My daughter, Margot, loves looking at yearbooks. The yearbook from her first year at daycare is her favorite; however, she also enjoys random yearbooks she finds in school offices, thrift store yearbooks, and the yearbooks from my own childhood that are still tucked neatly into the shelves of my old bedroom at Mimi and Grandpa’s house.
The method Margot prefers when it comes to reading yearbooks involves her pointing at EVERY SINGLE FACE in the entire book, and asking me to recite that person’s name, as well as a random fact or two about them. (For example, Ada from school has an iguana and wears Paw Patrol underwear.)
One afternoon, as Margot and I sat around reading one of my middle school yearbooks, I noticed that I could no longer recite all of the names from memory. Despite the fact that some of my friends from middle school are still a very important part of my life, my recollection of the tangential players was starting to fade. Even the kid I had crushed on in 7th grade (I know because my friend had not-so-discreetly drawn an enormous pink heart around the photo) was a stranger to me. But when Margot got to one, particular picture, I felt a knot of guilt begin to form in my stomach. This girl I remembered.
Trudy Ludwig’s book The Invisible Boy, which is BEAUTIFULLY illustrated by Patrice Barton is about a little boy named Brian who nobody seems to notice. Brian is sweet, and thoughtful, and imaginative, but he never gets picked to play sports at recess and he dreads sitting alone every day at lunch. Brian is the invisible boy, and not even his teacher notices him.
The girl I remember from my yearbook was my class’s invisible girl. For the sake of storytelling, I’ll call her Mary.
In middle school, Mary had pretty much zero social capital. She didn’t wear the “right” clothes, or wash her hair often enough. She stumbled over her words when she bumped into you at the lockers, and she didn’t have anyone to sit with at lunch.
When I was in middle school, I also didn’t really wear the right clothes, or know the right things to say, or wash my hair anywhere near often enough. But I did all of these things just enough to get by. I had a group of friends who I loved, and the idea of losing the safety of their companionship was terrifying enough that I would have done pretty much anything to appease them (don’t worry, I grew out of this pretty fast).
I have a lot of feelings about the role of shame and guilt in our lives and, while I don’t think we should spend very much time wallowing in these emotions, I don’t think we should hide from them either. When I think about Mary, which is more often than she would probably ever imagine, I let myself feel that shame. Even at 11 and 12 years old, I knew that all Mary needed was for someone to notice her. She needed to be greeted by a classmate on the way in to school in the morning, and to be invited to work with someone on a science fair project. She needed to go to a sleepover, and learn how to braid her hair, and where to buy dumb bedazled t-shirts.
At the time, I knew that Mary knew I knew this. (What?) Yes, I didn’t mess that up. Mary, I think, saw me as a sort of social bridge. I was just nice enough, and uncool enough to know who and what she needed, but I also had enough social capital to bring her up the ladder with me. Mary reached out to me a couple times, in a couple different, but equally awkward ways. I remember my friends laughing at me about it during Science class and, in my desperation to stay on the “right” side of the line, I laughed along with them.
Conversely, in Barton’s book, Brian finds his bridge, and his life becomes full and beautiful as a result (this is the part of the book where you cry, and the child you’re reading it to gets a little wigged out). The first time I read this part of the book, I felt pretty crappy. Middle school me could easily have made that simple magic happen for Mary, but I chose not to.
I also felt sad and worried and overwhelmed for all the other invisible children that we, as teachers, all had in our classrooms this past year. When school closed, they left the safety of our watchful eyes, and faded further and further away from us.
To be fair, there were a lot of things that worked really well about online learning. Kids learned to be independent and organized (to some degree), technology allowed us to continue delivering content, giving feedback and connecting “face to face,” and parents got a clearer view of their childrens’ skills and areas of struggle and, hopefully, bonded with them through the process.
But the Brians and the Marys of the world are who I worry about the most. These are the kids who turned on their avatars at every Zoom meeting, if they even showed up at all. They didn’t ask questions during class, facetime with friends, or respond to their teachers’ emails. It’s almost like they disappeared entirely.
To a certain degree, teaching has a lot to do with knowing your stuff. There’s that old adage, “if you can’t do, teach,” but I hope we all know that’s garbage. I’m really good at reading books, so I do it professionally. But teaching has even more to do with connecting with the invisible children, and making sure someone makes them feel seen. I am so anxious for this pandemic to be over, partly because I want to get a babysitter and go out to brunch again, but even more so because time is of the essence for so many kids. We need to get together again–in the classroom, on the playground, and in the community–so we can keep doing the work of reaching out, being the bridge, and bringing color and life back to our invisible kids.
The Book! (Click to Buy)
Other Great Kid Lit About “Inclusion” (Click to Buy)
