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“Okay, boys and girls, get out your notebooks and copy down today’s notes,” Martha pontificated. Oy, her singsong voice sounds worse than fingernails on a blackboard, Alex thought. Wait. My dad used to use that phrase… but I’ve never been in a classroom with actual chalk or a blackboard. Maybe “sounds worse than dry erase markers smell” is the modern version? Martha’s sharp tone snapped Alex to attention.
“Right, Mr. Alexander?”
“Please?” said Alex.”
“Please show the class a velocity vector, like I was saying?”
“Gotcha,” Alex replied, as Martha gave him the Stare of Death. Alex drew an arrow up and to the right, labeling the angle from the horizontal as 30 degrees.
Martha took over Alex’s position at the front of the room as the big-dog takes over little-dog’s spot in line for doggie dinner. “Now, I draw the horizontal component like this. In math class we’d use the kohssin to figure out the horizontal component, but here we’ll just measure with a ruler.”
“You mean cosine, Mrs. F?” said the freshman Will Jefferson. Martha switched the Eye of Sauron from her colleague to her student in the front row. “No, Will, I mean kohssin. See: C-O-S-I-N.” Martha wrote the letters on the board. “Kohssin.”
“Mrs. F! That’s pronounced “cosine!” the freshman Will Jefferson said. “It’s a natural consequence of projecting a vector quantity along the line of a second vector using the “cross product,’ aka the ‘scalar product.’ The cross product of vectors A and B is represented by AB cosine theta, where theta is the smallest angle measure between the two vectors.”
While Will’s lungs audibly refilled to continue the lecture - Will had asthma, every intake or outtake of breath was audible to the surrounding congressional district - Martha frowned, folded her arms, and tapped her feet. Will wasn’t taking the hint. “And so,” he said, “---”
“Mr. Jefferson, you are, of course, 100 percent correct.” Twenty-one sets of eyes snapped to Alex. “Although, you’ve conflated the technical term ‘cross product’ with ‘dot product.’ That’s an easy enough mistake to make, no worries. Thing is, Mr. Jefferson, right now I’m happy for our class just to understand how to draw and measure a vector component with a ruler. No trigonometry necessary.” Alex put on his biggest smile. “If you, or anyone else, would like to stick around after school one day this week, I’d be happy to show you some advanced vector operations and how they apply to physics beyond this course.
“Right now, though, y’all take a look at my diagram here. This is all we need for today. Watch what I do so you can do it on the homework assignment.”
As Alex turned to draw on the board, he registered a gaggle of open mouths among the students. Except for the freshman Will Jefferson. His eyes were wide, but his mouth was closed. The rest of the students seemed stunned. Alex heard a whisper somewhere in the back: “Woah! Will shut up! How’d that happen?”
***
“Will sure is smart,” Martha mentioned to Alex conversationally. All students had filed out, and Alex was sprawled in his desk chair. “Yup,” Alex replied. He was tired.
“He’s too smart, I think,” said Martha.
“How is he ‘too smart?’ I mean, isn’t that our job to help students get smarter?”
“I mean, he’s way ahead of the class, and that’s not good for him or for overall class morale. And he needs to learn when to speak, and when to keep quiet. Let’s put Will in a group tomorrow to help some other students who aren’t as smart as he is.”
Alex frowned. Martha’s tone sounded ominous, as if a soundtrack were playing a scary string crescendo over her words. But Alex didn’t have the mental energy to discuss further.
***
“Good morning, boys and girls!” Alex cringed, outwardly as well as inwardly. He couldn’t help it. Why does Martha have to address the class that way? Why not “folks,” or “everyone,” or even “class?” Calling 14 year olds “boys and girls” is guaranteed to breed resentment; it preemptively destroys relationships.
“You have today’s lab sheet on your desk. We are measuring the circumference of circular things with a string, and the diameter with a meter stick. Please graph circumference on the vertical axis and diameter on the horizontal. Your groups are listed on the screen. I’ll give a score for the accuracy of your data, for your ability to work together as a group, and for the analysis. One graph per group. Okay…. Go!”
“Dammit!” said Lindsay, sotto voce but not so sotto that her friends couldn’t hear her voce. “Why do *I* have Will in my group?” The students surrounding Lindsay laughed. Most of them, anyway.
