Day One

It's his first day of school since 2001. Seven years, no eight, since a desk and a teacher. His first day since he was ten.

We've been working for an hour, maybe more, when I realize. We have practiced introductions, spelled his name, begun at the beginning. He's shown that he knows the English alphabet, mostly, and more numbers than I expect. He now understands me when I repeat phrases like, "Open your notebook," or, "Write your name," commands that teachers give. We're working hard and we're smiling, each of us for our own reasons.

And then I try some math.

The gaps I see don't shock me or particularly surprise, but something does not, shall I say, add up, so I pause to figure it out. And in a conversation I cannot begin to transcribe, all Spanglish and cryptic notes and telepathy, I conclude, definitively, that the boy's education was not as I've been told. For once, I hadn't seen his papers.

"No secundaria?" I repeat, once more. He shakes his head; I nod. He looks at me a little warily.

"Okay," I say and again to the wordless question, "It is okay." A pause. "Tomorrow," I add, thinking of the algebra that is looming, "tomorrow, a different math."

As if it's that easy in a high school that has "raised its standards" by knocking out the steps. As if the fact that no one in the office noticed they were granting credits from a primary school report card--I confirmed it later--won't complicate day two. I know exactly what's ahead: more phone calls and paperwork, more compromise and confusion. A headache, guaranteed. And that's the best case scenario. But at the moment I only feel a good kind of tired because I taught, and my student learned.