Summer School: Come Hell or High Water
by Shari Dinkins
THIS IS GOING to be great. I’m going to choke this down in six weeks and get on with my life. All I got to do is get through this next month and a half and I’m home free.
I feel as if I can read their minds. It’s based on the idea that it’s better to pull a bandage off quickly rather than slowly; that it’s easier to jump in the pool than get in toe-by-toe. They sit, thirty-two of them, wincing. The early morning sun feeds in through old blinds. Seven-fifty a.m. Just another hour and a half and I’m out of here. I stand looking out at them, contemplating.
It’s the illusion that they can do summer school.
I know that in two weeks, six will drop out. Another three or four will take a failing grade. And most will skinny by with a C. I have read through the eligibility reports. I have seen the barely passing grade on the eligibility exam that somehow encourages, “Yes, you can do this thing. You can get through this level of English.” Those that have floated in from the ESL program—maybe they are better off because they know what’s coming. The assignments. The papers. Ah, yes, the papers. During a regular semester we do six or seven; spaced out with other work. It is doable.
But summer? It’s a painful thing. For both student and myself. For them because they will try to do what would be almost impossible for them in a 16-week course in an abbreviated 6-week course. And many will fail. For me because I hate to watch the pain of failure and the struggle that precedes the fall. I will talk to many of them before the first two weeks are out. Ms. Dinkins, I just gotta pass this class. Isn’t there any way I can do something? Extra credit? Can I rewrite this paper? Oh, Ms. Dinkins, I just got to go to UC Berkeley in the Fall. Isn’t there any way…? And I will sit with my grade book, a sympathetic smile. “I recommend that you take this course in the Fall,” I will say, “You know, when you have time to dedicate to writing papers and doing all the assignments.” They will blink, nervous hands fingering the strap of their backpack. But Ms. Dinkins, I just gotta pass. I feel your pain, brother. But I cannot give you a grade because you wish it. I cannot sneak my blue pen down the row and fill in missed assignments. I cannot white out the 57 percent that you got on the first paper; nor can I change the 62 percent that you got on the second paper. I can only sit and listen.
It’s a painful thing.
During summer school, we write a paper a week. A paper a week. Somehow, I have to prepare them to write a paper a week. It is impossible. So they choke down the assignments and try to spill out a 1,000 word paper for that Friday. On Wednesday night, as I am grading assignments, working out lessons, I can almost hear the collective thirty-two brains struggling; a multitude of fingers wrangling keyboards. And Thursday night at 12 midnight, I think I can hear thirty-two overworked inkjet printers spitting out the work. On Friday I will write on the board: Papers handed in before 8:10 a.m. will be considered on time. Later papers will be accepted until 8:10 am on Wednesday. They will filter in and thwap them on the desktop by the podium. Some will pause and borrow my small stapler to unite the white pages. I will smile and graciously respond, “Thank you,” “Good,” “Thank you.” We will get on with the lesson for the day and I will tuck the stack into my ragged leather attaché.
When I struggle to the fifth floor of Batmale Hall, I will get my key in and push a few papers in as I get the door open. I will pull out my blue pen. Late. And then into the bag. With phone in hand, I will punch in my code and wait to hear four voices with the same message. I got sick. I won’t be in. I didn’t finish because my mom was in the hospital.
At home I will pull them out of my bag and start the timer. A quick first read to consider content, then the painful second read to troll through grammar that would shock me during a full semester. I try for four an hour; some-
times I can only read two an hour. I do blocks of three or four full hours at a time. I know that I will spend eight hours on Saturday and Sunday each, broken only for quick food and urination. By the evening, I am so weary that only mediocre sitcoms can soothe me. Law & Order, Star Trek, Black Adder, CSI
.
When we come back on Monday, I will hand them back. Do I remember their names yet? No, but I struggle, “Ah, Jennifer, didn’t see you there.” “Jesse—there you are.” “Bob. Oh, the other Bob.” Until only a few remain, unclaimed sheaves of white paper marked up with blue ink. I am smart enough to plan a group assignment right after. Should I be unwise enough to lecture, I will be met with reactionary blank faces, the occasional angry stare. By the next day, I will have read 17 e-mails; excuses for papers not written, reproaches for grades ill-received.
We will start the process over. And the next week it will be the same. The same painful process.
The campus is almost deserted during class time. In the office all my colleagues, except for a few adjuncts, are gone. Home sleeping, gardening, playing with their children, traveling to places like Cancun, Italy and England. I stay here in the city, passing over one paper after another. I shuffle them atop my pad holder, my feet propped on the edge of the coffee table, a Lyle Lovett CD playing. The hours move and I notice that more are graded than aren’t and I look out the window. A grackle sits on the power line outside my apartment window; the ocean is visible, a froth of blue and white rolling towards me. I get up, stretch, go to the bathroom. I wash with lavender soap from Provence and splash my face, dry with a well-worn towel so dark blue it is almost black.
I return to the living room, change to a Johnny Lang CD and sit down, prop the pad holder on my knees, switch blue pens and go to work again. When the phone rings, I let it go to the answering machine, “Shari, pick up. Are you there? Oh, I didn’t think you were in class. Ok, well, call me if you want to go do something.” Do something. I smile. I am doing something. I’m grading papers. I’m teaching. I’m working for the betterment of mankind. Right here in my living room, in jeans so worn they are white-blue and a pair of slippers from K-mart. I go back over the paper in front of me that I have marked up for bad grammar and sentence structure so poor that I cannot understand one sentence out of four. I work at some positive comments now, scrawling in the column, Good specifics. Nice example here. Good detail. I write detailed notes so that the student could, if they wished, go to a tutor and get help. Subject-verb agreement, consistency in verb tense, pronoun agreement, gerund problems, punctuation, sentence structure, unity, cohesiveness. Finally I fold the front pages back and reach for my grade book. Cleary, 77 percent. And I am onto the next. Eighteen down, sixteen to go.
