You Do Not Have To Be Good

2022 FINALIST, ALEX ALBRIGHT CREATIVE NONFICTION PRIZE

by Erin Carpenter

i was not indigenous, not a person of color, not a mountain woman or even born in the bible belt, but i was their english teacher now.

The air smelled of chemicals and wet brown paper towels as three girls made a late entrance on my first day teaching American Literature. Divinity, who went by Deva, was named for the miraculous circumstances surrounding her birth. I didn’t find this out until months later, when I would also discover that her mother was dying in jail. There was April, who would be pregnant by this time next year, and Keirah, who was the oldest of eight and already tasked with the duties of a mother. When asked why they were late, they told me they dyed Deva’s hair. Green.

ERIN CARPENTER teaches middle school English on the Qualla Boundary for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times’s Tiny Love Stories, The Sun Magazine’s Readers Write, and The Wrath Bearing Tree. She studied French at UNC Chapel Hill and received an MA in English from Western Carolina University. Her academic editing work supports scholars writing dissertations on critical race theory and social justice in education. Prior to teaching, she helped run the international business development program at UC Berkeley and worked in the wine business in San Francisco.

Second period, a stout boy in the second row wore a t-shirt that read “White people suck.” I chuckled to myself. I could see the humor, but I could not leave it at that. I was not Indigenous, not a person of color, not a mountain woman or even born in the Bible Belt, but I was their English teacher now. Shouldn’t we have some kind of discussion about this?

“Where did you get that t-shirt?” I asked, sounding to myself like a mom who had found his weed.

“From my dad.” He wore half a smile, but his knee was bouncing furiously. He could feel my mind trying to reconcile generations of wrongdoing, looking for the words to make it right. “It’s just a t-shirt,” he said in the deep, soft voice I would come to recognize in many Native boys and men. He was de-escalating, giving me an out. He knew words could not fix this, but I lacked that same humility, so I opened my mouth, and here is what came out of it.

“What would you say if I wore something like that about your people?”

The fifteen-year-old boy steeled himself against the back of his chair and said nothing. It would not be the last time I embarrassed myself.

His skinny, freckled friend wearing a long, beaded rope necklace came to his aid. He had recently returned from twenty-seven minutes in the bathroom.

“I’d tell you to get the hell off of the Rez, then.”

These are good kids, and they will put you in your place. I was on their land, after all. We are all on their land.

A few months prior, I walked into this occupied territory. A group of fifth graders had been without their teacher for months and had driven three other substitutes out, all of whom had far more experience than I did. When I entered that classroom, Justina had just pulled a two-liter bottle of Hawaiian Punch out of the overhead cabinet and was passing out cups. Axel was climbing up the side of an enormous rolling bookshelf. Hunter was doing a standup routine sitting down. Raven was in an altered state of hysterical laughter. And Danny looked around her with an angelic smirk. She knew she should help me, but she was far too amused to make it stop.

Cherokee Central Schools have been run by the tribe since 1990 when they ceased to be a Bureau of Indian Education school and became what is known as a “tribal grant school.” They answer to federal regulations in order to receive federal grant money, but they are operating independently. The brand-new school was right across the Raven Fork River from where I was living in federal housing with my husband, who worked maintenance for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and our daughter, who was three or four years old at the time. This architectural gem was built with 160 million dollars of casino money. The tall cement stucco walls were decorated in basket weave patterns using color palettes that mimicked the natural dyes from bloodroot and honeysuckle. Three buildings, one for each school, were laid out with a seven-sided courtyard at the center of each. Breezeways connecting the buildings were etched with a fishbone pattern. It was a stunning facility and the heart of the community.

I was considering sending my daughter to school there, and I needed some intel. I didn’t want to assume anything, but no online North Carolina School Report Card was available, and I didn’t know a single person who could tell me what it was really like behind those walls. That’s how I became a substitute. I went undercover, and what I found disturbed me. Many of the kids I taught in that high school English class were reading at a fifth-grade level. As a compulsive people pleaser, terribly afraid to fail, I saw my students with their heads down on the desk, or wound up and ricocheting about, and I panicked a little bit. What would become of them? What does their lack of engagement say about me?

Third period. Tosh, whose eyelashes could ruin a young girl’s life, leaned his chair back against the wall of energy efficient windows and kicked his size twelve boots up on his desk. He wore overalls and had a body that looked like it was built for hard work or ass kicking. But the only hint of violence I ever saw out of Tosh was passive aggression. His stonewalling technique was likely a tactic he learned well before he entered my classroom, but like so many of my students’ coping mechanisms, I took it personally.

“You talk to yourself a lot,” he liked to say.

“That’s only because you’re not listening to me,” I replied.

