School of Two Thousand Smiles–Chapter Twenty Eight

SAM – ON BECOMING A FACILITATOR 

Patria and I arrived at the college at the same time on Tuesday. Patria immediately started apologizing for hogging the entire afternoon on Monday. “Sam, I didn’t sleep well at all last night. And I can’t blame it on anyone but myself. I still feel guilty for taking the entire afternoon with my rant on education and my explanation for having our Smiles schools. I hope you will forgive me!”

I smiled and gave her a big hug. “Hey, Partner, you don’t need to be forgiven. All the time you were talking, I was looking over our little crowd. No one, absolutely no one, was bored. They were mesmerized by your presentation – you engaged them with your enthusiasm, your conviction, and your articulation. I’m guessing we all needed to hear the reasons we are doing what we are doing.” I handed her a rather heavy package of papers and said, “And to prove I am not disappointed in you, I have 14 copies of your presentation. I think everyone wanted a copy, and I made a few extra copies.” She held the copies to her chest and bent over and kissed me on the cheek and whispered ‘thank you’.

Just then, Jack Ross joined us and looked very different from Monday, and it was not just his outfit. He was dressed in well-worn khaki pants and a bright blue polo shirt under a light gray button-down sweater, unbuttoned. He gave us a welcome, friendly, and relaxed smile, or was it a bit of a smirk? He did look genuinely relaxed, as if he was enjoying being alive. He seemed like a different guy, but I knew from experience that no one felt more than a passing bit of euphoria after only one day. He looked at both Patria and me and said, “I hope I’m not interrupting anything. “  We both shook our heads, and he looked at Patria and continued. “I just want to tell you that I was very moved by your whole program yesterday, especially your presentation in the afternoon, Dr. O.. ah, Patria. I am looking forward to today’s experience. Uh, ah, I’m really not planning to be a facilitator in one of your schools, but I am going to begin a new assignment this January. I am going to be a part-time faculty coordinator at a law school in L.A., and it is all new to me. I was talking with a friend in the Bay area and she suggested that I attend this program if I could.” He glanced questioningly at each of us, and  I guess he saw some encouragement as he went on, “And I, uh, well, I fudged a bit about my reason for being here. I had to pay a bit extra to squeeze into this one.” 

I reached over and put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Please take a deep breath, Jack, and continue.” I had checked with our principal about how he had managed to get in, as we had always limited enrollment to ten. She told me that his ‘bit extra he had paid was ten thousand dollars and that we, i.e., the school, needed the extra dollars.

He smiled, “Thanks, Sam, I just hope you won’t kick me out. See, I’m already learning to talk differently. Law school was all ‘kick ass and take names,’ and I wanted some kind of a more human way of being with people.”  Patria and I both laughed, and Jack smiled.  I had told Patria about the extra dollars, and she agreed that that was a good reason for us to be patient with him.

After a few minutes of dancing and singing, Patria began the day, “Well, that woke me up. I hope it woke you up, too.” They all smiled, mumbled an ascent, or nodded their heads. “I won’t lecture you again this morning but I do want to tell you that early on, Haloran and his first team decided that there was just too much age segregation in our society and it started with schools, so all of our schools are Kindergarten through the twelfth grade and beginning with the fifth grade, each student is paired off with a ninth grader of the same gender. So, every fifth=grader has a ninth-grade brother or sister for one year. And we hope, longer. Every sixth grader has a tenth grader and so on, each year. They eat lunch together two times a week. Also, parents and other adult relatives are invited to join us every morning, if they wish. So sometimes, we’ll have three hundred folks stomping around at nine in the morning. When the second semester begins, we invite you to join us one morning and experience the beginning of our school day. Most visitors are always amazed at how orderly and quickly the students go into their classrooms. Now, let’s hear some questions.”

Chet, our ‘elderly’ applicant, asked, “How do you handle the misbehaving student?” Patria asked him what kind of behavior he was thinking about, and he said, “Oh, pushing or shoving or throwing things - little things like that.” 

Patria replied, “I hope you will learn the answer to that before the end of this week, Chet. I’ll just say we never use any kind of punishment. In our thinking, punishment just teaches fear, anger, and suspicion. I can’t remember the last time I saw that kind of behavior..” All but Jack and Chet nodded, and those two shook their heads as if to say they had their doubts. 

I relieved Patria of the host role and said, “We have found that if we respect the students, they will respect one another and will respect us.” Chet asked, “How do you get the parents involved?”

“That is a very important question, Chet, and we do demand it, and we know that demand is a strong word we rarely use but we do insist on it. We also insist that parents attend a six-week class on our school's philosophy. We discuss our philosophy and methodology with them in the same way we are discussing these ideas and procedures with you this week. Except we don’t expect the parents to get to know one another as well as we hope you all get to know one another.“ Chet and others nodded that they understood. 

Jack said, “I heard that you admitted a boy last Fall, first without his parents but with his two sisters and his mother without any kind of preparation. Wasn’t that a violation of your rules?”

I wondered how he had heard of Danny and the rest of the Sheridan family. I mentally set my question aside and said, “Yes, it was an exception. But zi wouldn’t call it a violation. We do our best to have clear procedures but not absolute rules.  A social worker discovered the boy and learned that he had escaped from a very dangerous home in another state, and hoped to somehow rescue his mother and siblings. We helped him do that. The social worker was a graduate of Smiles and knew our principal and me, and we invited him into my cohort. He fits in well and has been both helpful to our cohort group, and we have been a haven for him. How do you know about him and his family?” Jack responded that he had just heard about them from a fellow at his office. That did not sound right to me. And I would explore this further later. Back to today…

 “Last evening, Patria and I divided our group, including her and me, into three groups of four. We believe our groupings are divided into four people who will be good teachers to one another. Oh, and we believe that everyone, from the time we are born, is constantly learning from those around us and from our environment. In a way, we hope that the ten of you will get as open and close to one another in one week, as our students do in a semester. Changing the subject, this morning, I got a call from Neil Stanley, our youngest participant, who told me that he was calling from the hospital where his wife was having their first baby, so he would have to drop out of our training. He and his wife hoped that the little rascal would wait a week. And just a few minutes ago, he called to tell me they had a boy and both mom and baby are doing great.” Everyone clapped, and I added, “The only good thing about it is that we now have twelve people for three groups of four. I’ll take Neil’s place in one group.” 

Just as the last participant sat down, I motioned for everyone to get back up. Julie started the music from The King and I – “Whenever I Am Afraid,” and we all began to dance. Even Jack was light on his feet, unlike yesterday. I thought that Roaman even wagged his tail and moved with the music. I, the old, grizzled veteran of this training, was more relaxed than on Monday. As soon as we sat down, Chet, the ‘old guy,’ said, “That was a very appropriate song for me for today. I’ve been a teacher for thirty years, and I believe I have been a fairly good one, but, looking back, I was too much of a strict disciplinarian. I like what you are trying to do here, and I hope I can get out of my old role as a ‘don’t smile till Christmas’ kind of asshole.’ Even saying ‘asshole’ was a crime.” He stopped, grinned, and sang off-key, “Whenever I’m afraid, I’ll hold my head up high.” We all laughed. I read off the list for each four-person group and asked everyone to join their foursome and place their chairs to face one another. At the beginning of Monday, we informed the entire ten that we were recording the goings on in the training. I had asked Patria to make sure she was recording her foursome clearly, as I would like to digest it later. This is my digest of her group discussions: