As he walked toward his first period class, Dave felt relieved. He was glad Mrs. Hiatt had put an end to the contest. He was especially glad that he wouldn’t have to actually mark a big L on Lynsey’s forehead. Or the reverse of that. Now he could just think about his schoolwork again. Because he really was a pretty good student. That’s why he was in the high math group.
But as he went into the math room, he didn’t talk to his friends, and they didn’t talk to him. And none of the girls were talking either. No one was actually sure that the contest was over. And no one was taking chances. Including Dave.
The bell rang, and as everyone took their seats it was still completely quiet.
Mrs. Escobar got right down to business. “All right, students, we’re still working on metric conversions, and, let’s see . . . who’s got an answer for the first homework problem?”
Lynsey raised her hand, and when Mrs. Escobar nodded, she said, “Three hundred twelve.”
Mrs. Escobar frowned. “‘Three hundred twelve’ what?”
Lynsey said, “Degrees Celsius.”
Mrs. Escobar looked at Lynsey. “You heard what the principal said a few minutes ago?”
Lynsey nodded.
“About how this little game needs to stop?”
Lynsey nodded again, and then raised her hand.
Mrs. Escobar nodded, and Lynsey said, “But why?”
“Why?” said the teacher. “Because it’s not good. For anyone. It slows down our classwork. Like right now. We should be doing math, and instead we’re talking about . . . not talking.”
Lynsey said, “Math is numbers.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Escobar, “but we need to use words to talk about how we’re using numbers. You know that. You all know that. So stop this. Right now.”
Lynsey stood up and pointed at the dry erase board. “May I?”
Mrs. Escobar said, “Go ahead.”
Lynsey had her homework paper in one hand and a marker in the other. She wrote out the numbers for the first problem and then showed the three steps she used to get the correct answer.
She turned to Mrs. Escobar, and when the teacher nodded, she said, “How’s that?”
Mrs. Escobar was starting to boil over. “I am not amused by this, Lynsey. I know what you’re doing, and I will not stand for it. Now stop it!”
Lynsey stood at the board. She pointed at the problem. “Is it right?”
Another three words.
Dave knew that look on the teacher’s face. It meant trouble, serious trouble. And not just for Lynsey. He held his breath, waiting for the explosion.
But the very next moment, Dave amazed himself: He raised his hand.
Mrs. Escobar had to grit her teeth, but she managed to say, “Yes?”
Dave pointed at the solution on the board and said, “Mine is different.”
Without asking permission, Dave was on his feet. He grabbed the marker from Lynsey and scrawled his work onto the board. He had the same answer, but he had worked with fractions instead of decimals.
Mrs. Escobar said, “How many of you did it the way Dave did?”
About half the hands went up.
“And the way Lynsey solved it?” The other half went up.
The teacher nodded. “That’s good. Does everyone see why it can be done both ways?”
Everyone nodded.
“Okay, here’s a tougher question: Kelly, which way was easier, Dave’s way or Lynsey’s way?”
Kelly said, “Lynsey’s.”
“Really?” asked the teacher. “How come?”
“Fewer steps.”
And all around the room, Mrs. Escobar saw heads nodding, saw the special light that shows up on a kid’s face when understanding happens.
She smiled. “That’s right. Decimals really do make things easier.”
Tyler raised his hand and said, “With a calculator.” Which got a laugh from the whole class.
And as they laughed, Dave and Lynsey looked at each other for about half a second. Not quite a friendly look, but similar.
Then Dave thought, This means the contest is still on. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
The class sailed through the rest of the conversion problems—miles to kilometers, kilograms to ounces, acres to hectares, on and on. And every student responded using three words or less, or with written answers on the board.
Mrs. Escobar knew the kids weren’t obeying Mrs. Hiatt. She knew they were still counting words, still keeping silent unless called on.
But honestly, at this moment, she didn’t care. She was in the middle of an amazingly productive class period—and everyone was so focused, so alert, so engaged. Compared to the classroom experience she’d had with these same kids just twenty-four hours ago, well, it was like night and day. And she liked the day much better.
• • •
And what was happening in the other first-period classrooms on Wednesday—classrooms where Lynsey and Dave were not on hand to provide some leadership?
As science class began, Mrs. Marlow had already decided to make an example of the first kid who gave her a three-word answer. And it happened to be Kyle.
“I asked you to tell me about the order Lepidoptera,” the teacher said.
Kyle nodded. “Butterflies and moths,” he repeated.
“And that’s all you know?” she said.
He nodded again. “Pretty much.” Which got a giggle from the class.
Mrs. Marlow grabbed a notepad and picked up a pencil, reading out loud as she wrote: “Dear Mrs. Hiatt, Kyle has refused to obey your instructions. He is not participating in class discussion, and he—”
Kyle raised his hand, and Mrs. Marlow snapped, “What?”