The library’s hardcover copy of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian lay on his desk every day.1 He said he had read it a couple of times already. Sometimes his nose would be in it, and if not, I could always count on him to pick it up if I called on him to answer a question about whatever I was covering in my lesson. If I knew then what I know now, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt and praised him for reading such an important book. I’d have encouraged him to relate its themes

to the class as part of a larger discussion. But I middle school kids can smell insecurity, and I gave thought I needed to teach him something he them ample bait. When a Pre-K child called me didn’t already know, so I insisted he do the work I Ms. Carpet, it was cute, and seemed like a reasonwas assigning. able mistake, but as students matured and the

“You’re not even a real teacher.” name kept resurfacing, I began to wonder if it was

He wasn’t wrong. I was a permanent sub. I more of a pun. I certainly felt like I was getting had more than adequate content knowledge to walked on. teach high school literature, and I would go on to “Do you brush your hair?” Makayla asked, earn the credentials to teach legitimately in my prompting me to buy a flat iron. own classroom, but at the time I was earning a “Your face droops,” said Dustin. master’s in English and focused on writing. Not “I don’t think your husband loves you very until I struggled through four years of subbing, much,” said Jaydn when I shared something about wandering homeless through the halls of Pre-K my marriage. through twelfth grade with my lunch box and Meanwhile, at the end of every day, I was coat, would I accept a full-time teaching assign- picking up the garbage – the Takis, Gatorades, ment. I was able to lay milk and orange juice eyes on a large majority of the children in the Cherokee school system during that time and call them by name. I was able to finish my master’s and get my daughter settled in grade school. And then, just when I began to focus on freelancing work, a fire destroyed part of our home and many of our belongings. COURTESY OF ASHEVILLE ART MUSEUM, GIFT OF BILLIE RUTH SUDDUTH, 2006.07.01.58. © ESTATE OF ROWENA BRADLEY cartons, Pop-Tart wrappers, broken and chewedup pencils, tiny rubber bands. I was collecting the abandoned notes I typed and printed out for them, along with the glue sticks they wouldn’t use to affix these notes into their composition books – but were happy to slather all over themselves and grind into the rug. I When the seventh-grade didn’t want the custodian English Language Arts to have to clean up after position opened up at me. I didn’t want anyone Cherokee, I knew I needed to apply. Planter, circa 1994 (rivercane with black walnut dye, 12x12x12) by Rowena Bradley to see evidence of how poorly I controlled them.

I’m good at learning. I It was better than subknew my content area, and the pedagogy and hu- bing. I could plan ahead. I wasn’t the last person man development classes were interesting enough, in the school district to know what was going but they were of little use in the field, where on. And I had some leverage with those students what I first needed was tough skin. A roomful of who cared at least a little bit about grades. I had

ROWENA BRADLEY (1922–2003) was a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, raised on Swimmer Branch of the Paint Town Community on the Qualla Boundary. She was acclaimed for her basket technique of complex double weave, a tradition she carried forward from her mother and grandmother, weaving her first basket in 1928 before she started school. Her baskets were awarded multiple times at the annual Cherokee Indian Fairs, and she exhibited at the Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual in Cherokee, NC. Her work is held in private and public collections, including the Asheville Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. Find more information in the Southern Appalachian Digital Collection at Western Carolina University.

they could not relax, and there was no winding down routine, no warm milk, no meditation tapes like my mother bought for me when i was sleepless in middle school.

the rhythm of seeing them every day and building relationships. But even with my own lessons, my own roster, and my own code for the copy machine, I was trying too hard and failing at everything that mattered.

The apathy that exists in a community that has learned not to count on anyone has an insidious effect on education. Low academic achievement aggravates behavior and disciplinary consequences have little effect if students and their guardians aren’t invested in performance outcomes. Prepandemic, we used silent lunch as an attempt to correct disruptive students, but one of the many downsides to using this punishment was how hard it was for teachers to enforce silence while eating their own meal, talking with their peers, and monitoring a hundred other rowdy children. As a result, I started holding silent lunch for our grade block in the science lab. When these sessions were one on one, which was often the case with repeat offenders, I took the opportunity to make a phone call home and check in with parents and guardians. These conversations helped me see the depth of the difficulty. Usually, the classroom behavior was the tip of the iceberg, and I would try to connect the families to additional forms of support. But I came to know my limits. These kids often needed an advocate more than anything, but their families were very often struggling with their own weariness and disconnection.

For most of my students, isolation, injustice, and massive disappointment in the system that claims to serve them is nothing new. They feel unwelcome on college campuses. They feel judged in the town right down the highway – at the Walmart, or at restaurants, or at the local university. They have been turned out of hotels for being Cherokee. They have been taunted at sporting events with racist signs and chants. Why make the effort to keep up with academics? Not only does going off to college seem, to some, like an exercise in frustration and loneliness, it’s also a financial gamble. The tribe pays full tuition, unless you fail out. Then you must pay it all back. It takes an incredible support system to take that risk. Most of my students do not have that luxury.

