Chapter 4: Checking Answers and Plant Propaganda
When he arrived at the side door of Expertman School, he pulled on the giant door. The door required immense strength to open and usually took a few attempts before Quincy could budge it far enough open to slide in. He was sure that this door had been made so difficult to open in order to create a sense of community. Older students would be forced to open the door for younger kids. What a wonderful idea!
Once inside the building, Quincy immediately walked over to the line that had formed to proceed through the metal detectors. He knew the drill. He just had to walk through the detector. It did not matter if the alarm went off, no one was asked to stop. But Quincy had long ago figured out that the lady who watched the metal detector was an expert at reading faces. It was so obvious to him. When the alarm went off, she could read a child’s face and tell if they had anything dangerous on them. But her secret was safe with him. Still, Quincy was sure that it must cost the school a ton to afford such an expert in her field, but he supposed that it made the huge investment of money in the metal detectors worthwhile.
His next stop was the main office. Upon entering the main office he was shocked by the change in temperature. During the winter, while the rest of the building was a steamy hot sauna, the office was a perfect 68 degrees. During the summer, the cool air inside this part of the school was a welcome change. The rest of the school was about one hundred degrees. And everyone knows that adolescent children are not easily distracted, so what is a little sweat and suffocating heat going to possibly do. But in the main office there was a computer in this room that they dare not overheat, and it was only incidental that the principal’s office was in the room as well. Quincy was sure that any decent human being, which obviously any principal would be, would not have air conditioning only in his or her office without good reason. And Barbara Applause was one of those decent human beings. In fact, she cared so much about people that she wanted to talk to everyone, which meant she never had time to listen to anyone. Further, she always started her conversations with people by telling them all the negative things about them she could think of, though she fully expected that she would follow this up by describing all the wonderful things about that person. Yet, she always seemed to run out of time for any given conversation before getting to the positive things she wished to express.
Another great thing about Barbara Applause was that she liked to leave her teachers and students to do their own thing. She tried not to interfere with the learning experience. Thus, she did not even bother to learn people’s names. Everyone truly appreciated the independent atmosphere she created. Though, when teachers needed advice on engaging students, she reminded them that each room was equipped with the state of the art technology: the chalk board. She assured all teachers that having students go to the board would set flame to the fiery passion that all teachers wanted to create in their students.
Quincy liked Mrs. Applause as much as anyone, and so upon seeing her in the office he said ‘Hello’ to which Mrs. Applause motioned as if she would say hello. Satisfied that she had said hello telepathically, Quincy proceeded to search the lost and found box for his notebook that he had left in class the previous week. The items in the lost and found box were all very curious. On top was a hat that displayed a picture of a big leaf. Quincy was sure that this had something to do with a maple syrup festival or something of the likes. The next item was a notebook, though he knew it was not his the moment he saw the words ‘Gangsta Superstar’ carved into the cover. Below this was a lighter, with some whitish-brown paper wrapped around it. Quincy knew the papers were old-fashioned post-it notes, but had no idea what the lighter was for. Below this was a hemp necklace with the word ‘WEED’ spelled in little dice shaped letters. Quincy quickly deciphered that his must stand for ‘I’m like a weed, you can’t keep me down.’ How motivating! He though about getting one himself, but his thoughts were distracted when he finally located his notebook.
Just then the first bell of the day rang, and so he quickly hurried down the hallway. Along the way, Quincy passed by the elevator where he saw the lady who sat in the elevator all day pushing buttons for the teachers and kids that needed to ride. As Quincy was aware that many schools in the city could not afford books or necessary supplies, he was sure that this lady must donate her time. Clearly, Expertman would not pay someone to push buttons all day when other students in the city could have used that money so much more effectively. So Quincy smiled at her and proceeded on, knowing that she was a good woman for donating her time.
