“Two months ago, when Joseph was at Adams Lake Juvenile, a kid gave him something bad in the boys\u2019 bathroom. \u00a0He went into a stall and swallowed it.<\/p>\n
After a long time, his teacher came looking for him.<\/p>\n
When she found him, he screamed.<\/p>\n
She said he\u2019d better come out of that stall right now.<\/p>\n
He screamed again.<\/p>\n
She said he\u2019d better come out of that stall right now unless he wanted more trouble.<\/p>\n
So he did.<\/p>\n
Then he tried to kill her.<\/p>\n
They sent Joseph to Stone Mountain, even though he did what he did because the kid gave him something bad and he swallowed it. \u00a0But that didn\u2019t matter. They sent him to Stone Mountain anyway.<\/p>\n
He won\u2019t talk about what happened to him there. But since he left Stone Mountain, he won\u2019t wear anything orange.<\/p>\n
He won\u2019t let anyone stand behind him.<\/p>\n
He won\u2019t let anyone touch him.<\/p>\n
He won\u2019t go into rooms that are too small.<\/p>\n
And he won\u2019t eat canned peaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not very big on meatloaf either,\u201d said Mrs. Stroud, and she closed the State of Maine Department of Health and Human Services folder.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll eat my mother\u2019s canned peaches,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Stroud smiled. \u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d she said. \u00a0Then she put her hand on mine. \u201cJack, your parents know this, and you should too. There\u2019s something else about Joseph.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has a daughter.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>I think what I really love about Jack\u2019s family is that Jack knows from the beginning everything there is to know about Joseph, right. That there are no secrets.<\/p>\nThere is no sense that Joseph has shame or should be ashamed of himself, but it\u2019s okay to fully know who Joseph is. There is something so warm and receptive about that family so welcoming.<\/h3>\n
Stacy: <\/b>Yeah,I really relate to the parents’ no-nonsense style. I really relate to that being a mom and having children who are curious and open and about the world. I remember this one time when my daughter was asking these questions, she must have been four, but she was asking these questions about, \u201cWere women in jail too?\u201d And I explained that, \u201cOf course, men and women both ended up in jail for various reasons,\u201d but we ended up in this conversation where we were close to the Chittenden Correctional Facilities, in the car while we were driving, and she asked if she could go see it. Much of that conversation was just being able to talk to her so matter of fact.<\/p>\n
I see his parents doing a lot of that so that Jack doesn\u2019t have to carry the fear of the unknown, but more a clear-eyed sense of being able to see people however they show up.<\/p>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>I think that\u2019s what both you and I love about this book, but also that my students have loved about this book.<\/p>\nGary Schmidt doesn\u2019t treat Joseph like he is broken, like he is less whole because of the trauma he\u2019s endured.<\/h2>\n
Stacy: <\/b>Yes, in fact, he paints him in such an empathetic way. I mean it\u2019s so easy to love Joseph. He\u2019s gentle and resilient. He really does seem like he has come through so much, and he\u2019s so clear in purpose. Which feels so surprising for someone his age that in some way Jupiter has given him that clarity or that ability, to understand exactly where he is in relationship to all the things that have happened to him in his life.<\/p>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>Yes, not everybody sees in that way though?<\/p>\n
Stacy: <\/b>No.<\/p>\nJeanie: <\/b>When he goes to school is a time where he\u2019s not viewed very kindly.<\/h3>\n
In fact, on pages 18 and 19 describes Joseph\u2019s trip to school. Would you like to read that, you do that so beautifully?<\/p>\n
Stacy: <\/b>Sure.<\/p>\nAt least in the classes he had with me, the teachers were careful around him. \u00a0Not like they were afraid of him, exactly– they didn\u2019t hear what he said in his sleep at night, how he\u2019d holler, \u201cLet go, you\u2026\u201d and then words I didn\u2019t even know. \u00a0Or how he\u2019d start to cry and then he\u2019d only say a name, and he\u2019d say it like it was someone he’d do anything, anything to find. Maybe if the teachers had heard Joseph late at night, they might have been a little afraid of him.<\/p>\n
