The Last Word On Nothing

My work has become opening digital files to search for signs of life. The biggest thing I do, the midday ritual of checking emails. Refresh, refresh.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

I’m a saint.

I miss you, Ms. Dusto.

I’m dad, away on business.

Can I please have an extension? This morning we got my Auntie’s ashes, from Covid-19.

I’m a monster.

Please know these parts of a wave, how to use the wave speed equation to solve for unknowns. Know something about resonance and octaves. Choose from A through D, or all that apply.

Your education is important.

Refresh, refresh. I sip my coffee. Refresh. My wine. Refresh. Gin on ice.

I mark a spreadsheet: Academic interaction Y/N. Social interaction Y/N. Someone will follow up.

This playacting, when in truth I couldn’t possibly make a better case for science than living through a pandemic, could I? What is a more indelible learning experience than utter disruption? I couldn’t force this natural confrontation, make students consider a species brought to its knees by chance in the face of a chaotic and impartial universe, have them question what exactly does make the world go round, how important it is to see the threads lacing grand with intricate. I couldn’t force it with the wildest of extra-credit opportunities, the slickest activity that will be fun!

Soon, students, you will vote. Many of you next year. You will be deciding what’s next, remembering what it felt like to hang on the edge of doubt, when not knowing was a tangible danger. Remembering who and what you were able to turn to, that science got you down but didn’t let you down. In the end, it was our ladder out, the path through the smoke. That’s right: science saves.

Let me package that up into my slideshow. Hang on the edge of your seat for my lesson.

Do you remember?

It will be on the test.

In a teaching fellowship program, I learned, here’s what science boils down to: What do we know? How do we know it? Why do we trust it?

Humans are innate learners.

They ask questions and seek answers, unprompted.

You turned something in, clicked a button.

I find myself writing messages. I answer every student who fills out my What’s Up Warriors? survey individually.

Just your friendly neighborhood physics teacher checking in!

I’m the funny papers.

Whatever school work you get to, even if it’s nothing, is enough.

I’m a karmic healer. I’m going off script.

I promise I won’t enter anything that will hurt your grades.

I know damn well to never make promises to students, especially around non-congealed grading policies. But I mean it.

How can I help?

I’m figuring it out.

I’ve already turned in my resignation for next year. I will stay at home and mother, write. I look into my son’s eyes and I see all of your faces, I think of your mothers. We didn’t know it was happening when we said goodbye.

Because I’m already gone, I could just do it. Give them all As.

140 rows of benevolence in a chaotic, impartial universe.

________

Amy Dusto is a freelance writer and science teacher in Chicago Public Schools.