Braveheart

30Sep09

During the last block of my practicum session today, I was sitting in the back of the classroom as usual, reading through some text in order to prepare for next week’s lesson. For the most part, my earlier AP classes are filled with attentive, bright, well behaved juniors. This last class is just a regular US history class. Regular in its academic achievement level, but also in the sense that its normal. Normal as in what you’d expect out of a typical high school classroom.

It’s a healthy mix of the following:  some loud boys, some loud girls; some quiet boys, some quiet girls; some skinny boys, some skinny girls; some fat boys, some curvier-than-most girls; some cute boys, some cute girls, some ugly boys, some not-so-cute girls. Many are awkward, many are weird. You get the picture.

So towards the end of the period, the teacher had the kids volunteer to read through portions of their text. The chapter was on the Monroe Doctrine. [The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was basically a rude letter to Britain to leave the US alone, or else they gonna get a hurt real bad. This came after the US beat up the British in the War of 1812.]

Anyways, one after another, students volunteered to read a few paragraphs of text out loud to the class while the rest followed along in their books. At one point, this one kid volunteered to read. He’s about 6′2”, 260lbs, but he gets picked on by most of the class. It’s probably because he slurs his words, and he doesn’t seem like the sharpest pencil in the drawer. Maybe he smells, I dunno.

As he started to read slowly, I could hear kids chuckling and snickering in the background. He had to stop on words like “imminent” and “argument”, and with every pause, 2 or 3 students would say the word out loud for him. At first I took note of what I thought was thoughtfulness, but soon half of the class was giggling while other students began to practically read for him. As soon as he paused, another boy would say “and then Monroe…”, and another girl would yell out “he” right before he got to the word.

It got pretty bad, and he continued this for another paragraph. I’m glad the teacher gave this volunteer the opportunity to take a chance and read in front of the class that already made fun of him for just being him. Man, these kids were merciless! I was waiting for the teacher to stop the slaughter but no. I realized what the teacher was doing. He had to respect the will and the bravery of this student.

Finally, the student stopped after the second paragraph and surrendered by saying to the teacher “I’d like to stop here.” The teacher lovingly said “thanks for volunteering to read”, and finished the rest of the page for him.

I don’t know why, but I was so moved by what just happened. This kid knew he sucked at reading, but yet he volunteered to read in front of people he knew was going to make his learning exceptionality a hilarity. He made an intentional decision to make himself uncomfortable.

You don’t find that kind of bravery anywhere these days, especially not from Christians, and especially not from me. I don’t remember the last time I saw a window of vulnerability, an opportunity for embarrassment, and ran towards it. I want to challenge myself to be aware of my insecurities and fears and walk through them instead of closing my eyes and ignoring the danger around me. I want to know when to put up, and when to give up. There is something honorable about surrender, and it is so precious when it is done with humility and perspective.

Anyways…I like that kid. I don’t even know his name, so  I think I’m going to call him Braveheart.

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