I, Alien

PEDAGOGY by Michael A. Burstein

THE MOMENT I WALKED into the classroom, the first thing I noticed were all the differences. To begin with, I had to duck to keep my head from hitting the top of the doorway. The classroom itself felt much smaller than the classrooms I was used to back home, and not just because I towered over humans. This classroom was packed with students; I counted twenty of them, sitting at individual desks, each with its own terminal.

The students had been talking just before I entered the room, but as I walked over to the screenboard, they quieted down quickly.

I walked over to the front desk, which sat right next to the screenboard. I took the stylus out of the top drawer and turned to the students.

“Greetings, Earth children,” I said.

Before I had a chance to say anything else, one of the students spoke. “You look like a lizard,” he said.

The other students made an odd sound which I recognized as their version of laughter. I tried not to look disconcerted, as I had heard this sort of thing from other Earth people, even adults. But the interruption did surprise me. I looked at the boy who had spoken and checked the name on the display screen; it read John Palmer.

“John,” I said. “It is rude to interrupt when your teacher is speaking.”

“You’re the teacher? Who are you?”

“My name is Xerpers Fromlilo.” I paused, taking a moment to remember the teacher-student protocols I had been taught. “You may call me Mr. Fromlilo.”

The students laughed again, which puzzled me.

“Why do your words come out of your neck?” John asked.

“I am wearing a translator pendant. As my ability to speak your Earth languages is limited, I speak softly in my own language and the pendant renders it into yours.”

I waited a moment. There were no more interruptions, so I said, “Let us begin.”

I turned around to start writing on the screenboard. “Everyone please turn on your machines—”

Something hit me on the back, and I turned around. I found a piece of paper sitting on the floor, folded into the shape of a glider.

I bent over to pick it up, and I examined it.

“What is the meaning of this?” I asked, holding the glider aloft and looking from student to student.

“You’re the teacher,” John replied. “Don’t you know?”

I turned one of my eyes directly at him, while the other continued to look around at the other students. “I do know. I am asking what its purpose was.”

“You’re our science teacher, aren’t you?” He pointed at the glider. “This is science.”

“It does not matter if the glider illustrates principles of science, young man. It is inappropriate to throw it at your teacher. I would suggest—”

Suddenly, John stood up and began walking toward the back wall, where there was a cabinet containing school supplies.

“John, what are you doing? I was talking to you.”

He stopped short and looked back at me. “I get distracted. All the teachers know that.”

Some of the other students giggled. I walked over to John and looked down at him.

“Please return to your seat.”

John laughed, but walked back to his desk and sat down. I returned to the front of the room and tried to start my lesson again. However, I could never get more than a few minutes into the material before John Palmer would either interrupt me, begin wandering around the room, or start fiddling with a pair of scissors and some paper.

Somehow, I managed to make it through the remaining forty-five minutes of the class.

That afternoon, Robby Greenberger, the principal of the school, called me into his office to discuss my first day.

He sat at his desk and at first I stood at attention. But then, when he looked up at me, the corners of his mouth turned down, and he pulled at his beard.

“I can barely see your face from here,” he said. “Sit on the floor.”

All of the Tenjant had dealt with this issue before, given the fact that our average height was approximately one and a half times that of the average human. I reluctantly lowered myself onto my knees so that Greenberger and I faced each other comfortably.

“I don’t know if you realize this, but I was majorly opposed to this Interspecies Teacher Training program.”

I had not expected Mr. Greenberger to start from there. I tried to formulate a response. Finally, I asked, “What made you change your mind?”

He snorted, an odd sound to my ears. “I didn’t. But what with the shortage of teachers, it was the only way to get someone qualified to handle science.” He paused and looked over my shoulder. “Although I have no idea how we’re going to handle the sex education part of the curriculum.”

My mind focused on the first comment. “You could not find a human teacher qualified to teach your science classes?”

He shook his head, the human way of-signifying negation. “Nope.”

Although I did not want to appear judgmental of my host race, I gently said, “It is not rational for a race to neglect the education of their children.”

He expelled air from his lungs. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I would be happy to do so, but I thought I was here to educate your young.”

“No, no, I meant—never mind.” He looked around the room, then back at me. “Tell me about what happened today.”

“I wish I understood. But your students are not like ours.”

“Back up, Xerpers. Start from the beginning.”

He had mispronounced my name, but I ignored that. Instead, I said, “From the beginning.”

“Yes.”

“From the beginning, I had prepared my lesson in detail.” I took out my handheld computer and showed it to him. “As you can see, my preparation was more than adequate.”

Greenberger took my computer from me and scanned through my lesson plan. Again, as before, he expelled air from his lungs. “Did you expect the children to just sit there while you read aloud from your computer?”

“Of course,” I said. “But they would also be able to read along as I wrote the words on the screen-board.”

“You see, this is why I was opposed to this program.” Greenberger leaned forward. “Look, Xerpers. Human children are not like Tenjant children. You can’t just read aloud to them. You have to reach out to them, to engage them with your teaching.”

“Does that include John Palmer?”

The comers of his mouth turned up. “Ah, yes, John Palmer.”

“He seems reticent to learn.”

