The Teacher, the Starfish, and the Fire Eater

Mia never understood why her principal told the starfish story every year on the first day of school. She heard it seven consecutive Septembers until she finally had a theory as to why he chose the starfish story for his annual start of the school year stump speech. Standing tall on stage like an opera star about to begin his aria, he’d smile at all the teachers from behind the podium, tap the microphone a few times until it echoed throughout the auditorium, and then he’d start. “A young man zealously runs along the beach with hundreds of starfish stranded on shore,” he described, his words and heavy breath amplified by the microphone. “The young man is passionately throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one. The young man’s friend looks at him quizzically and says, ‘You’re never going to save them all. Why are you doing this?’ The young man, pointing to one replies, ‘Well, I saved that one didn’t I?’” To Mia, a new, super motivated, idealistic teacher, this story seemed a pessimistic way to start the school year. Of course, we’re going to try to reach all our students, she thought, especially the students who seem stranded on shore. We’re not going to stop at just one! She felt confused, even a bit frustrated by this speech. She didn’t get it. She tended to be too literal.

In her seventh year of teaching, when Tyler, then Ellie, then Sebastian, then Alexa stopped handing in their homework, the significance of the starfish story started to click. Even though she was still in the earlier phase of her career, she found it more and more challenging to win over her students’ attention. Her lively, fun, nurturing style that had so much appeal when she started, now had to compete with Xbox, iphones, and short videos on tik tok. Even when Covid hit, and in isolation students started turning off their cameras on zoom, she had still managed to keep them engaged with thoughtful on-line lessons that connected their real life experiences to the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918 and other historic events.

Yet, now that everyone was back in school and the pandemic was over, teaching seemed more challenging than ever. Students who in the past would chat with their friends during group work, would stare down at their phones. Even when she required them to put their phones into cubbies during class time, students just stared at each other and needed coaching to be able to have a conversation. Where in the past getting students to be quiet was a challenge, now it was getting them to talk, to participate that seemed so elusive. It was on the most frustrating days that she remembered the starfish story. Suddenly it made sense. She realized that even when it felt like she was not reaching students, when they stared at her with blank eyes and did not raise their hands, she had to plough on, to keep trying new strategies, to keep contacting more parents, to keep trying to build connections, and to keep throwing those starfish back in the ocean.

But it was on the day that Mia caught Stella playing video games instead of doing her classwork that Mia got triggered and not even the starfish story would help. “Stella, what are you supposed to be doing now?” Mia said in a monotone voice, trying very hard not to have an edge or to sound judgemental. Students were so much more fragile now, Mia thought. She found that their coping skills were not as strong as they had been pre-pandemic. Stella squirmed in her light pink Gucci t-shirt and sipped from her Owala water bottle before clicking back to her assignment on google classroom. Stella let out a deep, loud sigh as if she was annoyed. “Hm, attitude?” Mia thought.

Stella’s sigh, which to Mia felt like frustration and ingratitude, triggered Mia. Suddenly, Mia was back in Mexico City, where she had spent a year studying abroad. There was a boy there who she knew would appreciate being in her classroom! She would remember him on days when she felt particularly discouraged. In her memory, she sat in her little red VW beetle, waiting at a traffic light on Avenida de los Insurgentes. A young man, a street kid, dressed in a black tank top and oversized, stained jeans, jumped in front of the line of cars, ready to perform. He opened his lips wide, and filled his mouth with diesel fuel poured from an old milk jug. At first, Mia wasn’t sure what was happening. The boy lifted a baton with a lit fabric tip, sparkling with embers, in front of his mouth. He breathed in deep before spitting hard into the sparks, sending a fire stream into the air. For a few minutes, he looked like he was breathing fire, sending flames into the universe above him. He blew the flames into the air a few more times, performing like a circus act, and then darted quickly between the cars, trying to shake his can in front of as many car windows as he could before the traffic light turned green again. Mia froze. She didn’t roll down her window. She didn’t give him a single peso, although others did. She imagined his hungry family home waiting for his contribution of coins to be able to buy their dinner, but she didn’t want to encourage this dangerous behavior. How could she encourage this? He could burn his face off? She didn’t realize at the time that this young street kid was a “fire eater,”a not so uncommon site in Mexico City, impoverished children trying to earn money for themselves or their families. They’d often breathe out these blazes instead of going to school.

She never did anything to help that young man and it haunted her still. Sometimes she imagined him sitting in her classroom and thought about how much he would appreciate the opportunity to learn, to be in a classroom like hers with graffiti-less desks and smart boards, where every student gets their own chromebook. His image appeared to her more often when her students seemed disengaged or off task, and it only made her feel more frustrated and sad, and even a bit angry that her students didn’t appreciate the opportunity they had to be in school, an opportunity she imagined so many other children around the world would probably love to have, and that their parents would risk their lives to give them. And Stella, too, might not be ungrateful at all, but perhaps just uninspired, her soul craving something deeper. There is no way Stella could know about the boy who risked swallowing diesel fuel to survive.

Mia wondered what it would be like if she could bridge these two worlds, if she could put Stella and the young fire eater in a cooperative learning group and let them discuss what they each had for dinner, or what they did for fun. Perhaps they could become friends and even share what their goals were. They would see how different their lives were, the different obstacles they faced, but perhaps they could also see the humanity in each other. Imagine if together, they could discuss and analyze why Stella drank out of an Owala water bottle, while the young man drank diesel fuel. Perhaps together they could find solutions to make both of their lives richer, not just in a material way, but in a soulful way. Perhaps if Mia could do this or some version of this, her classes would become more engaging again and her students could find purpose in their studies. It was time to go look for the starfish, she thought.