The Kingdom of Childhood

But she wasn’t Bobbie. I liked Sandy, but she was only the woman I had been assigned to help get oriented on short notice; and though we might be real friends one day, we weren’t now. She was youngish and pretty and unmarried and still winked at life to suggest it come and get her. If she and I had anything in common beyond our place of employment, I did not have the ego to presume it.

And so I followed her brisk walk to the multipurpose room, hurrying on my shorter legs to keep up. Partway there she reached over and patted me on the back, as if to say she understood, or, perhaps, that she pitied me.

“We had an auditor from the Department of Health in our office this morning,” our headmaster told us teachers as we settled in for our meeting. “She is concerned about the number of religious affidavits we have on file in lieu of vaccination records. Also, it seems we have a number of families who have turned in neither a vaccination record nor an affidavit. Clearly our record-keeping leaves much to be desired.”

We stared uncomfortably at our shoes.

“We will be following up with those families in the coming weeks,” he continued. “The longer this continues, the more it makes the pro-vax and anti-vax families feel at odds with each other. We cannot afford to give anyone the impression that the atmosphere at this school is contentious. And when I say we can’t afford it, I mean that very literally. Which brings me to our next item.”

I looked up from the floor, glad to move on.

“In light of the current situation,” Dan began in an artificially cheerful voice, “we have decided to hold our first annual class ring sale for the Upper School, beginning Monday.”

The murmur was immediate, but I looked left and right despite it, calculating from my colleagues’ expressions whether they felt as shocked as I did. Surprise, but not disapproval, was apparent on the faces around me. I lifted my hand and spoke without being acknowledged.

“I disapprove,” I said.

Dan met this with a thin smile, clearly prepared for my reaction. “I understand, Judy, but the board of trustees has decided it.”

“Then the board of trustees needs to reconsider,” I countered. “Those rings can cost hundreds of dollars. They represent exactly the sort of consumerist culture we oppose here. The parents are not going to like that one bit.”

“We receive eighteen percent of each ring sold.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care if we make a hundred percent. It’s a complete contradiction of the values of the school. I understand we need to raise funds, but that is the wrong way.”

Andrea Riss, the first-grade teacher, spoke up. “Judy…with respect, our other options haven’t been realistic. The recorder and lunch basket sales netted us very little. I don’t know how it is in the kindergarten, but my classroom is suffering. Most of my chairs have threadbare seats and I only have two knights left in my castle. And my harp hasn’t had strings for a year now.”

A clamor of complaints went up. I looked at Dan, expecting him to call for order, but he remained silent in his chair, tapping a pen against his notebook and gazing in my general direction. Finally I spoke above the din.

“I do understand,” I said, and waited for the noise to die down. “But tight budget or not, this is a Waldorf school. For almost twenty years I’ve been explaining to parents why their five-year-olds can’t wear their Spider-Man and Little Mermaid shirts to school. I’ve led more seminars than I can count about the kiddie industrial complex. I will break out in hives if we send these kids home with glossy brochures for some artificial trophy they can buy on an installment plan. The idea is—” I considered my adjective for a moment. “Repugnant.”

“Well, the trustees have approved it.” Dan met my glare with a look of false good humor. “Let’s move on.”

“Let’s discuss it further.”

His gaze turned icy. “Let’s move on.”

At the end of the meeting, I gathered up my bags a bit too slowly and got caught behind the cluster of teachers filing out of the room. His hand fell heavily on my shoulder. “Judy, can I speak to you in private?”

He closed the door behind the last teacher and turned to me with an apologetic frown. “I knew you weren’t going to be happy about that. I felt it coming as soon as the trustees gave me their recommendation.”

“I’m astonished that you signed off on it. How could you? Class rings, of all things. How about a Duke Nukem video-game tournament? We could charge admission.”

“You’re overreacting.”

I widened my eyes in indignation, but he held up one hand. “Don’t start with your list of the principles this school was founded on. I’ve been working in Steiner schools for as long as you have. Your board recruited me here based on that. Because this school was failing.”

“It’s never been failing. It’s been poorly managed.”

“You’re damn right it has been. I’d never seen a College of Teachers so dysfunctional, and you served on it. We wouldn’t need to make these concessions if the school had gotten its act together five years ago, or ten. How white is your classroom?”

Confusion took the edge off my anger. “What?”

“How white is it in there? Because we can’t bring in kids from the neighborhood without financial aid, and we can’t provide financial aid if we can’t even cover our utility bills. We have to take whichever families can pay, and you know what that means. The school gets whiter and richer and richer and whiter, and if you ask me, that’s selling out the principles more than the rings ever could.”

I glared at him without replying.

“You need to face facts, Judy,” he said, his voice lower than before. “This is about survival. I didn’t pack up my family and move across the country so I could bring down your school. That should be obvious enough to you. My son is in your class, for God’s sake. I came here because I believe in this. But my first priority is to keep our heads above water. It has to be.”

“‘Life is the unknown and the unknowable,’” I quoted, “‘except that we are put into this world to eat, to stay