“More like a pain in the ass.”

I pulled my head back. “We do not refer to our race’s offspring in that manner.”

“Yeah, well, you won’t hear me say something like that in public either.” He clasped his hands together. “Look. John Palmer is a troublesome kid. He’s a lot to handle.”

“Perhaps it would be best to give me a class without ‘troublesome’ kids.”

Greenberger barked out a grating laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

His comment puzzled me. “I am an educator of my race, Mr. Greenberger. I do not make jokes about my profession.”

He leaned back. “Yeah, well. We don’t have that sort of choice around here. If I do that for you, I’d have to do that for everyone.”

“Would it not be rational to give me a class without ‘troublesome’ students, given my new status at your school, combined with the fact that I am Tenjant and not human?”

He expelled air. “Yes, it would be rational. But it’s not going to work that way.” He plugged my computer into his desk, tapped a few keys, then unplugged it and handed it back. “I’ve just given you a booklet of tips on how to deal with kids with special needs. See if that helps.”

My brief training had dealt with the generalities of Earth children, but never once had our readings indicated the existence of “troublesome” kids. Perhaps this indicated just how desperate the humans were for good science teachers. I thanked Mr. Greenberger for the document and left the room.

I soon found out that teaching science meant running an occasional laboratory session. Tenjant children, of course, did all their practical work in virtual environments, but the humans had not yet developed that technology.

Before the class began, I set up the lab tables with beakers of water, digital scales, small plastic canisters with caps, and round tablets of sodium bicarbonate. As the children filed in, some of them started playing with the equipment on their desks. I requested that they stop doing so, and with the exception of John Palmer, they all did.

“Children, I have sent instructions to each of your computers regarding how to perform this activity, along with the name of your partner for today. You will see how sodium bicarbonate, when placed in water, releases carbon dioxide gas. The scales will allow you to measure the mass of the gas released. Please read your directions and let me know if you have any questions. Only then should you begin working with the materials.”

I began to walk around the room, checking on the progress of the students with the instructions. Most of them understood what to do, and I told them to begin work.

Then I got to John Palmer, who was assigned to work with Eileen. Instead of reading the screen on his computer, John was standing on his desk.

“John? What are you doing?”

John began to jump up and down and swing his arms. “Ook ook ook!”

“John? This is not the proper behavior for a human child.”

“I’m not a child! I’m a gorilla!”

“A gorilla?” I asked.

A student named Gerald who sat two desks over answered my question. “It’s an animal, a primate. John’s pretending to be one of them.”

I recalled my basic studies of Earth. “Ah, yes. Gorillas.” I grabbed John by the waist and gently lowered him to the floor. “Please work.”

“You know about gorillas?” Gerald asked.

I walked over to his desk. “Yes. Humans evolved from them.”

Gerald frowned. “I don’t think so,” he said, but I was already rushing back to stop John from pouring a beaker of water over Eileen’s head.

I grabbed his arm before he had a chance to spill a drop of water. “John, this behavior is inappropriate. Please go to Mr. Greenberger’s office.”

He stuck out his tongue at me. “No.”

I was unprepared for this disobedience. “No?”

He stuck out his tongue again and crossed his eyes. The room fell silent; I could tell that all of the other students were wondering what I would do next.

I was wondering that myself. Finally, I made a decision. “Class,” I said, “please do not continue with the experiment until I return.” I placed my hands under John’s arms, lifted him up, and carried him out of the room to the principal’s office. All the while, he made sounds such as “Wooo!”

When I got to the office, I dropped him off with Greenberger’s assistant, whose mouth opened up as I brought the child in and remained open as I left. I returned to the classroom to see the students still in the position in which I had left them.

Mr. Greenberger had not been pleased at my attempt to control John Palmer’s behavior. So, at his strong suggestion, I had .arranged for a phone conference among John’s parents and myself. At the scheduled time, a split image appeared on the screenboard in my classroom. John’s parents were in two different locations, and I recalled that Mr. Greenberger had said something about a “divorce,” in which the parents no longer resided in the same domicile.

I began by detailing the specific behaviors that I had witnessed. I began by telling them about John interrupting me and wandering .around, and I finished by telling them about his pretense of being a gorilla and his defiance of my authority.

When I finished, the two of them sat there, staring. Finally, Mrs. Palmer said, “So?”

Unsure that I had heard her correctly, I said, “Excuse me?”

“What gives you the right to pick up my son? Do you know the humiliation you caused him?”

Flummoxed, I said, “Actually, he seemed to enjoy the ride.”

“That’s not the point,” Mr. Palmer interjected. “The point is that you had no right to do what you did.”

I tried to recast my argument. “Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, I do not think you understand. Your child is disruptive. He is unable to focus his attention long enough to learn properly.” I paused, thinking of a phrase I had been taught to use in these situations. “Perhaps,” I said, “he needs to be tested.”

The Palmers recoiled, and the corners of Mrs. Palmer’s mouth turned down. “How dare you even suggest such a thing! You’re not a licensed psychologist! Hell, you’re not even human!”

“I do not think that my race has anything to do with your son and his issues.”

