HERO
Mel Goldberg
"What are we going to do about Hirotada Matsutani?" The principal of San Francisco Senior Academy directed the question at me during the staffing. "You're the only one he seems to communicate with."
"Hero," I correct her. "He likes to be called 'Hero'. With an e." As I say that, I think about the young man who sits by the window in the back of my small classroom. He is an enigma. A Japanese boy in America with shoulder length hair and a love of rap music. In class, he responds only when I ask him a direct question, but he speaks so softly I can barely hear him. Even that is more than he gives other teachers. I attempt to be friendly, saying hello whenever I see him in the hall. He smiles slightly and looks away, as though he dare not to speak to me.
"What can we do?" the counselor responds, hoping for an answer which he knows will not come. "He's been here a year, and he's been on academic probation the whole time." He looks at the principal. "I said this might happen when we accepted him after he'd been dropped by Boys' Academy. We don't know much more about him than when he came."
I am the only one of the staff who has been accepted for a home visitation. I learned several things. He loves music and plays guitar in a garage band. His mother and he live comfortably on a pension from the government of Japan, paid after the death of her husband, an attaché at the consulate. But I do not understand why he rarely turns in homework or misses important assignments. He tells me he studies for tests, yet he never passes them.
At the staffing two months ago, Hero and his mother were asked to meet with his teachers, the counselors and the principal. Every teacher said the same thing. He is a quiet, respectful, pleasant boy who has never caused a problem in class. But we cannot get him to pass.
His mother listened solemnly to everything we said. Then she admitted when he goes to his room, he plays his guitar and watches television instead of studying. She said there was nothing she could do.
We talked to Hero. We talked around him and we talked about him. And he sat stoically, his hands clasped in his lap, staring at the floor, in a way only Asian boys can do, as if he were not fully present. We did not know if our questions frightened or angered him. Or even made him resentful.
I remember thinking that nothing short of torture could have brought those emotions to the surface. He would not even answer whether or not he wanted to stay in school. He seemed completely passive, which I suggested was probably a major part of the problem.
After that staffing, his counselor put him on Academic Tracking. Every Friday, all his teachers were asked to fill out a report on him. Week after week the reports said the same thing. Missing class work. Doesn't do his homework. Not working up to potential.
So here I sit in another staff meeting, the type every teacher knows and dreads. I listen to the reasonable comments about a seventeen-year-old Japanese boy who has lived in the Presidio area of San Francisco since he was seven. He seems to be waiting for events to happen rather than to risk anything by taking action. He once told me he wanted to be a truck driver. I suspect he'd rather be a rock star, but he would never utter such an idea.
"I think we are going to have to drop him. We're not doing anything for him. It's the only proper academic decision." She looks at the counselor and then to me.
"He really needs to go to a more specialized type of school," says the
counselor. "I'm afraid I don't have a recommendation. What private school will take someone who has been dropped from two schools for failure to meet academic standards."
"I have to agree," I say, shaking my head.
I get up to leave the meeting disappointed and frustrated. I know San Francisco Senior Academy has done everything it can for Hirotada Matsutani. It has offered him special services. He is in classes of five to seven students.
When I taught in a public high school, we dropped children who either refused to attend or who disrupted classes to such an extent they threatened the learning of everyone around them. They were the kids we couldn't wait to get rid of.
In a private school, we drop students because they fail to meet our expectations. In my teacher's heart, I know Hero is only a kid trying to be anyone except who he really is. Perhaps that name is appropriate. In Greek, it often means a man who dies because of his of great courage.
Whatever light may be within him, he keeps hidden in what he perceives as the true Japanese way. It may be that no one will ever help him find his way. Listening to the discussion, I am struck by a thought. As a teacher, there are things I know about education. One of them is that not even the best teachers win all the battles. Sometimes a kid who hates one teacher will be very successful for another. Success is often about timing and connection. Sometimes it almost seems to be about magic.
Tomorrow, I will go back to my room full of bright, eager faces and try to unearth whatever talent they have buried beneath the surface. And still that empty seat by the window in the back of my small classroom will accuse me.
