“Drop That Science!”

I rarely take cabs, but when I do, I often happen to get into just the right ones. Here's a story about one of those times.

After a long day of teaching, a painful trip to the orthodontist, and feeling a bit down between the rain and exhaustion, I decide to treat myself with a taxi ride home. I get in, greet the driver and start listening to the radio program he is listening to. It's about the Black Lives Matter movement, and the driver is very much into it, nodding and affirming what's being said with his own commentary.

I tell him that I, too, agree with the host. He looks up into the rearview mirror, and I ask him about the program. Turns out he's been listening to this station since the ‘80s, when he used to drive nights from midnight to 5:00 a.m. I find out my driver's name is Steve, and I introduce myself. I mention I'm a teacher and that I was recently discussing issues related to Black Lives Matter with my students as part of our current-events work. He shakes my hand as we wait at a red light and says, "So a teacher, huh? I’ve got something to show you."

We reach my block, and Steve pulls over. I pay, and we're still chatting away. I forget about the rain. Steve pulls out what he wanted to show me: a worn copy of the book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen. He bought it second-hand near Columbia and has reread it several times. "I just keep going back to the science in this,” he says. “Loewen goes DEEP with that sociology approach. People call him a ‘revisionist’ because he's challenging history that's told to us by the winners, the generals and the presidents." 

This launches us into a 20-minute conversation about everything from Howard Zinn's focus on the people to Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed to Ronald Takaki's takedown of the Master Narrative. 

Steve wants to know my sign because he can sense my astrological energy: "You work the hardest, Capricorn, but you better learn how to relax when you’re goin’ up that mountain!" He grins and says, "Boricua" after I tell him I'm Puerto Rican and Italian. He asks me if I'm from "an activist family." Steve reads people like he reads books. I talk more about my school and experiences teaching, about how I made the jump from second to seventh, about how I see education as a means for liberation and justice.

As I speak, from time to time he remarks, "That's right!"..."TEACH!"..."Drop that science!" I smile and he tells me, "It sounds like you have a calling." Steve comments that he doesn't get to have talks like these too often in his taxi. "I'm usually in the dark here. It's not every day I get some light!"

I thank Steve for the conversation and tell him that I'm glad I got into his cab. Stepping out onto the wet pavement, I hear his parting words rise above the rain: "You keep dropping that science!” 

D'Egidio is a seventh-grade humanities teacher in New York City. She is also a former Teaching Tolerance advisory board member.