“I’m participating.”
“No,” she said, “you’re deliberately using as few words as possible, and you are disobeying the principal.”
Kyle shook his head. “I’m . . . conserving.”
She said, “That’s nonsense. Conservation means . . .”
Kyle finished the sentence: “. . . not wasting.”
Mrs. Marlow glared at him. “Conservation is for energy and water and soil and forests. Words don’t need conserving.”
“Maybe they do,” Kyle said, which was awfully brave of him.
And all the kids in the class nodded their agreement with Kyle. Which was also very brave.
Mrs. Marlow felt herself getting angry. However, she was an extremely logical person, and she had to admit that Kyle had a point. Anybody who had ever eaten lunch in the teachers’ room or sat through a whole faculty meeting would have to agree that a lot of words get wasted every school day. And all that endless gabbing that had made the Unshushables so famous? Ninety-nine percent waste.
But she said, “Regardless of that, the principal said you must all participate normally in class.”
Kyle scrunched up his face. “What’s normal?”
Mrs. Marlow said, “In this case, it means talking the way the principal wants you to . . . the way I want you to . . . the way everyone usually talks and answers . . . normally.”
Kyle said, “Can normal change?”
“Well . . . ,” and Mrs. Marlow paused.
She paused because just three days ago they had discussed climate change, and she had explained how a normal high temperature now would have been considered abnormal a hundred years ago. And she knew Kyle would remember that. The whole class probably remembered. This was a very bright group.
She continued. “Yes, you could say that. But it’s certainly not normal to use only three words at a time. Or no words at all. Not at school.”
Kyle shrugged. “Works for me.”
Mrs. Marlow thought back to all the times in the past week when she’d had to yell at Kyle about his nonstop whispering, about his constant joke-telling, about his never-ending comments on anything and everything that ran through his twitchy little head. And she looked at Kyle sitting there quietly, giving her his full attention. And every other student was doing the same thing.
And suddenly, the idea of trying to make these kids talk, actually demanding that they all go back to being noisy, self-absorbed chatterbrains—it simply wasn’t . . . logical.
So Mrs. Marlow decided to go ahead with her lesson for the day, and she adjusted herself to the new normal. Because the new normal was at least ten times better than the old normal.
• • •
In social studies there were more oral reports, and Mrs. Overby called on Ed Kanner and Bill Harkness to go first.
The boys walked to the front of the room, stood shoulder to shoulder, and both of them looked down at the index cards in Bill’s hands.
Ed said, “Italy is old.”
Then Bill said, “The Roman Empire . . .”
And Ed said, “Ruled the world . . .”
And Bill said, “For many centuries.”
And Mrs. Overby said, “What do you two boys think you’re doing?”
Ed said, “Giving our report.”
And Bill said, “On Italy.”
“No,” said the teacher, “you’re still playing that game, counting the words.”
“But we practiced,” Ed said.
“We’re ready,” Bill said.
And Ed said, “Can we finish?”
Like the other teachers up and down the fifth-grade hall, Mrs. Overby had to make a decision: Go with the flow—which promised to be very quiet and orderly—or call for the principal, raise a ruckus, and try to force these kids to be their regular old noisy selves again.
As a student of history, Mrs. Overby knew about the power of a grassroots movement. She also knew about the power of civil disobedience.
But mostly, she decided that this no-talking craze was actually a pretty good social experiment. Plus, she didn’t feel like the kids thought they were winning and she was losing—it wasn’t like that. They were just having a different kind of communication experience—together. That’s all.
True, Ed and Bill’s report on Italy was choppy and awkward and a little hard to follow as they passed the narration back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball. But the boys made all their points, learning took place, and the whole class sat silently and paid close attention. And the next five reports went almost as smoothly. What more could a social studies teacher ask for?
So, like the other teachers, Mrs. Overby chose the quiet way.
And she decided she’d talk to the other teachers later in the morning and see how they were handling this thing. And she’d talk to Mrs. Hiatt, too.
• • •
Language arts was the easiest class for the kids. Mr. Burton didn’t even try to make them stop their “activity.” If they wanted to be quiet and talk only in three-word bursts, he was all for it, no matter what the mighty Mrs. Hiatt had said. After all, this was his classroom, wasn’t it? And if he believed this way of using words could provide a good language arts learning experience, then couldn’t he proceed with it? Yes. Absolutely.
But he wasn’t foolish. He walked to the back of the room, stuck his head out into the hallway, looked both ways, and then closed his door.
Back at the front of his room, Mr. Burton said, “Eric and Rachel, please come up and sit in these chairs.”
