the parents’ permission, I assume.” I nodded, and she read from the book: “Arithmetic: 68, 75, 90, incomplete, incomplete, 80. Reading workbook: 55, 72, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete, 84, incomplete, incomplete. Spelling: 45, 25, 60, 50. There are no incompletes in spelling because everyone takes the test on Friday, ready or not. Phonics: 60, 50, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete, incomplete, 60.”
Mrs. Madden snapped her grade book shut. “You will have to consult with the specials about gym, art, library, and remedial.”
“Thank you,” I said, putting my notebook back in my purse. “There seem to be a lot of incompletes.”
“Yes. Joseph often doesn’t complete his work. This is partly due to his not paying attention, so he doesn’t understand what to do. He always wants me to go over it again with him. I do not believe in this. He must learn to listen.
“The other reason he gets behind is that he’s out of the room so much,” Mrs. Madden continued. “Out with the reading teacher, out for some program or other. Out for this. Out for that. No wonder he gets behind in his class work.”
I got the strong impression that Mrs. Madden didn’t believe in remedial help any more than she did in tutors. Well, at least she didn’t seem overly anxious to get Joey out of her room, and that was a positive sign.
The clock ticked its way toward three twenty-five, and I stood up, to reassure Mrs. Madden that I would not linger.
“One last question. Would it be possible to borrow an extra copy of any of Joey’s books? Spelling, arithmetic, phonics?”
Mrs. Madden shrugged, stood up, smoothed out her unwrinkled maroon skirt. “Call Mr. Templar, our principal. That’s up to him.”
“Thank you,” I said as I walked toward the door. “I appreciate your time and your interest in Joe.”
Mrs. Madden accepted my appreciation with a nod as she eased me out the door. “I will tell you one thing,” Mrs. Madden said magnanimously. “It doesn’t show in the grade book, but that boy is a lot smarter than those Child Study Team tests show. A lot smarter!”
I stared at Mrs. Madden, restraining a nearly overwhelming impulse to hug her. “I agree,” I almost shouted. “But how did you find out? Did you give Joey some tests of your own?”
Mrs. Madden turned back to her classroom. Like a queen in her kingdom she pronounced, “After thirty years, I don’t need tests.”
Joey dragged the heavy plastic bag across my office floor. “Mr. Templar said to bring you these.” He dumped the contents onto the carpet beside the desk and moaned out loud as his reading, math, spelling, and phonics books fell out. “Oh, no. It’s horrible to have to do them in school. It’ll be even horribler to have to do them all over again here.”
We didn’t, of course, “do” the books, but Joey could show me where he was and what he didn’t understand. It was much easier for him than trying to explain it. Also, since Mrs. Madden proceeded page by page, chapter by chapter, I could look ahead and see what was coming up next, and let Joey become a little familiar with it before Mrs. Madden introduced it in class.
Mrs. Madden was still curt, but she was doing her part. She now answered my phone calls if I timed them right and sent Joey’s test papers in a sealed envelope on Fridays. She hadn’t complained or called the Stones in, except for the scheduled fall conference. All she told them then was that Joey still needed a lot of work, but that he was making progress. The main thing was what she didn’t say. There had been no mention of a special class.
My phone rang around noon one day in February. It was snowing hard and I had gone down to pick up the mail, so it took me five or six rings to get back to the phone.
“Mrs. MacCracken? This is Mrs. Madden. I almost hung up. I thought you must be out.” Disapproval edged her voice.
“Sorry.” I was so glad she’d initiated the call that it was worth sounding penitent.
“Yes. Well. Joseph is getting further and further behind in his B book. Phonics book, that is. He always has to go out when it’s time for phonics. Now he’s twenty pages behind – hasn’t even touched the magic e rule. I’d like him to do pages ninety-eight, one hundred one, one hundred five, and one hundred seven with you. That will give him an idea of what the others have covered. Don’t do the work for him. I want to see his own work. Send it in so I can check it. I’d have the specials do it with him, but they say they have too much work of their own.”
“All right,” I said, writing on the telephone book. “Page ninety-eight … could you give me those other pages again?”
I knew how the specials felt. This would take time that I would much rather spend on other things, but what mattered was that Mrs. Madden was becoming a member of our team. And that was a top priority.
There was no doubt about it. In spite of missed pages in the B book, Joey was flourishing. He added, he subtracted, he even multiplied a little. His facts still weren’t totally automatic and he sometimes got mixed up during subtraction and regrouping (another word for borrowing and carrying), but he understood what he was doing and he was one of the best in the class at problem solving.
With our combined efforts on phonics, word attack skills, and sight vocabulary, Joey’s reading was improving steadily. One of the things that helped most was that the Stones took turns reading to Joey every night. After Joey was washed and brushed and in bed, either Mr. or Mrs. Stone read to him for a half hour. To their joy, not only was he enjoying reading more, he was also sleeping better.
But only one thing was important to Joey. “Do you think she’ll let me be a Red Sox now?”
Not a Red Sox and not till April.
“Da-de-ah-da-dah!” Joey blew an imaginary trumpet in the doorway of my office. “The good news is, I’m a goddamn Oriole!”
“Joe – cool it. No swearing.”
“Well, I am. I got moved up yesterday. I’m in a group!”
A cause for celebration. Joey was no longer alone, isolated, different. Now he, like the others in his class, belonged.
In June Joey graduated from second grade and was promoted to third. On my testing he had moved up to the 54th percentile in silent reading vocabulary and to the 69th percentile in comprehension. His math was on grade level, spelling slightly below.
On the school tests, Joey was on grade level in all areas, and Mrs. Madden wrote on his report card, “Marked improvement in behavior and academic skills.” High praise indeed from Mrs. Madden.
One unexpected piece of news was that Mrs. Madden was retiring. I couldn’t imagine her classroom without her – or the other way around. She had believed in Joey and given him a safe, structured place where he could learn. Mr. Templar assured me that it was her choice. She’d always wanted to travel and was looking forward to retirement. Maybe. But it would take an awful lot of lakes and mountains to make up for Joey.
If it was sad to hear that Mrs. Madden was retiring, it was good to hear that Mrs. Stone had decided to freelance and use her computer skills at home rather than in an office.
“It’s funny,” she told me on the phone. “I actually like being home now; I don’t know whether it’s because Joey’s better or because I don’t feel