But they were still careful. \u00a0I guess it was enough that once, Joseph tried to kill his teacher. \u00a0That would make a teacher wish Joseph wasn\u2019t at Eastham Middle.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m really sure that\u2019s what Mrs. Halloway thought whenever she looked at him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>That makes me think about how much our students read into our body language, to our intonation, that maybe we don\u2019t even intend for them to pick up.<\/h2>\nThe ways in which we, as educators, are sending these really subtle signals to our students, and that students really interpret those whether it\u2019s about them or about their peers.<\/h3>\n
Stacy: <\/b>I see so much of my students in this book and any student really, that vulnerability. We\u2019re there to advocate for those students. We\u2019re there to believe that all of them have a full potential that they can aspire too.<\/p>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>What you\u2019re making me think about right now is the principal I work with recently said, \u201cIf teachers don\u2019t believe all students can learn, then they don\u2019t belong here.\u201d That idea that, if you don\u2019t believe all students can learn, that shows up. I think I\u2019m not sure these teachers don\u2019t believe Joseph can learn, but there\u2019s something they believe about him that’s showing up in their body language.\u00a0<\/b>It\u2019s why what we believe about teaching and learning matters.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/twitter.com\/innovativeEd\/status\/959232819640881153<\/p>\n
Stacy: <\/b>One of the things I wanted to talk about, a little bit though, was about how often times it feels easy to extend that belief to a student or to a child. Like in this book, it feels so easy to extend for Joseph that he has this whole unwritten part of his life ahead of him, where it feels so hard to do that for his dad.<\/p>\n
It feels so hard to do it for the adults who can\u2019t make that leap as well for him. And I wonder about the message in the book about bias. How we also carry bias for the adults in the system who don\u2019t support kids in that way, and what work needs to be done systemically.<\/p>\n
Jeanie:<\/b> We talked a little bit about how the teachers maybe have a slight bias against Joseph showing up.<\/h3>\n
Mr. Canton, the vice principal at the school, really takes a dislike to him. Do you want to share a passage where Mr. Canton is talking to Jack, Joseph\u2019s foster brother?<\/p>\n
Stacy:<\/b><\/p>\nListen, Jackson,\u201d he said. \u201cI respect your parents. I really do. They\u2019re trying to make a difference in the world, bringing kids like Joseph Brook into a normal family. But kids like Joseph Brook aren\u2019t always normal, see? They act the way they do because their brains work differently. They don\u2019t think like you and I think\u2026.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>How\u2019s Jack feel about Mr. Canton after he says that?<\/p>\n
Stacy: <\/b>I think Jack sees Mr. Canton in an adversarial light, where he never had to before, right? Mr. Canton was always on his side and had no problems with him. Remember, as a vice principal his job is probably very centered around disciplinary action. Perhaps he\u2019s come to have a really black and white view of the world and of kids who fall into one camp: the kind that comes to his office. And the kind that doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\nIt paints for Jack something he\u2019s trying to put his thumb on, what is so different between me and Joseph?<\/h3>\n
Mr. Canton in some ways helps him down the path of seeing much less than you might think. He wants<\/em> to drive a wedge between Joseph and Jack. He wants Jack to understand that he comes from different stock, that he comes from people who can do great things. Unlike this other kid, that he would prefer to not have in the school.<\/p>\nJeanie: <\/b>Mr. Canton even says to him at some point, \u201cYou were never in my office before. But now you are, and why is that?\u201d He wants Jack to say, \u201cOh, I got in trouble because I\u2019m hanging out with Joseph.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stacy:<\/strong> He wants Jack to see the clear path, and instead Jack, much to his credit, sees a more complicated picture about a world he hasn\u2019t been exposed to and injustices that follow kids around in a different way than they have presented themselves to him. I love the way that Mr. Canton\u2019s intended<\/em> impact, or hoped-for influence he hopes to have on Jackson in some ways backfires. Helping Jack see clearly that not all adults are in your corner and that you really need to trust your own insights, your own wisdom, of who somebody is.<\/p>\nJeanie: <\/b>Jack reminds me of so many middle school students I\u2019ve worked with who despise injustice.<\/h2>\nRight, like it\u2019s an age when you see life is supposed to be fair. You believe in fairness and equality, and then it\u2019s not there. It really gets their dander up. In a good way.<\/h3>\n
