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The Nature of a Nickname Community: How feeling unwelcome never felt so goodAn effort to increase community involvement at Elkhorn Middle School by Billy Cosby
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She goes by Bubbles.
Best as I can tell, she is the daytime manager of the Little Caesar’s just up the street from where I work as a teacher at Franklin County’s Elkhorn Middle School.
Her name first resonated with me from the main office at EMS when secretary and Frankfort-lifer, Ms. Clay, said without hesitation, “Let me call and order the pizzas for your Movie Night. I know Bubbles. She was a student here. She gives me a discount.”
Of course Bubbles does.
I knew Bubbles as soon as I saw her (as one does in a room with a person named Bubbles). It had been ten days since Ms. Clay had spoken to her and a single week since the failed Movie Night. My failed Movie Night. My failed effort to improve community involvement at Elkhorn Middle School.
I quickly explained that I needed a copy of a receipt, if possible, for sixteen pizzas ordered the previous Friday. Forty minutes passed. My posture had stiffened. Eyes tightened. Glare hardened. Et tu, Bubbles?
Then she joyfully popped her head around the corner. “These the pizzas that Brandy (Clay) ordered?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
Two minutes later, I was gone. Receipt in hand.
The exchange itself and the forty minutes of foyer-pacing and people-watching that preceded it explained the failure of Movie Night and maybe even the broader irony of community involvement at a place like Elkhorn Middle School.
See, Bubbles isn’t interested in my time as a member of a National Honor Fraternity.
Bubbles probably undervalues my M. Ed. from University of Virginia to a certain degree.
And the scribbled notes of gratitude from a decade-worth of former students in Fayette County? Just. Not. Pertinent. To Bubbles.
But she did care about seeing Tiny, a large man, who came into her Little Caesar’s for a carry-out lunch; she relished his pleasant nod of thanks.
In a revelatory blink brought about by a nod, I watched a nickname community unfold all around me. There was irony. “Slim” was wide. “Anvil” bore the gait of an angel. “Tank” wore a lapel in a cluster of Baby’s Breath. And there was audacity. “Chipmunk,” well, his teeth - his voice, too. And “Juicy” advertised her nickname on the backside of her decoratively-stitched denim jeans, leaning into the counter for effect as best I could figure.
Movie Night at EMS never had a chance because I tried to organize it.
My effort to draw the community into Elkhorn Middle School failed, in part, because of me: the nicknameless in a nickname community.
I thought that the nature of EMS’ community was going to work to my advantage; that a close-knit community would care enough to share the space of its school. Its Movie Night. Its free pizza. Its free wings. Even its Takis.
Instead, they paid for familiarity. They paid for, “I’ll be with you in just one moment.” They paid for Bubbles.
She orchestrated the operation at Little Caesar’s with deliberate fluidity, leading a younger husband and wife pair whose school-age children, both seated behind me on stools, politely played with the pizzeria air.
Watching the same dirty blonde curls weaving from cheese to pepperoni to oven passed down to her youngest child whose tighter, more blonde curls bounced from stool to stool to brother-adjacent made me pause. Made me think that the greatest impact I can make as a teacher won’t be with this year’s students but with this year’s students’ future kids.
When the bulk of generation after generation of a community stay local, a nickname community is formed. And when the bulk stay locally, the expectation is that local services help the next generation function locally, too. It’s sensible and it’s quaint. I assumed that the community of Elkhorn Middle School wasn’t involved when, locally, it’s not just involved. It established its school’s function generations ago. Its community is entrenched.
And it might just be the growing complexities of public education that make it seem unattached. Or make it seem that EMS doesn’t involve its community as much as it should.
As Bubbles was printing off my receipt, vaguely apologetic, I remarked that if I hadn’t thrown the original away, I wouldn’t have put her in that spot to begin with.
She just stared at me. Deeply into me. That was my cue to leave.
Ms. Clay had just hung up the phone at EMS when I walked back into the school, receipt in hand.
“Ms. Clay?” I began.
“Yes?” she said softly.
“That Movie Night that I planned? You knew it was going to fail, didn’t you?”
“Well,” she began, “it did better than most. You had something like twenty-seven, I heard.”
I smiled. “Yeah - still failed, though.”