Mr. Palmer spoke. “This has nothing to do with our son and his ‘issues,’ as you put it. This has to do with your ability to teach our child.”

“It is hard to get him to learn,” I admitted.

“Well,” Mrs. Palmer said, “get him to learn. That’s your job, isn’t it?”

“My job,” I said as evenly as I could, “is to get all of the students to learn.”

Mr. Palmer expelled air and rolled his eyes. “I don’t even know why they hired an alien to be the teacher. You better watch yourself, Mr. Fromlilo, or I’ll tell Earth to send you back where you came from.”

That would be the greatest favor you could do for me, I thought.

But aloud, I said, “I will endeavor to be more careful in the future.”

The next day, Mr. Greenberger called me back into his office. The Palmers had left him a rather irate e-mail.

“They tell me that you’re not doing your job,” he said.

“They told me that it was my job was to teach their child.”

“Well, isn’t it?” Mr. Greenberger asked.

“I don’t understand. Among the Tenjant, education is a joint effort, among all the people.”

“Look, some parents are more involved than others. Some take an active interest in their child’s education, every step of the way. And some—”

“And some just expect the teacher to do everything?”

He pulled his shoulders up and then let them fall again. “It’s their way.”

“I do not understand. Perhaps it is because among my people, we don’t even have parents.”

“You don’t?”

“Not in the way you define them. Yes, every child is born of a genetic father and a genetic mother. But the children of every community are pooled together, and cared for by one particular caste. It is the caste of which I am a part.”

He leaned back and stared at me. “Xerpers, may I ask you a personal question?”

“That is why I am here.”

“Are you male or female?”

“I am currently male. I will become female again in approximately three of your planet’s years.”

He nodded. “That may explain why you Tenjant have a different perspective on teaching and parenting than we do.”

“Perhaps. But it does not help me deal with John.”

He expelled air. “Look. Any teacher will tell you that in every class, there’s always one kid who makes teaching the class almost impossible. He’s disruptive, annoying, difficult to control—”

“That describes John perfectly.”

He nodded. “Well, take out that kid, and poof! Guess what? The class runs much better.” He shook his head. “The only problem, of course, is that we can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“We’re a public school, Xerpers. We have to instruct all children, for the public good.”

“But what if the public good is served in a different way?”

“It just doesn’t work that way among humans, Xerpers. Sorry.”

“Mr. Greenberger, please listen. I have read over your materials on what you call discipline. None of the techniques have proven to be effective.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Then use your own techniques, damn it.”

Instinctively, I bared my teeth, then I relaxed. “Pardon?”

“Sorry; I forgot that you guys don’t like cursing.” He paused, apparently waiting for something. Finally, I figured it out.

“It is all right,” I said.

“Thanks,” he replied. “But my main point is still valid.”

“I should use my own techniques to maintain discipline.”

He nodded. “You know why the program was created, don’t you? Cultural exchange. It’s a two-way street. The idea is for you to apply your culture’s techniques to teaching our children, as well as learning our techniques so you can bring them back to your home world.”

“Let me just confirm this. I am expected to use Tenjant teaching techniques?”

“Expected?” He barked a laugh. “Heck, you’re encouraged! Whatever works, man, whatever works.”

I pondered this new information for a moment. “I understand.”

“Good. Let me know how it turns out.”

“Good morning, children.”

Almost in unison, the class replied, “Good morning, Mr. Fromlilo.” The only one who did not was John, who sat in his seat, with his right index finger digging into his left nostril. He removed some of the dried mucous from his nose and placed it in a small ball on his desk.

“I have been told to teach you more of my race, of our customs. For example, how many of you have parents?”

Every child’s hand went up.

“How many of you would like to get rid of your parents?”

The children giggled now, John loudest of all.

“Well, among the Tenjant, we do not have parents.”

“You don’t?” asked Gabriel.

“Not in the same way as among you humans. My people do have children, but the children are given over to a specific caste for rearing and education. I am a member of that caste.”

Gerald raised his hand. “Yes, Gerald?”

“Is that why you’re our teacher?”

“Yes, it is. But I am more than just a teacher. I am a Nor-Shantr

The children laughed, and Gerald asked, “What does that mean?”

“It means that I am more than what you Earth people call a teacher. The members of my caste and I raise the children and improve our race by practicing a form of culling the herd.”

Another hand went up. “Yes, Jennifer?”

“What does culling mean?”

“Allow me to demonstrate. May I have a volunteer?”

Quite a few hands went up, including that of John’s. I called John to the front of the room.

“Watch carefully,” I said, “and you will learn of one of the many differences between the humans and the Tenjant.”

As I had done countless times in the past, I loosened my jaw, stretching my face as wide as I could. I grabbed John by his waist and shoved him into my mouth.

“Hey!” he shouted.

He squirmed as he went in, but of course the strength of the human child was no match for my own. I pushed him down my throat and swallowed him in one gulp.

With John eliminated, I expelled excess gas from my digestion chamber. “That is culling. It is the way my race improves itself. And now I share it with you.”

Silence.

“Are there any questions?”

The silence continued; the blissful, beautiful silence.

I grabbed my stylus and began writing on the screenboard.

“Then,” I said, “let us learn.”