After walking up a flight of stairs and down another hallway, Quincy arrived at his first period classroom: 214. The room was very tiny and the thirty-four desks were crammed into the small space forcing the students to sit almost on top of each other. No one breathed without someone else feeling it. Quincy recognized by the end of the first day of class that this was the perfect learning environment. Placing the students in such tight quarters forced everyone to work together. For instance, if someone needed to sharpen a pencil or go to the bathroom, everyone had to adjust their bodies to allow the student in motion to get passed. As noted before, teamwork was a valued concept at Expertman.
Quincy’s first period class was social studies. Today his class was taking a test and turning in an essay. The teacher Mr. Spilldown called everyone to attention and announced that he would be handing out the test and that their lives depended on how well they did on the standardized tests coming up in a few months. Mr. Spilldown was an interesting teacher. He was usually dressed in jeans and a polo shirt or a sweatshirt. He was not much for dressing up. Further he had blond hair that came down just past his ears, but it was always disheveled and tucked behind his ears. Yet, one strand of hair always seemed to escape and fall directly in his line of vision. And to top off the viewing experience, he wore a pair of glasses that he had clearly stolen off the corpse of Benjamin Franklin. Still, he knew his history, and this was all any student cared about. For as everyone who knows anything knows, the students of Philadelphia only care that their teachers can serve as trees of wisdom from which their students can pluck the apple of knowledge (or at least this is what the half of the students that stay in school through their senior year desire, or at least a handful of them desire, or maybe a half a handful, well maybe not a big hand, but a hand none the less… desires).
As the tests were being handed out, one student, Mufasa raised his hand and asked if there would be an essay on the test. The teacher responded no, since they were turning in an essay today already and Mr. Spilldown added that having an essay on the test would not help the students do better on the standardized tests coming up in a few months. Moments later, another student, Shawn raised his hand and asked if there was an essay on the test. Quincy immediately realized that Shawn was simply double-checking to make sure the teacher had given correct information. They had all learned to double check sources when doing anything academic.
Once all the tests were handed out, each student began reading over the questions. Mr. Spilldown interrupted the class long enough to apologize to the class. He continued, “When Musfasa asked the question about an essay being on the test, I told everyone that an essay would not help them do better on the standardized tests coming up, but I forgot to mention that your lives all depend on standardized tests. Since we all know that Expertman students are the smartest in the state because of how well we do on standardized tests.” Something inside Quincy’s gut told him that Mr. Spilldown was being urged to say this, and he thought he sensed a little sarcasm or disgust.
Within moments many of the students had begun writing answers. Another aspect of teamwork that Quincy admired in his classmates was that before some people would start their tests, they would always check to make sure their neighbors were doing okay. And these same people always liked to stay a few questions behind the people next to them. This was probably so that the students they were watching out for would not feel pressured to keep pace with them. Though, sometimes Quincy wondered why the girl next to him, Ashleigh, always checked on him. He always got ‘A’s’ on everything he did. But he figure he did not want to seem unappreciative for her concern and so he let her check his test for him. He thought she might have taken an interest in him because they were approximately intellectually equal. This assumption he based on the fact that they usually got exactly the same scores on every test. In fact, many students in his class got the same score as the student sitting next to him or her. Clearly the teacher grouped students by how well they did on each test.
During the test, an Asian, student named Peter started talking to his neighbor. Mr. Spilldown, who hated students talking during the test, asked Peter to be quiet. Peter quickly responded by saying, “you’re just picking on me because I’m Asian.”
Mr. Spilldown did not respond as he despised the way the accusation of racism was abused in the classroom. He had noticed that race seemed to be almost the central focus of the thoughts of many minorities in the school. The issue always seemed to come up, though the threat of the accusation of being racist kept most of the white students silent.
Following this incident, another student began talking to her neighbor. This time it was Sherell, a girl in class who seemed to have a hard time not talking and was constantly being rude to Mr. Spilldown.
“Sherell, we are taking a test, if you talk again I will have to take your test.”
Within moments Sherell began to finish her conversation and Mr. Spilldown quietly walked over and wrote zero on her test and took it.
Sherell made no effort to resist what she was going to say and simply blurted out “Mr. Spilldown, if you ever came to my neighborhood, my friend and I would beat the crap out of you.”