My first four years of teaching were rife with failure, but they were the common failures of a novice teacher. Luckily, I was back in my Virginia hometown, and the same community support I felt as a prepubescent Floyd T. Binns Bobcat in ‘91 I also felt from 2003 to 2007 as a Floyd T. Binns Blackhawk staff member. From 2007 - 2016, as a Beaumont Middle School Colt, the southwest space of Fayette County provided a sense of belonging that, in hindsight, was stunning.
In fourteen years of teaching, especially after Movie Night, I came to the conclusion that I had never felt so unwelcome in my school’s community.
But then I met Bubbles. I watched her coworkers and heard their children chew kid-sized bites of pizza behind me. And I observed the patrons of that east side Frankfort Little Caesar’s.
In that interaction, it struck me that the pursuit of community involvement at Elkhorn Middle School (and maybe schools like it) is not an inside-out pursuit but a pursuit that begins in the community and returns to the school. It’s the pursuit of longevity. And the pursuit of a nickname in a nickname community.
I’m thinking Hambone.
* Plans to earn the ‘H’ in ‘Hambone’ for the 2017-2018 school year include (1) small-group field trips to local businesses to develop a more intimate/intentional connection with the community (2) a year-long fundraising effort that involves student-created advertisements to benefit local businesses and (3) kickball games versus local law enforcement, fire fighters, civic organizations, etc. to benefit local charities.
She goes by Bubbles.
Best as I can tell, she is the daytime manager of the Little Caesar’s just up the street from where I work as a teacher at Franklin County’s Elkhorn Middle School.
Her name first resonated with me from the main office at EMS when secretary and Frankfort-lifer, Ms. Clay, said without hesitation, “Let me call and order the pizzas for your Movie Night. I know Bubbles. She was a student here. She gives me a discount.”
Of course Bubbles does.
I knew Bubbles as soon as I saw her (as one does in a room with a person named Bubbles). It had been ten days since Ms. Clay had spoken to her and a single week since the failed Movie Night. My failed Movie Night. My failed effort to improve community involvement at Elkhorn Middle School.
I quickly explained that I needed a copy of a receipt, if possible, for sixteen pizzas ordered the previous Friday. Forty minutes passed. My posture had stiffened. Eyes tightened. Glare hardened. Et tu, Bubbles?
Then she joyfully popped her head around the corner. “These the pizzas that Brandy (Clay) ordered?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
Two minutes later, I was gone. Receipt in hand.
The exchange itself and the forty minutes of foyer-pacing and people-watching that preceded it explained the failure of Movie Night and maybe even the broader irony of community involvement at a place like Elkhorn Middle School.
See, Bubbles isn’t interested in my time as a member of a National Honor Fraternity.
Bubbles probably undervalues my M. Ed. from University of Virginia to a certain degree.
And the scribbled notes of gratitude from a decade-worth of former students in Fayette County? Just. Not. Pertinent. To Bubbles.
But she did care about seeing Tiny, a large man, who came into her Little Caesar’s for a carry-out lunch; she relished his pleasant nod of thanks.
In a revelatory blink brought about by a nod, I watched a nickname community unfold all around me. There was irony. “Slim” was wide. “Anvil” bore the gait of an angel. “Tank” wore a lapel in a cluster of Baby’s Breath. And there was audacity. “Chipmunk,” well, his teeth - his voice, too. And “Juicy” advertised her nickname on the backside of her decoratively-stitched denim jeans, leaning into the counter for effect as best I could figure.
Movie Night at EMS never had a chance because I tried to organize it.
My effort to draw the community into Elkhorn Middle School failed, in part, because of me: the nicknameless in a nickname community.
I thought that the nature of EMS’ community was going to work to my advantage; that a close-knit community would care enough to share the space of its school. Its Movie Night. Its free pizza. Its free wings. Even its Takis.
Instead, they paid for familiarity. They paid for, “I’ll be with you in just one moment.” They paid for Bubbles.
She orchestrated the operation at Little Caesar’s with deliberate fluidity, leading a younger husband and wife pair whose school-age children, both seated behind me on stools, politely played with the pizzeria air.