Why are their heads down? They were up with their baby sister or their sister’s baby. They couldn’t sleep worrying about the loved one in the hospital, or they were at the hospital and didn’t get home until four a.m. The fighting got loud; the dogs were barking; they were driving around with mom until midnight. They were hungry; they were cold; they could not relax, and there was no winding down routine, no warm milk, no meditation tapes like my mother bought for me when I was sleepless in middle school. There was no peace.

Many of my students are used to chaos and disorder, to being left to fend for themselves. Remote learning only exacerbated this. In 2020–21, I had forty students, and twenty-five of them did not have reliable internet. The mountains of western North Carolina are remote by design. We tried to give out hotspots, but where there is no coverage, a hotspot will not work. We have community buildings with Wi-Fi, but most kids are not in a situation where they can get a ride anywhere at eight a.m. Eight of my students showed up to class on a regular basis, and keeping them engaged was a huge effort. I raffled off prizes every day for showing up, for keeping the camera on, for coming off mute and saying something. I celebrated every participatory act.

At one point, my Zoom classes started thirty minutes earlier than required, and most of my eight students showed up to talk, message, sing, and just be together. Younger siblings popped in to show off their pets, wrestling moves, and newly lost teeth. Older siblings came by to laugh and reminisce about English class in years gone by. We talked about what we had for dinner and who did the cooking, what our favorite songs were, and what was trending. I learned so much.

Before the pandemic, before I had a handle on the devastating effects of my Puritan values in an Indigenous classroom, I would not have had time for this. I would have seen it as irresponsible. In some ways this pandemic is an unexpected blessing, an exercise in learning how to belong to my students, and how to be part of their adolescent world. It is an opportunity to be okay with not being okay.

Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle, an author, enrolled member of the Eastern Band, and a recently-retired twenty-five-year veteran of teachballfield. They have an intimate understanding of one another and use caution when getting to know outsiders. “Who are your people?” is the unstated question when meeting someone new. These values protect their community.

When the tribe received the vaccine in December 2020, they chose Victoria Harlan to be the first recipient. The tribal elder, former US Marine, and Emergency Room Nurse Manager at Cherokee Indian Hospital said, “I started to cry because I don’t think of myself first because I wasn’t raised that way to start with. You do for others. That’s what we do here in this place. We’re here to do for other people. Because when you start thinking about yourself first then you’re going to miss something.”3

The children of the tribe are cherished in so many ways and for so many reasons. These kids are quick-witted, incredibly strong, and full of contagious laughter. They look out for peers with special needs and treat them with kindness and dignity. They are going to graduate with thirteen

many of my students do not practice traditional ways at home, but they live in close connection at school, at home, at church, or on the ballfield. they have an intimate understanding of one another and use caution when getting to know outsiders. “who are your people?” is the unstated question when meeting someone new. these values protect their community.

ing high school English, said in the Atlantic in July 2020 that “COVID-19 is merely our sovereign nation’s latest test of resilience.”2 Her article “How Our Indian Country Flattened the Curve” describes the self-preservations skills that her tribe has used since the first settlers brought smallpox.

Many of my students do not practice traditional ways at home, but they live in close connection at school, at home, at church, or on the years of Cherokee language, culture, and history instruction, having had opportunities to learn and practice traditional crafts and dances, train with great coaches, work with dedicated teachers, and study with top-notch performing and visual arts instructors. In many ways, their school is the heart of their community. Powwow, markets, and funerals are held there. Every other week, someone is selling frybread or Indian

dinners to support a family in need. The kids look out for peers with special needs and treat them with kindness and dignity. Elders are revered. The children of the tribe are cherished in so many ways, and yet, in spite of the strength of their spirit and the wealth of their community resources, many of them are struggling to get their start.

These are good kids, and yet they are struggling. One hundred percent of our students qualify for free lunch. The chronic stress of poverty demoralizes children, and a fundamental mistrust of non-Native educators is often passed down from the boarding school days. I used to go into these classrooms, once physical and then virtual, and see the chaos, the apathy, the hurt as a reflection of my effort and ability, but the truth is that these kids cannot and will not connect with a teacher motivated by fearful self-interest. They do not need a perfect human educator, but they do need a strong and courageous human heart. If I think too much about my own agenda – how it would look if the principal walked in for a surprise observation, or whether I am going to meet standards and collect exit tickets – I will continually miss opportunities to connect and build their trust.