His only acknowledgement of this statement was to say “lovely.” Unfortunately, her behavior did not faze him as this was a tame incident compared to others, like the time that he caught a student cheating on a paper for the third time straight. The student undeniably guilty of plagiarism nearly missed hitting Mr. Spilldown with a desk he attempted to throw. This went on at the same time as the student was accusing him of not liking him because he was black. Mr. Spilldown failed to see how pointing out that the student's paper had been copied word for word demonstrated any degree of racism. There were many other examples that made getting threatened seem mild.
After forty minutes or so, most of the students had managed to finish the test, and the bell rang sounding the end of class. The students quickly handed Mr. Spilldown their tests and the papers that were due that day. It was at this time that once again Mr. Spilldown reminded them that their lives all depended on doing well on the standardized tests coming up in a few months. One of his classmate’s mentioned to Quincy, that he had seen Ashleigh’s paper on an internet site that he had visited the night before when trying to write his paper. Quincy was struck with a sense of pride that another student in his class had been published on the net. Though, he remembered the teacher mentioning that he had seen many of his classmates essays published on the internet before. Yet, one thing had always troubled Mr. Spilldown. He was constantly asking why the students all used aliases when publishing online. Maybe they were too modest to let people know how intelligent they were. Still, Quincy knew he would not use an alias as Mr. Spilldown gave ‘F’s’ to students whose papers were published under aliases.
One African American student, while walking out of the classroom, mumbled “Mr. Spilldown must be racist, because the test didn’t mention African Americans.” He continued to grunt “obviously he left out black people because he doesn’t like them.”
Another black student nearby responded “The topic had nothing to do with African Americans. So it’s impossible to suggest he’s racist for not including question about African Americans when testing us on the first few years of the settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth. The first slaves didn’t even arrive in America until 1617. And there was a question about that on the test.”
But the original students responded, “Exactly the only mention of African Americans has them as slaves, clearly this is all he thinks we are fit for being.”
The other student looked disgusted and said, “You better think about what you are saying before throwing around the term ‘racism’ so loosely.”
And then he walked away shaking his head.
Quincy did not hear the bulk of the preceding conversation, for he was distracted by other thoughts. As he walked to his next class, he found himself questioning why the standardized tests were so important. Did his life really depend on how well he did on this test? He had seen some of the sample questions during the several hours a week that his school dedicated to preparing students for the test, but could not figure out how simple math and basic reading ability questions could demonstrate that his school was full of brilliant kids, especially considering that all the students were taught tricks on how to figure out the answers even if they did not read the questions. But, he quickly reassured himself that someone much more intelligent than him had come up with the tests and must know exactly why these tests were so important. He was sure that his school would not lead him to believe that a test was more important than it actually was just to get extra funding.
As Quincy walked through the halls of his school, he saw that the hallways were decorated for Black History Month. Then a strange feeling came over him. He could not think of a positive sounding explanation for something. He could not help wonder why people felt the need to separate themselves by skin color. He understood that black people had overcome many obstacles as a people. He could not help but feel sympathy for the millions of African Americans who had been forced to board huge ships and bear terrible conditions crossing the Atlantic. And they survived being compelled to work as slaves on plantations in the Americas. Yet overtime these people had risen up from the degraded status and demonstrated to the world that they were the equals of all other races of people.
And he believed that these struggles needed to be celebrated. Yet, he did not see how separating out this group would help promote that the color of their skin was not a determining factor in who they are. Why not celebrate these events as part of the human struggle towards equality rather than one group’s struggle, since the accomplishment had been a joint effort of all skin colors working together. Many white, Asian, and Latino people had risked their lives, fortunes and happiness to promote the cause of equality. He felt sure that everyone would be better served to view themselves as part of the human race rather than some group based on the color of one’s skin. In fact, he remembered hearing many people saying that skin color doesn’t matter, and that the color of one’s skin should not be considered a determining factor in one’s status as a person, yet Black History month celebrated the significance of skin color. And instead of promoting the idea that skin color doesn’t matter, Black History Month seemed to highlight how significant skin color was especially to those who had black skin. If anything, this celebration tended to separate people out based on their skin color and made the difference seem more significant. Wasn’t it the famous African American Martin Luther King who said something to the effect of ‘people should not be judge by the color of their skin, but rather by the content of their character’? And had not scientist proven that race was a social construct of the human race, and that aside from skin tone, there were no real difference between the ‘races’ of people.
