By Larry Shurilla
Invariably, when one is writing a memoir about a middle school teaching career, the subject of vomiting will come up. Okay, it’s not invariable and may never come up when middle school education is discussed, but if you ever did throw up in school, you will remember it for a lifetime. And if you had a classmate puke his or her guts out, you may be emotionally scarred from the close proximity to the bile blast.
Sure, I’ve had a handful of kids come up to my desk over the years and say, “Mr. Shurilla, I don’t feel so goo…” and then haul off to the waste basket to make a quick deposit, but there’s nothing special in that. It happens all the time. However, as I look back, there is one hurl episode that comes to mind not only for its ferocity, but also for its humanity.
It began as a school day like any other that year. Teach math, teach math again, teach science, eat lunch, teach science again, have a prep period, and then end the day with reading. This particular group of students was reading from a survival series that contained stories of mountain storms, inner city racial conflicts, and airplane crash landings. We could’ve added our own survival chapter titled: Upchuck, Stomach Macaroni, or for the high-brow readers, The Nemesis of Emesis.
Somewhere in the middle of the period, a skinny white kid with limited academic ability, but one who excelled in humility and guilelessness––in other words the type of kid the “cool kids” loved to pick on––happened to be sitting in the front row directly in front of me as I was teaching. Being the consummately observant professional educator that I was, I noticed that “Carl” was looking rather ashen. Instead of asking him how he felt, I did what any award-winning classroom teacher would do, I ignored my instincts and called on him to read aloud. This Carl did with instant obedience, but something was off. He began to stop reading intermittently and had a surprised look on his face, as if he was discovering a primordial urge, a repulsive yet basic human survival instinct. By the time I realized what was happening, it was far too late. Carl’s throat began a kind of rhythmic worm dance, not unlike the dinner scene from the first Alien movie, and then the first eruption began. Picture a vomit bazooka firing a deadly spread in a 180-degree arc around the front of the room. Simultaneously, every other student recoiled amid groans of horror, and shoved their chairs away from ground zero, leaving Carl alone, soaking in his vomit bath.
There was a momentary pause, allowing Carl to reload, and the second saliva salvo commenced. Ever a scientist, I recall being startled that so much vomit could come out of one individual. When the fallout settled and all bile batteries were emptied, I immediately came to Carl’s rescue by running to the call button on the wall, calling the office, and asking that a custodian be dispensed to Room N-9, ASAP!
Now for the humanity.
This particular group of students was known for picking on each other. I expected a lot of complaining and comments like, “You are so gross, Carl! Sick, Carl! Get out of here, man! That smells sooooo foul!” Much to my pleasure and surprise, a black kid I’ll call Zach, known to be one of the biggest teasers in the group, gently approached Carl from behind, put his hand on the one dry spot of Carl’s shoulder and said, “It’s all right, man. It’ll be all right.” The room was silent. It felt like a real life Willy Wonka was holding the everlasting gobstopper and saying, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.” And thus, it was.
The class remained quiet. The custodian came, spread, and swept up his magical tan powder as Carl was escorted by another student down to the nurse’s room. I never heard any of the kids make fun of Carl for that episode. Sometimes, even amid a crisis situation, the kids will rise above it all and teach us grown-ups about kindness and humanity.
Thanks, Zach. It doesn’t have to take a foreign battlefield or Super Bowl comeback to elicit our moral courage. Sometimes, all you need is a classroom of diverse kids, reading about survival and seeing a friend in need. Yeah, Carl, it really will be all right.