Watching the same dirty blonde curls weaving from cheese to pepperoni to oven passed down to her youngest child whose tighter, more blonde curls bounced from stool to stool to brother-adjacent made me pause. Made me think that the greatest impact I can make as a teacher won’t be with this year’s students but with this year’s students’ future kids.
When the bulk of generation after generation of a community stay local, a nickname community is formed. And when the bulk stay locally, the expectation is that local services help the next generation function locally, too. It’s sensible and it’s quaint. I assumed that the community of Elkhorn Middle School wasn’t involved when, locally, it’s not just involved. It established its school’s function generations ago. Its community is entrenched.
And it might just be the growing complexities of public education that make it seem unattached. Or make it seem that EMS doesn’t involve its community as much as it should.
As Bubbles was printing off my receipt, vaguely apologetic, I remarked that if I hadn’t thrown the original away, I wouldn’t have put her in that spot to begin with.
She just stared at me. Deeply into me. That was my cue to leave.
Ms. Clay had just hung up the phone at EMS when I walked back into the school, receipt in hand.
“Ms. Clay?” I began.
“Yes?” she said softly.
“That Movie Night that I planned? You knew it was going to fail, didn’t you?”
“Well,” she began, “it did better than most. You had something like twenty-seven, I heard.”
I smiled. “Yeah - still failed, though.”
My first four years of teaching were rife with failure, but they were the common failures of a novice teacher. Luckily, I was back in my Virginia hometown, and the same community support I felt as a prepubescent Floyd T. Binns Bobcat in ‘91 I also felt from 2003 to 2007 as a Floyd T. Binns Blackhawk staff member. From 2007 - 2016, as a Beaumont Middle School Colt, the southwest space of Fayette County provided a sense of belonging that, in hindsight, was stunning.
In fourteen years of teaching, especially after Movie Night, I came to the conclusion that I had never felt so unwelcome in my school’s community.
But then I met Bubbles. I watched her coworkers and heard their children chew kid-sized bites of pizza behind me. And I observed the patrons of that east side Frankfort Little Caesar’s.
In that interaction, it struck me that the pursuit of community involvement at Elkhorn Middle School (and maybe schools like it) is not an inside-out pursuit but a pursuit that begins in the community and returns to the school. It’s the pursuit of longevity. And the pursuit of a nickname in a nickname community.
I’m thinking Hambone.
* Plans to earn the ‘H’ in ‘Hambone’ for the 2017-2018 school year include (1) small-group field trips to local businesses to develop a more intimate/intentional connection with the community (2) a year-long fundraising effort that involves student-created advertisements to benefit local businesses and (3) kickball games versus local law enforcement, fire fighters, civic organizations, etc. to benefit local charities.
Best as I can tell, she is the daytime manager of the Little Caesar’s just up the street from where I work as a teacher at Franklin County’s Elkhorn Middle School.
Her name first resonated with me from the main office at EMS when secretary and Frankfort-lifer, Ms. Clay, said without hesitation, “Let me call and order the pizzas for your Movie Night. I know Bubbles. She was a student here. She gives me a discount.”
Of course Bubbles does.
I knew Bubbles as soon as I saw her (as one does in a room with a person named Bubbles). It had been ten days since Ms. Clay had spoken to her and a single week since the failed Movie Night. My failed Movie Night. My failed effort to improve community involvement at Elkhorn Middle School.
I quickly explained that I needed a copy of a receipt, if possible, for sixteen pizzas ordered the previous Friday. Forty minutes passed. My posture had stiffened. Eyes tightened. Glare hardened. Et tu, Bubbles?
Then she joyfully popped her head around the corner. “These the pizzas that Brandy (Clay) ordered?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.
Two minutes later, I was gone. Receipt in hand.
The exchange itself and the forty minutes of foyer-pacing and people-watching that preceded it explained the failure of Movie Night and maybe even the broader irony of community involvement at a place like Elkhorn Middle School.
See, Bubbles isn’t interested in my time as a member of a National Honor Fraternity.
Bubbles probably undervalues my M. Ed. from University of Virginia to a certain degree.
And the scribbled notes of gratitude from a decade-worth of former students in Fayette County? Just. Not. Pertinent. To Bubbles.
