@vivianxeyre
It was Wesley’s third year of teaching and by now he had more or less perfected his first day routine. It helped that, even if he had only been teaching for three years, he still had multiple classes in the day where he had been able to practice.
He sat at the desk in the front of class. His name was written up on the board, he knew. It would permanently remain there the rest of the year as he did not bother with ever using the white erase board in the first place. He could hear students marching into class, the usual chatter of old friends talking and catching up as they entered, the nervous walking of students who had no friends yet, the troublemakers already making their way to the back of the classroom.
He could hear the shuffling still ongoing, students taking their seats, settling in, the shuffle of papers as some took out notebooks to take notes, others far more unprepared with intent to slack off.
It was only when the movement of the door quieted down that Wesley stood up and walked to the center of class. He could hear students suddenly sit upright, paying attention. They always did when they realized their teacher was using a walking stick to navigate and that his sunglasses were not merely some accessory. He stood where he knew the center would be. “I’m Wesley Kulina-Eyre and you can call me Mr. Eyre,” he said as he gestured to the board behind him which had his name written on it.
There was silence and then a murmur before someone suddenly said, “Yo, he’s blind. He can’t see you raising your hand, dumbass.”
There was a rumble of laughter. Wesley held up his own hand. Despite the fact that many presumed students might take advantage of a blind teacher, and while that might have been the case, it turned out most students were more curious than anything else. “First things first, which is hand raising in this class involves raising your hand and then saying your name, which is how I know you have your hand raised.”
Almost immediately he heard one of the students say, “Derrick. But what if a lot of us have our hands raised?”
“Well, you’ll get the hang of it. Not to mention, even if five of you raise your hands and say your name at once, once I get to know you, I usually can figure out which of you spoke up, but obviously if only one of you is raising your hand that’s much easier. Either way, you’ll wait until I call on you.”
A beat of silence before someone else said, “Brandon-- uhm, how do you take attendance, bro?” Wesley recognized this voice as the young man who had pointed out he was blind in the first place.
“Same as any other teacher. I have cards here, in Braille, with your names on them. I turn down the cards of those of you that are absent—and yes, before any of you get any ideas, I do know if one of you is covering for your friends. See, like any other teacher, as time passes, I get to know each of you, but rather than matching names to faces, I match names to voices. If you try to call out that you’re here for a classmate to cover for them, I will know. I can recognize all of your voices, even if you try to modify them, it’s easy to tell when you do.”
“Ariel, sir. How do you grade our work?” A girl spoke up this time.
“Well, as I’m sure you’re used to this by now, but you turn in your assignments electronically. I have the ability to then have your assignments read to me by an app. Any papers that require word count as part of the requirement, I set so the word count can be read to me. It’s also why when you submit your papers, I don’t have you write a heading or date. Just your name, so the word count is accurate as possible.”
“Oscar, Mr. Eyre. So, uh, how do you give and grade tests? You’re not gonna give us tests in Braille, right?”
“Of course not. Since this is a literature course, I don’t administer tests. Instead, you will be graded on participation, and several smaller papers, one big paper, as well as occasional assignments that you will do online. And for those that get nervous about raising your hand and participating in class, I promise you, it’s not just about participating when we do discussions, but you will have chances to make that grade if you’re on the shy or quiet side. See, the nice thing about teaching literature is that I don’t need to worry about giving tests and the assignments you do take home will be entirely dependent on you reading the material and offering your opinion on what you’ve read. You can read all the summaries and spark notes you want, but it won’t help you when it comes time to answer my questions because what I’m always looking for are your thoughts on what we’re reading. And you won’t have thoughts to give without reading, and I will know if you have not read the book but rather have tried to google and search for synopsis or, better yet, if you have seen movie adaptations.”
“Beth,” came another student. “So, like, you won’t know if we’re not paying attention or anything, right? I mean, you can’t see that there’s that guy in the back who’s been drawing in his notebook and not listening to you this entire time, can you?”
“No, but I can hear him,” said Wesley. “I’ve heard the scratching of a pen almost consistently since we started class. And I can tell it’s a pen, because pens sound very different from pencil when you’re writing on paper. The thing is, you guys are not as quiet as you think you are. I can hear muted chuckles, murmurs, shuffling. I know exactly what you’re doing based on the sounds being made. It’s one thing for you to open your backpack to look for something, but another to text. I can hear someone doing it right now. See, it’s a very light tapping and the thing is when you’re texting fast, it’s impossible to not make the noise, especially if you have longer nails as this person does.”
“Oh shit, he got you dead to rights,” hollered one of the students, several of them laughing.
“Ugh, whatever,” came another voice, and based on the tone, Wesley presumed it was the student who had been texting.
“Alright, alright,” he said as he motion for the class to settled down. “So, what we’ll do now is I’ll take roll and then I’ll spend the rest of class answering all your questions about how I teach, about my blindness, or anything else you might want to know.”
It was the most important thing Wesley had learned, really. Even the most apathetic and mischievous students couldn’t help but be drawn in by the novelty of having a blind teacher. He knew many of them would try, for the first several weeks to get away with the exact things Wesley warned them they could not, but it was when he caught them that he would earn their respect. It was a cycle that had proven itself to be so for the past two years, over his eight classes and it was something that had become an inevitability. Even more, though, was that these kids, when exposed to someone different, someone disabled, they were still young enough to learn how to treat them with kindness and respect, and by the end of the year would come out better people for it.