It\u2019s a powerful emotion for learning. Jack is powerfully motivated by the injustice he sees Joseph have to endure.<\/p>\n
Stacy: <\/b>Yeah. There\u2019s a scene at which point someone\u2019s trying to figure out if they are related, if they are brothers. I won\u2019t give away any of the spoilers around it, but they say, \u201cOh, you\u2019re not brothers?\u201d He kind of stands up straight and he says, \u201cNo, but I\u2019ve got his back.\u201d I love the sense that he understands how you can stand with someone. How he can be an up-stander and how in a way that is family. I love how he understands the importance of that connection with Joseph.<\/p>\nJeanie: <\/b>He also doesn\u2019t really take guff from Joseph, right? I mean a little bit.<\/h3>\n
Like Joseph always calls him Jackie, and he\u2019s like, \u201cJack.\u201d He\u2019s not a pushover to Joseph. Yet Joseph also teaches him how to throw rocks at the church bell and make it ding, right? Teaches him really how to throw with accuracy. He teaches him, just as he\u2019s helping out Joseph with the skills that he needs to succeed in school, there\u2019s this other side. Or how to succeed with the cows, there\u2019s this other side where Jack is a recipient of Joseph\u2019s knowledge and understanding.<\/p>\n
Stacy: <\/b>Yeah, and I think that\u2019s a theme all throughout. Everyone is growing in the story.<\/p>\n
Everyone’s changing and everyone’s influencing each other. I also really love how that idea of being in someone\u2019s orbit comes into play with that title. I love how yes, the reason that they’re all together is because a child was born, right?<\/p>\n
The reason they are all here is all of the sequence of events that happened because Joseph became a father. So there\u2019s that piece of the title, but there\u2019s also just the sense that… all sorts of interstellar materials orbit around this thing. They’re all in orbit with each other. There is this gravity and this center and that they are in it together.<\/p>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>If we were to name the plot of this book, how would you summarize the basic plot without giving away the ending?<\/h2>\n
Stacy: <\/b>I think Joseph\u2019s in search of his daughter. But it\u2019s also this one true pure thing. The thing that drives him is this idea that comes out of one true pure relationship with Maddie, with the mother of Jupiter. It\u2019s this thing that cuts through all the chaff of everything else in his life that stands in stark contrast with what his father stood for, and what his relationship with his father might\u2019ve looked like. Yes, it\u2019s a planet, but it also feels like a guiding compass, a North Star.<\/p>\n
Jeanie: <\/b>For me that\u2019s about love, and it reminds me that it\u2019s also what we, all of us as humans, are in search of, is love and belonging, right? Our students are in search of that too. Sometimes they don\u2019t know the best way to get that. Sometimes their misbehaviors are hiding what they are really after.\u00a0<\/b>Which is a sense of acceptance and belonging, and love.<\/p>\nWe all want to be loved.<\/h3>\n
Stacy: <\/b>That\u2019s right. I was thinking, I love that this story comes from the point of view of Jack. How do you tell a story about someone who may not be trusting or rushing to tell you their life story? So the story comes in fits and spurts, and allows for a lot of spaciousness in the storytelling.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a scene where the physical embodiment of ice-skating brings about the ability for Joseph to pour out a big piece of his story It\u2019s so indelibly impressed in my mind, that scene. Because you understand that way that something you physically embody like that? When you experience such strong emotion like love or joy, or just pure connection with another person? How that could be reanimated for you when you experience it again in your body.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a reminder that so many things are stored in our body, good and bad.<\/h2>\n
The trauma and also the love and the joy. That\u2019s one of my favorite parts of the book, is getting out on the ice and the way that Gary Schmidt uses it as a way to do a flashback. Which is sort of a necessary need for the plot, to be able to get some of this kid\u2019s back story when he\u2019s so closed.<\/b><\/p>\n