that wasn't possible. But my students' excitement when I presented the little gifts on the last day of school before the holidays was something. “For me!” Melesio exclaimed, as with shining eyes he inspected that gaudy little ornament and made sure his name was spelled properly.
Afterwards, I packed my suitcase for home and then sat by the spindly tree that my family had sent me from so many miles away. I was filled with gratitude that although this tree was mostly bare, I had been blessed with so much and had been able to share just a little. And when I finally got to go home for the holidays and celebrate around the big family Christmas tree, I was humbled as I remembered that roster of names back in Texas—and the students who made those names real.
