Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A Birthday Ritual

After the initial haze and flurry wore off, I started to watch the behaviors of my students more closely. I noticed their subtle and creative ways to cover up how they didn't have much cash available. I recognized how much care they gave to the few really nice things they had in order to prolong their life. I acknowledged how many times they celebrated the small nuances of life with a resiliency that seemed to belie the struggles underneath the surface. Perhaps that's why this ritual took me by surprise.

A couple weeks into the school year, I noticed random students walking around with dollar bills pinned to their clothes...ones, fives, tens, even a twenty. Well, I had to ask why someone would walk around school with their life's savings pinned to the OUTSIDE of their outfit. My students just laughed at me and said, "It's birthday money." I pressed for an explanation. Basically, the school (community? culture?) had a practice that a person would receive cold, hard cash on his or her birthday.

In a show of gratitude, the person was expected to wear the money, usually pinned with a safety pin, like a corsage. There was a certain flair to how to wear the money: fan-style, flower-style, pinwheel-style. People were also expected to put the larger bills to the front of the stack to demonstrate their wealth. In addition, some donors of the green gifts would write messages on the pieces of paper in bright markers, thus making the "bouquet" even more colorful and intriguing. Donors were permitted, though discouraged, from making change with the recipient's booty.

I turned 30 the fall of my first year at MLK, Jr. I happened to mention this to my 4th period class, which was a group to which I had grown close in my mere month and half of teaching there. I was giving a test (great birthday present, right?), and students were to walk their test up to my desk when finished. I'll never forget when one of my beautiful children placed a grubby, crumpled, barely recognizable dollar bill next to her test on my desk. I looked up in wonder and asked, "What's this?" She whispered in return, "Happy Birthday."

Honestly, I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't sure of the ethics of accepting cash from a student. By the end of the period, several more dollars had appeared as well as the donation of a safety pin. Clearly, the students were making a statement. Ethics aside, I felt an obligation to honor the fact that the students were accepting me as one of their own. That sensation of joy outweighed my doubts about taking money from those who could ill afford to give it up, and I went with it. I gave myself over to childish jubilation and excitement at getting to wear a "money corsage" and asked for help from the girls. They giggled and helped me ready my fan of money to pin to my sweater, signed their dollars with markers, and we had a good laugh. I walked around proudly the rest of the day collecting more and more money.

This seemed to set some sort of a precedent. Each year, my students liked to see if they could outdo the students from the year before in their generosity. Each year, I made sure I had a safety pin, and I would prance like a peacock wearing my bouquet of money. Now, let's get one thing straight. I never spent the money on myself. I always bought something for the classroom: a set of posters, props/costumes, a cd player, etc. That's how I kept my conscience clear. I always made a big deal about telling the students what I bought so they'd know they helped contribute to something for the class to use.

It was a precedent in another way as well. I'm still the only teacher I know who was honored by her students in this way. No other teacher was granted the wearing of a student-generated money corsage. I don't really know why I was singled out. Maybe because I embraced the whole thing with childlike innocence. Maybe because I used the money for the class. Maybe because I have such respect for rites of passage. Whatever the reason, I'm proud to have been part of the Birthday Ritual.