A story from my AmeriCorps Experience.

I was leading a team of tutors in a South Side Chicago school in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, commuting (a bus to the train to a bus) over an hour from my comfortable apartment on the north side. I had recently moved from Tucson, AZ where diversity was an ideal, but wasn’t real for me in any meaningful way. I learned more from my first ride on the red line than I did in my entire college sociology class. My first day in the school, I met a community organizer who worked at the youth center down the street. She took one look at me and pulled me aside.  She sternly told me that she was glad I was here to help. “But, remember, you probably won’t be here next year. You’re a stopgap support, a piece of putty on a leaking pipe. People in this community are going to see that.” And then she offered me advice, even though I didn’t have the presence of mind to request it. “Every day that you come here, people are going to question your motives. The best you can do is to ask yourself the same two questions every single day: Who are you and Who sent you?

I followed her advice. Here I was, thrown into this situation with little management training of peers and children, and told to do my best. I can’t recount any other time in my life where not only was my best not good enough, but not being good enough could adversely affect someone else’s life.  Because I was overseeing the tutoring program, I only had to tutor a couple of students per day; the other hours were spent organizing assessments, meeting with teachers and administrators, and altogether learning how to appear managerial. One of my students, Elijah, a third grader, was reading at a low first grade level, and like so many of our students, came to school hungry, and, oftentimes, in unwashed clothes.

Elijah, though, was a little different. In the first two months of school he had already wet his pants several times, and had become a target of bullying. He relished the times I’d steal him away from class, and he’d try so hard to make me proud that when he didn’t know an answer, he’d make up an elaborate response to try and mask his reading deficiencies. On our way back to class he’d start shuffling his feet, and if were a particularly rough day, he’d start to cry outside the classroom—just to buy him a few extra minutes with someone who had the time to listen to him. It was heartbreaking.

I’d meet afterschool with his teacher and the school social worker, but there just wasn’t time to go around; “Do you know, Mr. Hawkinson, how many kids in this school have Individualized Education Plans?” The best I could do was to continue to spend time with him every day, and, hopefully, he’d learn something and, maybe, he’d gain a little confidence in the process. Perhaps, he’d even stay at the school long enough so that an effective plan could be implemented for his continued success.

After another month, his reading level began to rise. He seemed happier; not as many tears, less shuffling.  I was sharing the progress I felt we were making as a team with my supervisor one day as we walked through the drab hallways of the school. As we approached his classroom, his teacher poked her head out, and upon spotting us, yelled, “Jeff. Elijah just shit his pants. It’s really starting to smell and kids are getting wise. Can you take him?” I took a quick look at my supervisor, who just shrugged. “Uhh. Yeah, of course.”

As soon as Elijah saw me, he hung his head and started shuffling into the corner of the hallway.
He began to cry. I followed after him, fumbling a few words of encouragement. The smell flooded my brain, I couldn’t think.  I’ll just take him to the office, they’ll know what to do.  We shuffled to the office, passing only a couple of older girls on our way.

The receptionist was taking a personal call in the office, chatting loudly about what she wanted her husband to bring her for lunch. As we entered, she scrunched her nose and looked up at me, and then down at Elijah. “Hold on, honey, oh Jesus, hold on.” She puts the phone down, opens her eyes really wide, and says: “Oh no, oh no. What happened?” “Well,” I told her. “Elijah seems to have had an accident.” The next part I still can’t get over. With our Principal attending a regional meeting, and our Vice Principal out for a long lunch, she tells me, “well, don’t bring him in here!” Are there some extra clothes somewhere, I ask. She replies, less than nicely, with a resounding no. Beautiful.

We shuffle back into the hallway. It’s nearly lunchtime, the halls will soon be flooded with kids. We’re across from a bathroom, but the first thing you learn when working in schools is the rule of three; never enter the bathroom with a child unless there’s a witness. As if on cue, Mrs. Carter, the eighty year-old white reading specialist, exits a classroom and begins the long trek toward us.  She’s been at the school since the 1950’s when it was a white, working class neighborhood; was here when Gary Comer, founder of Land’s End, attended the school; was here when Mr. Comer decided it would be a good idea to build a brightly colored twenty million dollar youth center right down the street (that’s another story altogether). I’ve never been more excited to see the notoriously short-tempered Mrs. Carter in the three months I’ve been at the school. 

I quickly explain the situation, and she informs me she might know where to find an extra pair of pants. “You go with him into the bathroom and help him get cleaned up,” she says. I hardly have time to protest (“what about the rule of three!” I say) before she turns and waddles as fast as she can away from me. I have visions of students flooding the bathroom to chants of “Molester!” before the security guard drags me out in handcuffs and throws me into a paddy wagon, disgracing my team, AmeriCorps, and my family.  But what haunts me even more is the image of poor Elijah, who if we don’t get cleaned up, will be ridiculed endlessly by his peers. If this is to be the cornerstone of my AmeriCorps experience, I want to go down swinging.