One might argue that skin color was not the issue but rather the common cultural heritage of being from Africa. Still, that would be to assume that the hundreds if not thousands of different cultures that existed in Africa (from the white skinned to black skinned people of Africa) could be lumped under the single term of African. This drew Quincy’s mind to the terminology African American. He was quite certain no white person had ever called themselves an African American, yet many white people live in Africa. He wondered if they were called European Africans in Africa.
Getting back to the previous topic, Quincy wondered if the people in charge of promoting such months realized the jealousy and resentment this caused for people of Asian and Latino descent. These people were supposed to have Months celebrating their heritage, yet their months were largely overlooked if acknowledged at all. And people with white skin didn’t even get a month since it was argued the most people in history that were mentioned in history books had white skin and therefore every month was White History Month in a way. In fact, celebrating the history of white people was only acceptable if all the flaws and mistakes made by people with white skin were highlighted far more than the success and progress made. It was considered, in some ways, racist to be proud of being white in America. The logic behind this failed to register with Quincy’s adolescent mind, though he was sure that adults could grasp the reasoning.
Quincy wondered if there might be a better way to approach the issue at hand. Maybe one of the central tenets of African American History month could be that skin color really doesn’t matter and that this was demonstrated by how African Americans were able to achieve exactly what people of every other skin color were able to achieve. Thus people could come to embrace the fact that cultures may be different, people may be different, but skin color was not a determining factor in the level of ones physical and mental abilities.
But then Quincy calmed down, and assured himself that there was a good explanation, and that he would simply figure it out later. Yet, still he could not help but feel as though something had changed inside him. He felt tainted, but wasn’t sure why. Slowly Quincy’s mind drifted to a different topic. He wondered if lizard’s had races and if so how would the chameleon fit into the lizard racial scheme.
He would have to look this up later, since unfortunately Quincy was now running late to his next class. He had who he considered to be one of the best teachers in the building. Her name was Ms. Topilino. As the bell rang, she called the class to attention. One of the students in the class, Billy, refused to get quiet.
Ms. Topilino pleaded, “Can you please quiet down, Billy.”
He replied, “What the fuck do you want? I’m not in the mood for this today.”
“Oh you’re not, well it doesn’t matter if you are in the mood for this or anything today. You have to get quiet or you’ll get detention.”
“Oh wow, lunch detention. Is that supposed to scare me? I know that’s the only thing you can give me. You don’t want to send me to the office because the Principal will blame you for being a bad teacher. Otherwise I’ll start crying and say that if they call my parents my dad will beat me. Or I’ll just tell them that you picked on me because I’m black… like the time you didn’t give me an ‘A’ in your class.”
The class laughed, and Billy had a big smile on his face. Ms. Topilino knew, sadly, that he was right and that she had to do her best to work around the distraction. As she came to this conclusion, Quincy walked in just in time to miss the entire scene. He smiled at his favorite teacher and took his seat.
The next class Quincy had was with his English teacher Ms. Liredwe. Ms. Liredwe was not what one would call eye candy. In fact, if one’s eyes were to go trick or treating, she would be the last thing that they would desire to have thrown into their bag. Today she started class off by complaining, “The people of the world do not care about the children of Philadelphia, the people of the country don’t care, and even the people in the city don’t care about the children of Philadelphia. And no one could possibly have a good reason for this. You decent respectful students deserve so much better. That is why we are working on our plays for the Not Old Playwrights Program.”