But she did care about seeing Tiny, a large man, who came into her Little Caesar’s for a carry-out lunch; she relished his pleasant nod of thanks.
In a revelatory blink brought about by a nod, I watched a nickname community unfold all around me. There was irony. “Slim” was wide. “Anvil” bore the gait of an angel. “Tank” wore a lapel in a cluster of Baby’s Breath. And there was audacity. “Chipmunk,” well, his teeth - his voice, too. And “Juicy” advertised her nickname on the backside of her decoratively-stitched denim jeans, leaning into the counter for effect as best I could figure.
Movie Night at EMS never had a chance because I tried to organize it.
My effort to draw the community into Elkhorn Middle School failed, in part, because of me: the nicknameless in a nickname community.
I thought that the nature of EMS’ community was going to work to my advantage; that a close-knit community would care enough to share the space of its school. Its Movie Night. Its free pizza. Its free wings. Even its Takis.
Instead, they paid for familiarity. They paid for, “I’ll be with you in just one moment.” They paid for Bubbles.
She orchestrated the operation at Little Caesar’s with deliberate fluidity, leading a younger husband and wife pair whose school-age children, both seated behind me on stools, politely played with the pizzeria air.
Watching the same dirty blonde curls weaving from cheese to pepperoni to oven passed down to her youngest child whose tighter, more blonde curls bounced from stool to stool to brother-adjacent made me pause. Made me think that the greatest impact I can make as a teacher won’t be with this year’s students but with this year’s students’ future kids.
When the bulk of generation after generation of a community stay local, a nickname community is formed. And when the bulk stay locally, the expectation is that local services help the next generation function locally, too. It’s sensible and it’s quaint. I assumed that the community of Elkhorn Middle School wasn’t involved when, locally, it’s not just involved. It established its school’s function generations ago. Its community is entrenched.
And it might just be the growing complexities of public education that make it seem unattached. Or make it seem that EMS doesn’t involve its community as much as it should.
As Bubbles was printing off my receipt, vaguely apologetic, I remarked that if I hadn’t thrown the original away, I wouldn’t have put her in that spot to begin with.
She just stared at me. Deeply into me. That was my cue to leave.
Ms. Clay had just hung up the phone at EMS when I walked back into the school, receipt in hand.
“Ms. Clay?” I began.
“Yes?” she said softly.
“That Movie Night that I planned? You knew it was going to fail, didn’t you?”
“Well,” she began, “it did better than most. You had something like twenty-seven, I heard.”
I smiled. “Yeah - still failed, though.”
My first four years of teaching were rife with failure, but they were the common failures of a novice teacher. Luckily, I was back in my Virginia hometown, and the same community support I felt as a prepubescent Floyd T. Binns Bobcat in ‘91 I also felt from 2003 to 2007 as a Floyd T. Binns Blackhawk staff member. From 2007 - 2016, as a Beaumont Middle School Colt, the southwest space of Fayette County provided a sense of belonging that, in hindsight, was stunning.
In fourteen years of teaching, especially after Movie Night, I came to the conclusion that I had never felt so unwelcome in my school’s community.
But then I met Bubbles. I watched her coworkers and heard their children chew kid-sized bites of pizza behind me. And I observed the patrons of that east side Frankfort Little Caesar’s.
In that interaction, it struck me that the pursuit of community involvement at Elkhorn Middle School (and maybe schools like it) is not an inside-out pursuit but a pursuit that begins in the community and returns to the school. It’s the pursuit of longevity. And the pursuit of a nickname in a nickname community.
I’m thinking Hambone.
* Plans to earn the ‘H’ in ‘Hambone’ for the 2017-2018 school year include (1) small-group field trips to local businesses to develop a more intimate/intentional connection with the community (2) a year-long fundraising effort that involves student-created advertisements to benefit local businesses and (3) kickball games versus local law enforcement, fire fighters, civic organizations, etc. to benefit local charities.
Billy Cosby is an 8th grade Language Arts teacher at Elkhorn Middle School and has been a public middle school teacher for fourteen years. A member of the Classroom Teachers Enacting Positive Solutions team, Billy is currently working to involve his students’ families and the community at-large with his school on a more consistent basis. He appreciates his school's community and grit, which he wrote about on Medium. Read it here.