The bathroom is a putrid green, a shade of something you’d expect to cough up when you’re sick. Elijah enters a stall and quickly informs me there is no toilet paper. I check the next two stalls; nothing. I grab wads of paper towels—wetting them slightly—and hand them to him under the stall.  He kicks his soiled pants and underwear to me.  The urge to vomit is overwhelming; I swallow it back down.  I pass him some dry towels. He’s no longer crying; he’s too occupied with cleaning the mess he made. We’ve got a rhythm going; wet towels, dry ones, wet ones, until he says he’s done. There’s a knock on the door; Mrs. Carter enters. Three generations of supremely different individuals walk into a Southside Chicago Elementary School bathroom—except there’s no punchline. This is definitely not what I thought I had signed up for.

We slide the clothes under the stall to Elijah and bag up his soiled ones. I’m trying to think ahead. “I guess we need to call his parents,” I say. “I hope the office has his phone number,” she replies. “They can hardly keep up with the changes in address and phone numbers. I’m going to try and deodorize these; you call his Mom.” And say what?  We exit the bathroom as the bell for lunch rings. Elijah still smells, and I hope it’s faint enough for the passing students not to notice. I poke my head into the office to see if the receptionist has his Mother’s contact info.  She rolls her eyes, pretends to check, and lets me know that, of course, they don’t. As we’re darting through student traffic in the hallway on our way back to our tutoring room (a converted storage space), I’m hoping that we had managed to collect his contact information at the beginning of the year.  We escape the hallways with only a few ruffled noses and head-turns.

In our room, my team is eating lunch. I sit Elijah down with a book and rifle through my papers until I find his consent form; there’s a phone number listed. I sit next to Elijah and place a hand on his shoulder. I dial the number. “Hello,” comes his Mother’s voice. I realize I don’t know her name. I stutter: “Uh. Is this Elijah’s Mother?” “Who’s asking?” she says. Who am I? Who sent you? “Yes, this is Jeff Hawkinson, Elijah’s tutor at school.” There’s a silence on the other end. Elijah is staring at me. “Elijah has a tutor? Why wasn’t I told that?” I don’t know, you signed the form. “I’ve been working with him for the last three months, we’re making great progress. But, I’m calling because Elijah has had an accident.” There’s an intake of breath. “What, like he fell?” she asks. “No, ma’am, he went number two in his pants.” I feel childlike. “Ohhh, that boy. Why can’t he use the bathroom like the rest of the kids?” I wish I knew the answer, but I’m inadequately trained in these matters. “He’s pretty upset, and even though we helped him change his clothes, he really needs to be picked up and taken home.” Another silence on the other end. “What am I supposed to do? You want me to just leave work?” Uhh, yes. Isn’t that what parents are supposed to do?

There’s a long sigh on the other end. Elijah is looking down into the book, pretending to read. “Okay,” she says. “You better tell that boy that I am not happy, not one bit.” She curses under her breath and tells me that it’s going to be at least an hour until she can come. She hangs up. I sigh. An hour is such a long time. He tries to read the book aloud to me—without my beckoning. My team is silent, observing. They can smell him. They know that they’re going to have to go get their tutees in a few minutes; they’ll have to bring them into this converted storage room, into this odor and pretend as if nothing is the matter. None of us took this job to pretend that nothing is wrong; we came here with the idea that we could contribute to meaningful change.

Elijah and I read a couple of books about dogs, about frogs, about cats and bats— things with simple vowel sounds. We write the alphabet—in capital and lowercase. Other students come in for tutoring, some plug their noses. “Ugh, what’s that smell?” We stop halfway through a book, so I can ask him what he thinks will happen next. He either doesn’t know, or is so lost in his thoughts about what is going to happen to him, that he doesn’t answer.  He doesn’t look anywhere except for my face and the book; we pretend the other students don’t exist.  It’s Friday. Maybe the kids will forget that Elijah number two-ed in his pants by Monday. It feels like it’s only been a few minutes when Elijah’s Mom lumbers through the door. “Boy, you know how much trouble you got me in?” Elijah takes one last look at me before she drags him out of the room. She doesn’t say anything to me. And then they’re gone.

It’s the last time I ever saw him. By Monday, he was gone; transferred to another school down the road. My principal apologized for her absence, and applauded my initiative in dealing with the situation.  “It happens all the time, unfortunately. We tell them they need to get their children help, and they bolt.” I nodded; I tried to remember the expression on my face as he was being dragged by his mother. Was it bewilderment? Astonishment? Oh, god, not disappointment? I wished I could go back and make sure that the last expression he saw from me was a smile, a sign of joy.

I’ve been told that Teach For America graduates volunteer at a much lower rate than the general public. It saddens me, but I can sympathize.  This one day with Elijah weighs so heavily on me, at times, that I’m constantly aware of how I’m presenting myself to the people I love, how I show them that I care. It reminds me that while maybe I couldn’t have made a lasting impact in this child’s life, if I wasn’t there, what would have happened to him in those two hours? The world needs more young people who can afford to spend their time and energy listening to children whose experience with joy is as fleeting as Elijah’s.