WHY I TEACH-Part 19: College

I left the lunchroom early to retrieve something from my classroom before I subbed.

I saw James, one of my few seniors, sitting with his head resting on the table. His body rocked softly.

“James? Are you OK?”

A teary-eyed James looked up. He wiped the tears from his face with his hoodie sleeve. Before he could wipe his nose, I grabbed the box of tissues and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” he mumbled as he took a few tissues and blew his nose.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Apparently.”

James smiled.

“I just needed a place to eat my lunch,” James stammered.

I looked down at his uneaten PB&J and said, “Apparently.”

He started to cry.

“Dude, seriously, what’s going on?”

He wiped his tears, blew his nose, and tried to compose himself. He heaved a heavy sigh and said, “Today’s the last day to sign up for the SAT in order to apply to college.”

That was not what I had expected. “So sign up. I’m sure you can do it over the computer.”

A fresh batch of tears. “I don’t have the money to sign up.”

“Well, I know the guidance department can get waivers or stipends or something like that.”

James shook his head. “My dad won’t fill out the form.”

“Well, let’s just look it up to see what we can find.” I pulled up the SAT registration website. “Hey, it’s only like $50.”

“Plus a $30 late registration fee,” James added.

$80. We’d just paid our house payment, student loans, and utility bills. I had $125 set aside for groceries.

“Hang on just a second, I need to make a call.” I stepped out my back door and called Stuart. “I’d like to pay for a student’s SAT registration. It’s $80. Would you be OK with that?”

“Sure,” Stuart said without pause.

“I freaking love you,” I replied.

“OK, James, I just approved it with my other half, we can pay for your registration.”

The floodgates opened and James wept.

“It’s alright, James. Let’s get you registered.”

The bell rang and I headed off to my third-period sub-duty. I spent the next hour and a half researching scholarships. I could barely afford $80 for a test, so helping to pay for college was out of the question.

During fourth period, I announced our new adventure, finding scholarships. It seemed like a daunting task until one of my students made an interesting discovery.

“Hey,” one of the twins said, “come and look at this!”

I headed over to his computer desk and was horrified and fascinated by what I read. A high schooler had created a website to show off the scholarships he had earned. He’d included copies of the letters he’d written to various businesses offering scholarships. Under each letter, he’d comment and joked about his numerous spelling, grammar, and content errors.

“This idiot gave me $5,000 and I didn’t even spell my name correctly.”

“$2,000 and I copied the essay from the internet.”

“Well,” I said, “I can help with the essay writing and you guys can spell your names correctly, so who’s in? Who wants to earn money for college?”

Javier laughed. “What good is money for college?”

“Um, scholarship money is money you can use for college that you don’t have to pay back. It’s like free money.”

“Yea, for college.”

“I’m not understanding what you aren’t understanding.”

“I came to this country when I was 2. I’m not even going to get a high school diploma because I’m not a citizen.”

“I’m sorry, what? That makes no sense. How can you be in school? I thought you had to show a birth certificate and county residence.”

“This county has a very lenient grace period. They’ve been waiting for my birth certificate for over ten years.”

“Why don’t you just become a citizen?”

Javier laughed. “Beause it’s so simple.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“I can apply when I turn 18 and have $750 for the fee and that isn’t going to happen before I graduate.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Who needs college? I’m going to work with my uncle at his landscaping business.”

“But you love computers and programming.”

“And jobs in those fields require, at a minimum, a high school diploma.”

“I mean there has to be something you can do.”

“I could go back to Mexico.” Javier shrugged.

“You don’t even speak Spanish!”

He shrugged again.

Javier’s buddy came up behind him and Javier attempted a roundhouse kick.

I watched in slow motion as Javier’s friend brought his elbow down on Javier’s shin. I heard a loud crack and saw Javier’s leg break. Javier crumpled to the ground, his leg did not lie flat, it twisted upward.

I moved slowly, so slowly, the words, “Quick, help get him to the nurse,” came out as a stretch warbled mesh of consonants and vowels.

Seemingly seconds later, Mr. Myers rushed into my classroom. “What the hell happened in here?” he barked.

I just stood there and shrugged.