Will hung his head. But then he fixed a smile, sat next to Chris and Wilson, and grabbed the lab sheet. “Hi, Christopher, Hello Wilson. Here, I have four strings so that we can divide the measuring work. Here is the graph paper; let’s each mark our data points on the graph ourselves, does that sound good?”
Chris and Wilson grunted noncommittally. They were both eyeing Lindsay surreptitiously as she flounced toward their table. “Ugh. So you’ve already given us our orders, right, Will? You’re so smart and diligent, aren’t you.” Eye roll.
“Lindsay, I made a suggestion about optimizing our efforts so that we can be done quickly and accurately. You don’t have to agree with me, of course - do you have an alternative suggestion about the division of labor in this enterprise?” Lindsay said nothing, just sat still and defiant.
Chris grabbed a string and started measuring the circumference of the wall clock above their desk. Will worked on a table leg. Wilson started to get up to find something circular.
Lindsay looked around… no one was paying any attention to her.
She fixed her face in a determined look, adjusted her blouse, and leaned across the table toward Wilson.
“Wilson, your headphones have circular ear attachments. How about we measure those?” Wilson turned around and stared… he could see directly down Lindsay’s blouse - not exactly into her cleavage, because what was there had already been cleaved and was now hanging straight down like an udder. Wilson’s mouth was open. He carefully removed his headphones from his neck, while keeping his eyes stock still. He passed the headphones ever so slowly to Lindsay, who kept the show open for a long moment. She sat down and busied herself with her measurement, now pointedly ignoring Wilson.
The Freshman Will Jefferson rose from the table leg. “6.2 centimeters circumference and 2.0 centimeters diameter, though that diameter is plus or minus a number of millimeters because I can’t put the ruler through the center of the table leg, ha!” Wilson and Lindsay stared. Will graphed his data point, and started measuring around the large circular table itself.
“Ach! Will, what are you doing close to me? Stay away!” Alex turned his head at the shrill exclamation. Lindsay had backed up as if Will were a skunk. In truth, contrary to Will’s classmates’ expectations, Will was both cleancut and, well, clean. Alex knew what it was like to be thought of as the smelly kid. While Alex himself had been quite a clean, not-smelly 9th grader, he had in fact been a greasy and odiferous 7th grader. Alex’s classmates hadn’t adjusted to that changing nasal reality for an entire presidential administration.
“Lindsay, I just measured the smallest circumference our group is likely to find; now it is time to measure the largest available circumference. I’ll only be a moment!”
“Harumph!” Lindsay said. When no one noticed her Harumph - except perhaps Wilson, who was still standing still with his mouth open - Lindsay looked around, and made a beeline for a different group.
Chris, Wilson, and Will settled into the experiment. Chris put a point on the graph. After a wistful look at Lindsay’s receding tuckus, Wilson acquired data from his headphones. Will looked at the graph. “Okay, if we each get a couple more points in between the table leg and the table, we’ll be good!” The others were silent, but seemed happy to follow Will’s lead.
Martha strode up to the table. “This graph is good so far. Where is your fourth group member?”
“Mrs. F, our fourth group member has abandoned us, but we are making significant progress in acquiring linear data!” said The Freshman Will Jefferson. Martha gave the three boys her most condescending frown.
“Well, that doesn’t seem like an appropriately functioning group! The boys taking over all the tasks and ostracizing the girl! That is unacceptable. LINDSAY! PLEASE COME BACK!”
Lindsay aimed one last giggle at her friends, then walked meekly back to the table where Martha waited for her. “Yes, Mrs. F?”
“Lindsay, I’m sorry you felt you needed to leave. These boys will be inclusive from now on. Right? Right?”
Chris and Will stared daggers at Martha. Will looked angrier by the moment. He started to say something, but Chris walked in front of him. “Yes, Mrs. F,” Chris said. “We understand.” He looked back at Will, mouthing “it’s okay” with what he hoped was a gentle face.
“Sure,” said Wilson, “we are very happy to have Lindsay with us!” He looked at Lindsay. Looked at her chest. Looked back up at her eyes. Lindsay smiled evilly.
“Good,” said Martha. I have taken off 10% from your lab group for this temporary breaking up. Let’s not allow that to happen again, okay?”