As Ms. Liredwe shouted these words at her class, Ms. Topilino walked by the class’s open door and suddenly felt a strong urge to throw up. So she quickly ran down the hall into the Bathroom/Office of the Head French Teacher. She quickly waved to the Head French teacher and ran to a stall to throw up. This was one of the ways that Expertmen showed its longtime teachers that they were appreciated. They gave them an office in the bathroom, which allowed that teacher the advantage of not having to walk far to use the restroom. Though Quincy found it strange when he heard rumors that the principal did not like the teacher in the bathroom office.
Back in the classroom, Ms. Liredwe called upon Shawn and John to perform the beginning of their play. She knew that the two students were very proud of themselves for what they had written and she felt they needed to share their creation with the class.
“Now, I want everyone to pay attention to Shawn and John’s performance. That way, we can offer advice to them afterwards. Okay.. let’s begin.”
Shawn and John approached the front of the room and announced to the class that Shawn would be playing the part of a young boy, and John would play the role of his father. Then they jumped right into their lines.
“I’m not going to let you rape momma anymore you sick fucking bastard. I’m going to cut your fucking throat and leave you to die if you ever come here again.”
“Son, you watch your damn mouth. I’m sorry I ever got your momma pregnant with you. What a waste of life you turned out to be.”
“That’s all we have so far,” said Shawn.
Ms. Liredwe stood up and asked, “Does anyone have any comments?”
Britney raised her hand and suggested, “maybe you could say knocked up instead of pregnant.”
“Good suggestion,” added Ms. Liredwe.
“What if you said mother fucking throat instead of just fucking throat, since this would tie into the theme of him raping the mom.” Added Vincent.
“Another excellent piece of advice,” said Ms. Liredwe.
Quincy missed most of this conversation as the girl sitting next to him in the back row distracted him. She was pushing buttons on her cell phone, and it appeared she was sending a text message to someone. Being easily distracted, Quincy could not help but watch her type the message ‘roof at lunch?’ Then a message popped up on the screen, obviously the response from someone else. It read ‘Can I finger you?’ To this, she responded ‘Until I come.’
Quincy tapped her on her shoulder and asked, “So are you writing to your boyfriend?”
“Well, of course I be, I ain’t being no slut!” she replied.
“No, I think it is cool that your boyfriend wants to point you out at lunch.” Feeling a bit lonely he added, “I don’t have anyone to point out.”
She grinned, “That’s a nice way of putting it. I’ll use that in the future just in case I gets caught. Pointing out! Yeah, I love getting pointed out. If you ever want to try pointing someone out [which she said while making quotation marks in the air] I have a friend who is always willing.”
“Thanks, but I think I’ll wait to find someone special. It wouldn’t feel right calling her my girlfriend.”
“Wait, when you say pointing out, you really thought I meant…” as she got mid sentence, Ms. Liredwe called to her and Quincy to pay attention.
As she put away her phone, Quincy noted the girl tugging her pants down a little lower on her waster exposing a bright colored triangle shaped piece of fabric right above where her butt would be. From the triangle, a thin string went around her waist and another one went down into her pants following the crack of her rear end. He had seen many girls wearing something very similar to this, though in a variety of colors and shapes. He wondered what it was, and how it could be comfortable to wear over their underwear. He considered that maybe it was something like a bracelet for the waist.
He managed to daydream through most of the rest of class. Suddenly, he found his mind wandering to the man he had seen sleeping on the heating vent on the sidewalk. He guessed it was as good a place as any to take a nap. He just wondered where the man had bought the shopping cart that he carried his blankets and pillow in. In fact, the man seemed to have quite a few things stored in his cart. And he wondered where he kept the cart at his house since it would be a real eye sore if it were out in the open. Then he began to think about the weird chanting he had woken up to a week or so ago at three in the morning. His dad said it was some kind of prayer which led him to wonder why someone would pray so late at night. This inevitable led to him questioning whether or not he though God was on Eastern Time, since clearly God would have been asleep if so. He wondered where heaven fell in terms of time zones. Then he pondered if God even needed sleep? His mind drifter to other subjects as he floated through the remainder of his day. Through it all, he managed to pay enough attention to what was going on in class to survive without getting in trouble.
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