Nap Time

For Thanksgiving, a warm, fuzzy memory from early days at DSA. Have a restful holiday.

Once when I was a Spanish teacher, I was introducing new verbs and sensed resistance in a class that was usually cooperative and enthusiastic. They were sophomores and juniors mostly, and this was at Denver School of the Arts. I turned from the board where I’d been writing and blurted, “What’s going on?”

A dozen voices erupted, telling me about the standardized testing, how exhausting it had been and the show last night, half the students in the room involved in it as actors, dancers, techies or musicians, and not getting to bed until midnight, and how it was the end of the nine weeks in a few days, with projects due or tests scheduled in all their classes, and they were overwhelmed. “I need a nap,” one girl moaned.

I stared at their weary young faces. “O.K., ten minute nap. Heads down.”

It came from my gut and out my mouth with no time to second-guess myself. The instant I said it, all twenty-eight heads in the room went down on their desks like magic, some rolling up jackets for pillows, some cradled on their folded arms or Spanish books. All eyes closed. It was astonishing—what I’d said and their reaction. I turned off the lights and shut the door. Within two minutes, I heard the change of breathing that meant some were already asleep.

Lingering at the closed door a few minutes to block its narrow window, I wondered how I’d explain this if an administrator walked in, or even glanced into my silent, darkened room in passing. “What the hell are you doing?” I fretted inwardly. Could they fire me for this? Give me a bad evaluation? I thought of covering the glass in the door, but the idea was embarrassing. Wimp: you were the one who acted on that hunch and told them to nap. Have the courage of your hunches.

I’d been teaching long enough to take the pulse of a classroom and adjust plans as needed. This was a good group of kids in sleep-deprived overload. It pained me to see the shadows under their eyes. Looking at the room, at least half were asleep, not a move or sound out of any of them. I tiptoed to my desk and entered attendance, shortened my plan for the day, put a bit of fun into it.

Ten minutes passed and I gave them five more. A few began to snore softly. Another two minutes and I said, “time to wake up,” quietly, walking around the room and patting the backs of those too soundly gone to hear me. They stretched and yawned and rubbed their eyes, gradually coming back from the faraway places they’d been. I turned on the lights, nodding sympathetically to the groans, and resumed the conjugations of regular preterite verbs.

“You got it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” they nodded, bored.

“We’ll see about that,” I replied and made as if to erase the board.

“Wait,” Sara said, sensing trouble. She and some others quickly copied the endings into their notebooks. I erased them.

“Here to here is Team A. And here to the door Team B,” I announced. “Mack and Jenn are scorekeepers.” I handed each a dry erase marker as if they were prizes. “One contestant at a time for each team, stand behind this line until I say the verb. Scorekeepers, make sure they don’t cheat.”

The scorekeepers puffed up with importance. Suddenly awake, the teams quickly selected their ringers: “Make Sara go first: she knows this crap.” (I didn’t hear that.) They started sharing notes with those who didn’t take them. The knowledge suddenly mattered. Someone on Team A said to someone on Team B, “We are Team Awesome and you’re not.” Nothing if not murderously competitive, my dear arts students.

“I wrote,” I said, before they were ready. While Jason, her opponent, was asking “what?” Sara leapt to the board and scribbled “escribí,” accent and all. That’s my girl. I nodded and she leapt into the air. Mack gave her team double points. They cheered. Protests erupted. Threats were made. Mack was accused of bias.

At that moment, the assistant principal stuck his head in the door, grinning. “Having too much fun in here,” he said, and left.

Life is sometimes sweet.