Chris still had his back to Martha, and was watching Will. As Will drew his audible squeaky breath, it seemed as if he were a dragon preparing to level a city block. Chris gently trod on Will’s toes. “Not now, later,” he mouthed, practically pleading with his eyes. Will relaxed marginally; his exhalation was a damp squib.
Martha moved on to harangue another group. Chris closed his eyes in relief and sat down. Will’s anger had been turned from medium-high to simmer. He simply stared at Lindsay. “Well, I guess we’d better try to get the other 90% of the points,” Will said, keeping his eyes locked with Lindsay. Finally he broke away and started measuring the knob on the classroom thermostat, on the wall just behind Wilson.
Wilson and Lindsay smiled at each other, but mischievously, not kindly. Wilson measured his other headphone. He put a data point on the graph. And another data point. He looked back up at Lindsay, and moved aside so that she could watch the show.
And sure enough, as Will put his next data point on the graph, he gasped. “What’s this? Who measured a 10 centimeter diameter and a 60 centimeter circumference? And this other point, too - that’s not possible!” Chris shrugged. Wilson just looked back and forth from Will to Lindsay, alternating between “who, me?” body language and a shit-eating grin.
“Are you sure of these, Wilson? Can I see what you measured? Because these data points don’t make sense!”
Wilson didn’t say anything. He just leaned over with his pencil, and put another point on the graph - randomly. Will’s face contorted. “You can’t do that! This isn’t science, this is unethical in the extreme!” Wilson kept smiling through Will’s increasingly desperate lecture - Lindsay was looking at him with wide eyes, and Wilson felt all tingly from her attention.
When Lindsay and Wilson laughed with each other, while not even looking at or acknowledging Will, Will left. He started at the wall for a moment, composing himself; and setting himself the most neutral face he could muster, walked to the front of the room. Alex was helping a group draw a best-fit line. Martha was sitting at her desk.
Will stated his case to Martha. “Mrs. F, my partners are not doing what they were assigned to do. They are falsifying data and making our results inaccurate.”
Martha looked up from her computer screen. “Will, in the working world, you will have to learn to cooperate and get along with all types of people. I’m sorry you’re frustrated with your partners, but you simply must learn to work with others.”
“Ah,” Will said.” “This is like the working world? Excellent. So you are going to fire your useless employees who aren’t doing their jobs properly, right? You’re not going to finish projects successfully to make the quarterly earnings totals with clowns like them on your staff!”
“Will, that’s enough - we don’t talk like that about our classmates.”
“Are you going to fire them, then?”
“No, Will. Learn to work together.”
Wheezing intake of breath. Back to the carefully neutral face. “Then I’m sending my resume to a competitor, I’m giving my two weeks’ notice, and we are going to drive you out of business. Furthermore, I will be filing a whistleblower ethics complaint against your company.” Will gave Martha his gentlest smile.
“Will, I’m assigning two demerits for disrespect to a teacher. I need you to go take a break, get some water, and come back when you can manage your out-of-control temper.”
“Temper?” Will said, placid as the Lake. “No, Old Woman F, no temper. Just returning what’s due with interest.” He turned his back and walked slowly back to his chair.
Now Martha was visibly angry. She stood up to continue the argument, but there was Alex. “You know, Martha, he was totally calm, no temper. He wasn’t even arguably disrespectful to you until after you gave him demerits for disrespect.” Alex spoke very quietly and gently. But Martha snapped.
“He called me ‘Old Woman F!”
“Well, you called them “boys and girls.”
“That’s accurate!”
“Accurate and demeaning. Exactly like ‘Old Woman F.”
“Goddammit,” Martha hissed. “It’s your job to back up your teaching partner, not to make excuses for impertinent kids! Don’t ever do that to me again!”
Alex didn’t respond - he just walked away to the middle of the classroom, where he saw Bill Clark beckoning to the freshman Will Jefferson. “Will, come join our group! We’d be happy to have you over here!” Will gratefully headed toward Bill’s table before Martha arrived to talk to Will’s former group. Alex didn’t hear what was said there, but he saw smiling and laughing from Martha as well as from the students. It was hard to tell who was more uncomfortable - the 13 year old, or the 23 year old.
*****
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