The chronic stress of poverty demoralizes children, and they do not deserve any additional

pressure that stems from trying to please and placate me as I juggle the many demands that outsiders place on teachers. I know I cannot deliver the outcomes that are expected of me. But sooner or later, I am reminded that I do not have to improve their behavior; I have to improve my response to it. Once in a while, a small gesture can make a big difference. Deva, with the new green hair, black clothes, and pierced face, did no work at all until I bought a bag of Nestlé’s Toll House chocolate chips and baked for her. “I’m so sorry about your mom,” I Purse Basket (single weave rivercane with walnut dye, 13.25x13.5x8.5) by Eva Wolfe said. “I thought you could use some cookies.” The effect was immediate. She turned in all of her assignments and started bringing a teddy bear to class. Last year, thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act, I was able to work as an academic interventionist. Many public schools in our country are approaching school improvement with a MultiTiered System of Support (MTSS) framework, in an effort to meet the academic and social/ emotional needs of the whole child. At Cherokee Middle School, we decided to try a focus on writing enrichment as part of this endeavor. I surveyed about 185 of my students to see who they were as writers while I was developing my curriculum. Almost seventy percent found the

COLLECTORS’ CIRCLE PURCHASE, 2011.24.01.58. © ESTATE OF EVA WOLFE COURTESY OF ASHEVILLE ART MUSEUM, 2010 ASHEVILLE ART MUSEUM

EVA WOLFE (1920–2004) was a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Born in the Soco community of the Qualla Boundary, she was acclaimed in particular for her double weave rivercane baskets. She was awarded first place in an exhibit presented by the US Department of Interior in 1968, followed by selection as the first Cherokee artist to be included in a national exhibit. In 1978, she received a special grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She received the North Carolina Folklore Society’s Brown-Hudson Award in 1988, and the North Carolina Heritage Award in 1989. Her work is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Asheville Art Museum. Find more information in the Southern Appalachian Digital Collection at Western Carolina University.

hardest thing about writing was spelling (thirty percent), not understanding how to answer the question (twenty-five percent), or being embarrassed to be wrong (twelve percent). Considering the difficulty we have with decoding and reading comprehension, written responses are a major challenge to many students, and they can quickly lose hope and shut down, which denies them the practice that they need in expressing themselves as writers with their own ideas.

I tried to make writing empowering by letting them choose some of their topics. We wrote about addiction and the ways our brains respond to vapes, cannabis, and nicotine. Some students wrote about ferrets, others about designing sneakers or how to be a teenage mother. I reviewed the fundamentals needed to teach simple sentence structure, and I corrected their errors, but too much focus on proper punctuation (which often means the use of any periods at all) inhibits children in the larger context of writing to discover who they are and what they value, which is an important step in perceiving themselves as learners. They want to see their words gather on the page; they want me to read those words and tell them that they are good. I cannot heal their past, and I cannot ensure their future, but this much I can do for them.

Fifth period. I just read them Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese,” which begins: You do not have to be good You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.4 Yona has fallen out of his chair. He has the same habit I had as a kid of discharging some of his anxious frustration by leaning, one hand on the desk, and rocking back and forth. He is a funny child, who once told me COURTESY OF ASHEVILLE ART MUSEUM, MUSEUM PURCHASE WITH FUNDS PROVIDED BY 2009 COLLECTORS’ CIRCLE MEMBERS LADENE & RUSSELL NEWTON, 2009.36.32. © ESTATE OF VIRGIL LEDFORD the uncle he lives with (who isn’t a whole lot older than he is) only went to school on the days they served chocolate milk. (“And he passed!” he reported.) He is one of the kids who has consistently given me the gift of his attention, trust, and effort. In my rational mind, I know he fell because gravity took over his seat. But

Bear, circa 2009 (carved wood, 9x11x4.75) in my heart, I like to think by Virgil Ledford it was more than a careless stumble. I like to think that his body responded to a truth he already knew – a message to embrace his own authentic wants and needs over the prosaic regulations of a disabled government – and that to hear it spoken in poetry jostled some part of himself out of sleep and into bodily action. n

VIRGIL LEDFORD (1940–2018) was a member of the Eastern Band Of Cherokee Indians, raised in the Birdtown community on the Qualla Boundary. His woodcarving technique and style celebrated the wildlife and people around him. His work was honored by Qualla Arts and Craft Mutual, the Indian Arts and Crafts board, and the North Carolina Arts Council. In 1975, his sculpture depicting an Indian hunter and eagle was adopted as the official emblem of the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. In 1995, he was the recipient of the North Carolina Heritage Award. His work is held in private and public collections, including the Asheville Art Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. Find more information in the Southern Appalachian Digital Collection at Western Carolina University. 4 Mary Oliver, Dream Work (Grove Atlantic, 1986).