“Any one of you could be president someday!” I made this
declaration to my students eight years ago, my bright red marker punctuating
the air with each word.
This year’s presidential campaign is resurfacing my memories from eight years ago.
That day in 2008, I glanced at the long presidential lineup tacked on my classroom wall, and then cast my eyes across my fourth-grade students. Leaning back against their chairs, a few kids followed my gaze over to the presidents and then looked back at me in silence. Only five of my 25 students saw a reflection of their gender and ethnicity in the stern faces staring back at them.
“How?” asked Evelyn,* her jutting chin pointed first at the presidents, then up again at me, her dark eyes squinting. “There aren’t any girl presidents!”
Located in the heart of Salem, Oregon, my classroom walls held the dreams of children of immigrants, children of inmates locked away at nearby state penitentiaries, and children living in the uncertainty of foster care. Crisis and instability were the norm for many of my students.
In the beginning of that school year, I surveyed the peeling paint on my classroom walls in dismay. I covered some of the worst spots by posting up a long banner with portraits of each of our 43 presidents, their names and years of service marked beneath their monochrome faces: all white, all men.
No wonder my students were underwhelmed by my announcement that any of them could be president. But that changed once the 2008 race between John McCain and Barrack Obama began to escalate!
“Can we have our own classroom vote?!” Javier* asked. His pleading eyes inspired me to channel my students’ energy into their own vote, hoping they could get a sense of the responsibility and power of voting.
“Why not?” I smiled.
“Let’s vote! Cover your eyes for privacy, and raise your hand for McCain.” A few hands shot up, fingers pointing up at our discolored ceiling tiles.
“Now, raise your hand for Obama.” I looked around at the sea of hands waving and triumphant eyes staring down the McCain supporters through parting fingers.
The need to formally declare Obama our class’s majority choice quite unnecessary, the class erupted into cheers, building into a unified chant of “O-bam-A! O-bam-A! O-bam-A!” Fists banging in rhythm on their desktops, they then jumped out of their chairs; a few pencils and papers sailed through the air.
The November morning after Obama’s confirmed presidential win felt charged at my school. Climbing up the last of three flights of stairs, my students still weren’t too out of breath to continue energized discussion from recess. I caught only snatches of remarks behind me as we mounted the worn steps of our school, but one voice rose above the rest:
“He’s brown, like us!” I heard Evelyn exclaim, stomping one foot, then the other emphatically as she pushed each step beneath her.
We all filtered through our classroom door, the kids settling into their seats facing the presidential roster bordering the front wall.
“It’s time to put up a new president, Teacher!” Javier pointed beyond the edges of our presidential banner.
It’s hard to dream of what you can’t see, I’ve learned over the eight years since teaching and loving that group of fourth-graders. As President Obama prepares to pass his duties on and another historic presidential election looms, I’ve been thinking of Javier, Evelyn and all my students from that year.
Now, I am holding my class roster’s promise of a brand-new group of fourth-graders. A new president will gaze over my classroom soon. Donald Trump? Hillary Clinton? As of yet, I don’t know. But that leader’s dream is profoundly important to me in my work with students. For each president, in some way, shapes our children and the kind of America we give them.
*All names changed to protect student privacy.
Mary Arana teaches fourth grade in Salem, Oregon
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