Marcus Read a Sentence
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1972–2010

"Every September, there's a room full of people who can't read, and by June, they can, every year."

I realize everything I've told you so far has been Harold, Harold, Harold. And I, there's other things too. I was a teacher for 38 years. And I haven't even mentioned it. My mother used to say, actually, I'll tell you what my mother used to say another time. It'll take me off track. First grade, 38 years at Emerson Elementary, which is on Stow Street. It's still there. They painted it yellow a few years ago, which I do not approve of. It was red brick and it should have stayed red brick. I started in 1972, the year Sarah was born, which people say, how did you manage a newborn in a classroom? And I say, well, the six-year-olds were easier. This was 72. Eddie Flanagan, who sat behind me in chemistry, came back from Vietnam missing an arm. And here I am teaching six-year-olds to read the word cat. It felt, I don't know if it felt important or if it felt like hiding, maybe both. Harold was home a lot in those years. He'd gone from the lumberyard to, he was doing cabinetry by then, custom work, and he could set his own hours. So he'd have Sarah in this little bouncer in his workshop while he sanded things. She grew up covered in sawdust. She hated it. David loved it, but David came later.

Anyway, 1987. That's the year I want to tell you about. February. There was a boy in my class named Marcus. He was six, very small for his age, barely talked. He had these tiny hands, and he'd hold the book like it was something heavy, like it weighed more than him. The other teachers, and I shouldn't say this but I will, the other teachers had already decided about him. They said learning disability. They said maybe hold him back. This was 87. We didn't have, the testing wasn't what it is now. You just, teachers decided and that was that. But I didn't think so. There was something about the way he watched. He wasn't confused. He was, it was like he was waiting. I can't explain it better than that. He was waiting for something to click.

So I started sitting with him after lunch. Every day, 15 minutes, just me and Marcus and whatever book I thought might work. We started with, oh, what's it called, the one with the brown bear, brown bear, Bill Martin. And for weeks, nothing. He'd look at the pages and look at me, and I'd read and point, and he'd nod. But nothing was happening behind the nod. You could tell. This went on for October, November, December, January. My colleague Diane, Diane Kowalski actually, she was Betty's younger sister, small world. Diane said to me, Maggie, you're wasting your lunch. Just fill out the referral. And I almost did. I almost did one Friday afternoon in January. I had the form on my desk and I thought, one more week.

February 3rd, 1987. I remember the date because there was ice on the windows, this thick frost, and the classroom was cold because the heating was... Emerson always had heating problems. Every winter the principal would send these memos about — that's not important. Marcus and I are sitting at the little table by the window and I've got, I think it was a different book by then, something with a dog. I don't remember the title. And he's looking at the page and I'm about to read it to him like I always do. And he reads it. He reads the sentence out loud. Slowly, one word at a time, his finger under each word, but he reads it. And his face, sorry, this is, it's silly. It was 40 years ago and I'm, his face just opened. That's the only way I can describe it, like a window. He looked up at me and he knew what he'd done. And I knew what he'd done. And neither of us said anything for a second. And then he read it again. And then he turned the page and read the next one.

I went to the teacher's lounge after school and I sat in the chair by the coffee machine and I cried. Diane came in and she thought something terrible had happened and I said, Marcus read a sentence. And she said, Diane was very practical. She said, well good, now you can eat lunch again. People ask me, they used to ask me at parties when they found out what I did. 38 years of first grade, wasn't that boring? And I never knew how to answer that, because it's, how do you explain? Every September, there's a room full of people who can't read, and by June, they can, every year. I saw that happen, what? 800 times, 900. And it never once wasn't, I don't have the word, it just never got old. I don't understand how that could get old.

In the 90s, they started with the standardized testing. And I don't want to get political on this thing, but you cannot test a child into reading. You just can't. I went to a school board meeting in 94. They were cutting the reading specialists, and I stood up and I told the superintendent that if he'd ever sat with a six-year-old for four months waiting for the light to come on, he wouldn't be cutting the people who make it happen. I probably shouldn't have said it like that in front of everybody, but I did. Harold drove me home, and he said, Maggie, I build furniture. And even I know you just scared that man half to death. I said, good. They didn't cut the specialists.

That year, Marcus came to see me at my retirement. 2010. He drove up from, I think he was living in Worcester then, or was it Springfield, somewhere out west out past the Pike. He's a librarian, a librarian. He walked in and I hadn't seen him in, well, 20-some years and he was this tall man with a beard. And I said, Marcus? And he handed me a copy of Brown Bear Brown Bear signed. He'd tracked down Bill Martin at some event and gotten him to sign it. I have it on my shelf next to the photos of the grandkids and that terrible clay thing Jack made me that's supposed to be a cat. He said, Mrs. Brennan, I just wanted you to know. And that was it. He didn't stay long, but that was enough.

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People: Harold, Sarah, David, Eddie Flanagan, Marcus, Diane Kowalski, Betty Kowalski, Bill Martin, Jack