The first week at school passed without any major incidents. There weren’t any fires or drunk students or kids challenging me to fights. As they had the year before, the students hesitated to participate—even the pupils who’d been in my classes the year before. I might have felt stress if I were a new volunteer. In retrospect, my comfort level with craziness was the only difference between the beginnings of the first and second school years. This time nothing fazed me, not even when a boy went after his classmate with a belt.
Several parents and guardians had requested the school keep their sons and daughters under my tutelage. Natashka’s class—the class that had started the trash fire—were now sixth graders. Two boys I knew from basketball, Vova and Alexander, were now in my ninth grade class. And the rambunctious pupils belonging to Lyudmila Petrovna’s homeroom, a different class of sixth graders, also remained with me.
The group of ninth graders from the previous year had moved on; there weren’t enough left to justify a space in my schedule. Edgar and the other boys who’d preferred drinking to English lessons had “graduated” to the work force or technical school to learn tractor mechanics. Nadezhda had absorbed the remaining girls into her own tenth grade class. In exchange she’d given me a new group of fifth graders—all girls. They listened to me, they conjugated, they played nice, they thanked me when class ended, never asked about grades and surrounded me in an awkward group hug when the bell rang.
The final class on my schedule, a village class, would prove to be my greatest challenge during this second year.
After watching me teach for a year, the school director had decided I was tough enough to handle a village class. A third class of sixth graders came into my room and began throwing playful punches while they waited for the bell to ring. I screamed for them to respect the classroom and they grew silent; this was the only time all year they’d respond to my yelling. They arrived in Riscani each morning on a bus from Novi Balan, a nearby village without a school. Their clothes were plainer than the town kids, with muted colors. Most had brown finger nails. The boys shaved their heads to keep dirt away, and the girls appeared to eat no more than once a day. Two of the boys called themselves gypsies, Artem and Maxim, of the Roma ethnicity. I soon learned that because of these two boys, Nadezhda had talked the school director into passing this class on to me.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s learn English.”
“As soon as you kick Artem and Maxim into the hallway,” said one of the girls. “Then we’ll begin.”
The class laughed.
Maxim calmly nodded his head to Artem, pushed his chair out, stood up, took off his belt and lunged after the girl. Two Russian boys promptly tackled him. The girl smacked Maxim over the head while the two boys held him down.
“Okay,” I said. “I guess that’s enough.”
I pulled the two boys off Maxim and got everyone back to their seats. The kids watched me silently, waiting for me to dispense punishment. Instead of yelling at Maxim, I directed my anger toward the girl. “Listen, little missy,” I said. “In English class I’m the only one allowed to hit people!” The class laughed. I tapped the girl on her forehead with her own text book.
I switched into English.
“Who wants to talk first?”
The room remained silent.
“What is your name?” I asked a girl.
Silence. “Who speaks English?” I asked. “Any words at all.”
Continued silence. Artem took out a cell, which I confiscated immediately.
“Give it!” he yelled in Russian.
“Ask me in English!” I said.
Artem laughed. The class laughed. This was a sixth grade class, so they’d studied English for three years.
I pointed at a girl, indicating it was her turn to speak.
“Not a word,” she said. “We usually draw in English class.”
“I know a word,” interrupted Maxim. “Motherfucker.”
The class laughed.
“Who has a textbook?” I asked. “Raise your hands.”
Only one girl in the class of fifteen raised her hand.
“Only you?” I said.
“Yes, Mr. Aaron. Don’t you remember hitting me over the head with it?”
Far Outliers 