Talking to Myself

I’ve taught Lamar for nearly two years now.

In those two years, I would bet good money that he’s only finished a third of all our assignments.

There’s a part of me that wants to kick him out of class. To offer up his spot to someone else – someone who will do the work, who will actually try.

But then there’s a part of me that knows there’s more to the story.

I learned the “more to” Lamar’s story the other day. I was glad I hadn’t listened to my head and followed my heart.

You see, all of our classes have the same requirement: students must read one book a week. There’s no report to complete, no paperwork to fill out to show you did it. We operate off the honor system. If your book is over 300 pages, you get two weeks. For every 300 pages, you get an extra week. What we’ve found is that if students read for one hour a day, they should finish a 300-page book within a week. For the average reader, that’ll amount to 5.47 million words a year, or the equivalent of reading the King James Version of the Bible seven times over.

Lamar would finish most of the homework assignments but would almost never talk about what book he read. I tried all sorts of ways to encourage him – giving him books for teenagers, ordering books by Black authors – still, nothing seemed to hold his interest. He’d start on a book and give it up after a few days.

One day I picked up a copy of “Life of Pi” at Goodwill. I told him that not only had I read it and enjoyed it, there was a great movie about it. Lamar might not like reading, but I know he loves movies. He exclaimed that this was going to be “the one.”

For the next few weeks, he kept the class updated on his progress. He was moving through “Life of Pi” slowly but hadn’t given up yet. One day I was standing outside the guard’s office when I saw a list posted on the wall. In bold letters across the top it stated: “THE FOLLOWING OFFENDERS MUST REPORT FOR REMEDIAL LEARNING.” A few lines down was Lamar’s name. He wasn’t a bad student after all; he just had a learning disability. It was all starting to make sense.

A couple weeks later, I brought a collection of Robert Frost’s poems to class for my students to read. One poem, “Build Soil – A Political Pastoral,” had really challenged my comprehension skills. I printed copies for my students to have them analyze it so that I could get their own perspectives to help me better understand the poem myself.

On a whim, I decided we would read it out loud together. We popcorn read, popping around the circle, a technique I commonly use to allow those who are uncomfortable reading aloud the space to decide if they want to give it a go or not. This poem was full of complicated jargon and confusing prose, and I wanted to be extra sensitive to some of our less-than-confident readers.

Once I’d given some context for the poem, I was surprised to see that Lamar was the first volunteer to start reading. And not only did he read, but he read incredibly well. His voice and tone were smooth and polished. He was confident and clear. At the end of his section, we all paused to applaud him. I could tell the other students were just as surprised as I was.

I asked, “Lamar, what have you been doing to get better at reading? That was incredible.”

He looked around quizzically. “I mean y’all have been crushing books. I had to catch up. I just started reading out loud every day. Just talking to myself.”

I nodded along, not wanting to draw too much attention to him. He later sought me out while we worked in the garden.

“You know that poem we read earlier? I liked that. I think I got it.”

He gave me his analysis. He tied Frost’s views on soil into what he’d experienced working in the soil of our garden. I stood in wonderment as he went on and on.

An anonymous author I follow recently wrote, “There’s always a step toward the light. However small. However hidden. However frustrating it might be to find it. However much you may wonder why.”

Lamar took his step. Thank you for making such steps possible.