Trash Ball & Title IX

Last week with the help of the assistant principal, we introduced my students to the game of Trash Ball. If Trash Ball doesn't sound familiar to you it's because it's an urban school invention. At my school, we have limited facilities. There is no gym or playing field but we do have half a basketball court, proudly fundraised and built by the students last spring. We do not let our lack of facilities keep us from pursuing healthy choices and physical education; we make up games to play with what we have. One of those inventions, before my time, is Trash Ball. A combination of many games you've played before, Trash Ball is basketball without dribbling. Soccer without the kicking or positions. Football without the tackling. The goal is to get the kickball into the trashcan which is held by two people on your own team. It is a moving goal, and rather than tossing the ball past your opponents' keeper, you try to get the ball into your own goal zone. The beauty of Trash Ball is that it doesn't matter how many people play, so we have successfully played with a full class of 34 freshman, boys and girls alike.

After warming up in the classroom, reviewing the rules, and talking up the prestige of being good at Trash Ball, the assistant principal and I lead the crew out to the playing field (otherwise known as the empty parking lot). The AP and I both joined in on the game, which seems to have inspired some of our students and stunned the rest. One of the smallest boys in my afternoon class of freshman came up to me with his big dimples fully depressed and said, with wide eyes, "You are playing with us?!"

"Of course!" I said.

He took a step back and then said incredulously, "But... you are a... woman!"

Keep in my mind my adult life was positively shaped by athletics. Making the basketball team my freshman year of high school saved the quality of my life and helped me finally drop those extra 25 pounds of childhood insecurity. By the time I left high school, I'd joined the Varsity soccer team, and indoor soccer team, and had lead my basketball as the team captain. I often think about sports as a life-saver for me, sports that lead me to backpacking and hiking and a tolerance for hard work and sweat. I've kept on playing, never at any level of superiority, but for fun on co-ed soccer (indoor and out) and basketball teams. It's hard to imagine making it through teenage-hood without play. I have Title IX to thanks along with my small high school with a bad reputation that didn't attract the best athletes which left vacancies on teams for me to fill. So, when my male student charged me with being a woman and thus incapable of playing, something teenage and angry opened up inside of me.

I stepped up to him, ready for a verbal fight. "What did you just say?" I shouted. "You better come with me to the sideline because if you think a woman can't play this game, you have some things to learn right now!"

He backed up, his dimples fading away and a look of fear in his eyes. His buddies must have seen this because they gathered around to hear what I had to say. He tried to backtrack into, "But, Miss... I meant, you are OLD!"

We all know at 27 years, I'm hardly old, but to this 13 year old boy, I'm ancient, old enough to be his mother, old enough to be his teacher. My first instinct was to believe that he was making a comment steeped in the machismo of his culture. I remembered the co-ed indoor soccer pick up games I used to play at the soccer arena in San Jose. Most days I was one of two or three women on the field. Some days I was the only one. My teammates and opponents were mostly men who had recently immigrated from Spanish-speaking countries. It was clear that my presence on the field did not comfort them as they had not had the experience of playing sports with woman in their own countries. It was intimidating to me, too. I felt like I had to constantly prove my worth and my strength on the field. I recall distinctly the day I ran up to defend the approaching forward. I managed to kick the ball away from him before kicking him, accidentally in the ankle. I was about to shove off of him and down the field with the ball when he reached out and held me back, as if catching me from falling. I know he had only the best of intentions and he asked me if Iwas hurt when all I wanted to do was follow through with my steal.

Thankfully, something stopped me from my first instinct. My student wasn't making a sexist remark at all. In fact, he was stunned because I was an adult woman and I was about to play a sport called Trash Ball in a vacant lot with teenagers. If I'd taken a step back sooner, I would have seen how absurd this must look. As I drove home that night I thought about the incident, about how mad I got at my innocent student, and I knew I must apologize to him for yelling and truly being angry with him -- a miscommunication. But, wouldn't you know he wasn't in class the next day and then we had the three day weekend. Finally, yesterday he returned and I pulled him aside as he came into class. I apologized to him for my reaction and explained what I thought he had meant, which he refuted. Girl power's one thing, but I think I'll have to keep in check when it comes to my students.

Then again, maybe not as they are asking for me to get out there and trash talk. I am occupying another world these days, slowly becoming acculturated to my new environment. There is so much about this city that I don't know and certainly don't understand. The day of Trash Ball, my students were calling me out for a challenge. Even the girls, walked right up to me and said things like "I bet you suck at this game," and "I bet we can kick your butt." Again my first instinct was not useful -- to take it personally and feel hurt. So, I let my second kick in and I went out and played even harder, nodded my head at my students as if to challenge them to push even harder. And at the end of the day, I knew that I'd passed one of their tests. They'd passed one of mine too: they had mettle.

Yesterday, I had to ask a student to repeat himself over and over again. I expected to understand a little more each time, but I was really lost. I finally broke into a big smile and said, "I'm sorry. I have no idea what you are saying to me." He laughed too, and responded, "Looks like we'll have to teach you ghetto talk." To which I replied, "You have a lot to teach me." Clearly, I don't need to travel more than eight miles from my home to be very far away from what I know. And clearly, the teacher in me is really the student in me.