When they were seated, he said, “You two are going to have a short debate. A debate is an orderly argument, and each of you will take opposite sides on the same issue. And the question is, ‘Should there be soft-drink machines in school cafeterias?’ Rachel, you will argue for this question, and Eric, you will argue against it. You will take turns speaking . . . and you may use no more than three words for each statement. Ready?”
Eric and Rachel shook their heads no.
Mr. Burton said, “Don’t worry. You’ll both do fine. Eric, you first. And, you may begin.”
Eric said, “Soft drinks . . . bad.”
Rachel shook her head and said, “Not bad. Delicious.”
Eric frowned. “Too much sugar.”
Rachel said, “I like sugar.”
Eric shook his head. “Sugar rots teeth.”
Rachel smiled a big smile. “Not mine.”
Eric said, “Milk is better.”
Rachel shrugged. “Try sugar-free.”
Eric said, “Still, bad . . . nutrition.”
Rachel held up her arm and made a muscle. “I eat vegetables.”
Eric said, “Not everyone does.”
Rachel said, “I like choosing.”
Eric said, “Soda is . . . expensive.”
Rachel pulled a dollar from her pocket. “I have enough.”
Eric said, “Spend it smarter.”
Rachel said, “What about freedom?”
Eric shook his head. “Not at school.”
Rachel smirked. “Very bad news!”
And they went on like that for about five minutes with no letup.
All the kids were fascinated, and, of course, so was Mr. Burton.
He took furious notes, writing down each response, trying to record the kind of gestures the kids made, their facial expressions, their tones of voice.
Very few words were being exchanged, but whole worlds of ideas were floating around as the kids tried to build their arguments. They got emotional, and the three-word limit was clearly a problem. Still, they packed a lot into so few words. It was like debating with condensed haiku.
It was also sort of like listening to cave people talk, or maybe Tarzan—“Hungry, eat now.” And Mr. Burton wrote some three-word chunks of his own, which he intended to use in his Human Development paper:
—Every word counts.
—Choose power words.
—Hemingway would approve.
—Focus and narrow.
—Ideas are collapsible.
—Remember Miles Davis.
And as he looked at what he wrote, he thought, Maybe I should write my whole paper using three-word sentences. That would certainly get the attention of my professor!
• • •
In music class, the kids entered the room and sat silently, just like yesterday afternoon. Mrs. Akers was sure the students were going to disobey Mrs. Hiatt’s orders, and she was ready to take some drastic steps to stop this nonsense.
But when she played an introduction and launched into “Over the River and Through the Woods,” everyone sang right out.
The teacher was amazed. Mrs. Akers felt like there had been a glorious victory for the forces of law and authority, and she intended to write the principal a special note to say thanks for her strong leadership.
In fact, though, the principal’s talk was not the direct cause of the singing.
Taron had written a simple note, and she’d shown it to all the boys and girls as they came into the music room:
Singing is not talking. Deal?
And by nodding, all the boys and all the girls had silently agreed that bending the contest rules a little was a good idea. Besides, no one wanted the Thanksgiving music program to sound lousy, and their contest would be over by then, anyway.
The boys and girls in that first-period music class might not have noticed it, but the important thing was not that they had agreed to sing. The important thing was that they had agreed. About anything. Fifth-grade boys and fifth-grade girls at Laketon Elementary School were actually cooperating and helping each other.
And that’s what was happening in the other fifth-grade classrooms too. The boys and girls had joined forces without even realizing it. Together, they had resisted the pressure from the principal and from their teachers. They had used their wits and teamed up to prove that not talking was a simple, harmless activity. It wasn’t like the boys and girls were getting all buddy-buddy or anything, and it wasn’t like the teasing and taunting had completely stopped. Because old habits are hard to break.
But still, cooties were dying all over the place.
That was one result.
Another result of the morning classes was that the kids had won a new kind of respect from their teachers. Teachers have great respect for order and self-discipline. Teachers love to make careful plans and then put them into action—it’s what they do. And teachers hate noise and disorder and bouncing kids, because these things keep them from accomplishing their careful plans.
• • •
However, there was one gigantic problem with all this harmony and order and balance and peace that was blooming in the fifth-grade hall: Mrs. Hiatt wasn’t in the loop. She was clueless about these new developments.
In fact, the principal wasn’t even in the building during the morning. She was across town at the district offices working on next year’s budget. She had left her trusty teachers to carry out her strict orders.
But Mrs. Hiatt had organized her meetings to be sure that she would be back at her school in time for fifth-grade lunch. Because the principal felt sure she would be needed at lunch. With her bullhorn. To keep law and order, just like always.
Because Mrs. Hiatt had complete confidence in her teachers.
She was sure that by lunchtime everything would be back to . . . normal.