I recently read an e-mail inviting teachers to attend the retirement party of a custodian who worked in their midst, and I winced to see that the note began with the words “You may not know her name, but …”
It reminded me of a janitor who walked the halls of the school where I serve part time as an English instructor.
And of a banana.
And a sleeping bag.
And a golf ball.
Every semester since I began teaching as an adjunct more than 20 years ago, I’ve designed myriad exercises to help students experience the world around them. I want them to embrace the planet in sensory ways — ways that encourage them to see and smell and touch the everyday elements of our lives.
To that end, I will begin a class session by placing an ordinary object on a desk in front of them then invite them to write about that object and, in the process, tell them to “do whatever you have to do to really know” whatever it is I’ve placed before them.
Some semesters, I use a banana.
A fruitful endeavor
There it sits.
Unfortunately, so do the students.
In all the years I’ve done this, not a single student has approached the desk to hold the fruit or inhale its essence. Nobody has ever stepped forward and asked permission to peel it or, heaven forbid, taste it.
A shame, really, I tell my classes after they’re done writing. Then, I unpeel the banana to unveil a mushy $20 bill.
No, I haven’t come up with a hybrid banana that renders cash.
Instead, before class convenes, I use a razor blade to make a slit just large enough to tuck the folded bill within.
The students are always surprised, of course, when I produce the loot, then overcome with a host of other emotions when I pick up a piece of paper next to the fruit on which I’d earlier written the following: “Be first to find the $20 bill in the banana and it’s yours.”
I’ve done similarly with a golf ball, resting it on a desk in front of the class and inviting them to write about the golf ball.
Again, I’ve never had a student come forward to examine it, to roll it around in their palm. Had they done so, they would have seen the following written with a fine-point marker in tiny script where the ball meets the desk: “$20 if you see first!”
Curiosity caught sleeping
I’m always amazed when I use my sleeping bag in an effort to pique their sense of adventure. In placing it on the desk before them, it’s completely enveloped in a stuff sack. Again, I’ve never had a student come forward and take it out of the sack or even ask permission.
They end up writing about a sleeping bag they can’t even see, a sleeping bag whose drawstring bears a little note reading — you guessed it — “$20 if you see first!”
Some students cry foul, arguing they weren’t expressly invited to come forward and handle the fruit, the ball, the bag. Why didn’t I supply a knife for the banana, throw the ball around the classroom, expose the sleeping bag?
Listen to yourselves, I implore.
You’re making excuses for a sense of shyness that needs to be re-evaluated, overcome. You are blaming me for your own lack of curiosity.
We have become, I argue, people used to settling, people who sit back and behold but have forgotten how to explore and discover.
Our worlds need to be unwrapped, I beg of them.
Then, we dive into writing to accomplish just that.
Several years ago, to see how well my students had engaged their immediate environment in the 15 weeks we spent together, I posed this challenge on the last night of class: Tell me the first name of the janitor with a slight limp who roams these halls, someone you are likely to see weekly, and sometimes more than once an evening.
His name was embroidered right above his chest pocket.
Not a single student knew.
“Too bad,” I announced. “I would have excused you from the final.”