Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Teachers I've Known

In the tenth grade, I transferred from a public school to a small, Christian private school. A minority of people argue that such schools are better. I would say that sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't. It depends on the school.

As for the Christian component, it was not overbearing. We had a chaplain on campus who taught the smaller kids and acted as the vice principal, but he was out of touch with the students. He disliked me from the first, because I disliked those orders of his that I thought were harsh or unnecessary. He felt that I should go along without a murmur in every event, which was a fundamental disagreement between us. After a few incidents and the intervention of the principal, a ceasefire was arranged. Over time, the chaplain learned that I was easier to manage than the others, just as long as he did not act overbearing. It was just a question of style. He tweaked his style and learned to smile once in a while, instead of frowning all the time as he had been in the habit of doing. Before I left the school, we shook hands and wished each other well, and I think that was a satisfactory outcome.

Our principal was pretty good. I liked him. A lifelong bachelor, he was probably gay, but a conservative Christian and closeted gay, if you can wrap your mind around that. He had a photo of himself shaking hands with a Republican President. I liked him because he was kind and understanding, yet also firm enough to keep order. A softie, he wasn't. He also knew more than your average squirrel and taught me a thing or two whenever he substituted for a missing teacher, which was often in our school. His specialty was language, and he knew grammar through and through. I always viewed him as the knight in shining armor, among everyone else in the school. Without exception, all the teachers liked him, and I suspect the parents and students did, too.

Most of the ills of the school were the result of an insufficient budget. The principal did the best he could, but salaries were nowhere near what teachers could earn in public schools. This meant that we got unlicensed teachers who had not yet completed their education, as well as the dregs of the surrounding schools, those who had been fired from other schools for misconduct or a disagreement of some sort or another. The student body was composed of the same sort, including yours truly.

I had an alcoholic French teacher, for instance, who showed up to class sloshed once in a while. Her favorite expression, which punctuated any bad French translation offered by a student, was "merdez-moo!" which supposedly meant "bulls---". This was repeated enough times that I remember and sometimes use the phrase to this day, although not in my writing, because readers wouldn't understand. Her story was that her only son had put a bullet in his brain. She was over the hill, divorced and alone and figured nothing really mattered all that much anymore. She liked me and, in my senior year, would sometimes loan me the keys to her car to pick up food from Taco Bell at lunch. I don't remember ever abusing her trust, although I was tempted. It just seemed too easy to do and I felt she had had enough trouble, all things considered. The boys liked her, but instead of studying French, they preferred to study her camel-toe in class. You can say, "she should have been fired," but that is easier said than done. It is not such a simple matter to replace a French teacher. However, the other teachers disapproved of her, as you can well imagine, and gossip made the rounds, increasing in nastiness until she had to be fired. I think that women can be harsh critics of other women, even more often than of men, for some reason having to do with competition. Yes, she deserved to be fired, but then again, so did some of the male teachers. After that, I think the school went without a foreign language for a while. It didn't make all that much difference to the academic integrity of the school.

Another teacher was a grumpy old man who had issues with anger. If anyone deserved to be fired, it was him most of all. He taught social studies and history, but knew next to nothing and did little more than read from the textbook. I have no idea why he ever entered the profession of teaching, other than unemployment. He was one of the worst teachers I ever had, and I pitied the many boys who ran afoul of the old man's temper. The man knew better than to assault female students, because that would have resulted in serious complications. He was known to seize a boy by the collar, shake him, throw him to the floor, slap and claw like an animal, and scream in his face like a drill sergeant. Sometimes the boy might have said or done nothing at all to deserve this treatment, if it is ever deserved. I was a victim of his wrath once, but only once, but I don't remember the circumstances, and believe that he was lighter on me than on others, just screaming and nothing else. I learned to place myself in a strategic location in the classroom. Like most ogres, his vision was poor, so I placed myself far in the back behind a taller person. I wore dark colors, gray or black, like a ninja, and got into the habit of slouching deep in my chair to appear smaller and less conspicuous. The main thing was staying out of his sight and not saying anything at all or making any kind of noise or any kind of movement. I slept with eyes open in his class, daydreaming until it was over. It was not necessary to pay attention, because his tests were all open-book, and everyone always passed, usually with an "A". The man might have had a problem with his temper, but he was no fool. He didn't want students to make any serious complaints that might jeopardize his job.

Sometimes, a boy appealed to the principal. In such a case, the principal would visit the classroom to ask the teacher for more information, but in reality he was studying the faces of the students to determine whether the teacher had "gone off" again or whether the boy really had been provocative, as sometimes happened. This teacher was given warnings several times. His outbursts did become less frequent, although he remained grumpy and unapproachable. He had a stroke and was forced to resign due to medical issues. I think he died soon after. No one missed him, although some of us remembered his classes as being easy and even entertaining in their own way. As I thought all of the classes were equally easy, I was glad he was gone.

Another teacher I remember was a short, balding, middle-aged man who moonlighted as a gumshoe for suspicious wives and husbands. He was popular among the students, because the boys liked to work for him. He paid the boys minimum wage to sit in a car for hours and just watch people, which is a pretty easy job, but with the boys at my school, I imagine they goofed off rather than do a good job of watching anyone. I wanted to join these stakeouts, but the teacher had already had grievous experiences hiring students, and was not willing to take a chance on any new people. I believe he lost a couple of clients due to botched investigations.

At any rate, one day he became fed up and decided to quit. I think he was displeased with the students who worked for him, because I don't remember the girls or myself giving him any problems in class. The way he went about quitting was unique among teachers. He did not just give two weeks' notice and bow out in silence. Instead, he came to class one day and told all of us how rotten we were, and how he despaired of ever teaching us anything, because we were all a bunch of dunderheads, although he used a profane term. Indeed, his entire lecture was punctuated with profanity. He said we were all going to be losers in life and there was no hope at all, and he was washing his hands of us. He said we would all end up bagging groceries for a living or digging ditches. He abandoned all pretense of teaching, using the entire class period to insult the students, although he didn't insult his fellow teachers or the principal. In his view, the students were to blame for everything.

Late in his monologue, he was interrupted by the principal, who suggested in a quiet voice that he leave the premises. He wanted no dispute with our principal, who was considered a good man by all. In fact, I think the intervention of the principal was like an intervention from Heaven itself, because the man had second thoughts, and began to regret his words. Before he left, he apologized to the class and said he didn't mean any of what he had said earlier.

Although he didn't teach a formal lesson, he did teach us an important lesson, all the same. A lesson of how not to quit a job. He admitted to this with disarming candor, "I've burned my bridges here at this school, but I hope none of you do as I have done, because it's probably not the brightest thing for a man to do." I never followed his tact in later life. Wherever possible, before leaving a job, I gave two weeks' notice and tried to maintain a civil tone. There is no point in wasting breath on people that in all likelihood one will never see again. Just say good-bye and collect the last check. Work is called business for a reason. It's not drama school. Collect the money and go. Case closed.

The other teachers were less colorful, which is to say normal and not all that noteworthy. They tried to teach their assigned classes, instead of using the classroom as a personal therapy session to deal with anger, depression or anxiety. One was a bright young attractive woman whose husband managed a grocery store, and I thought that might be of help vis-a-vis my getting a job. More than anything, I wanted to make money to pay for a car, the dream of all teenagers. Her husband's grocery store, moreover, paid a handsomer wage than the grocery store near my house. I asked her if she would recommend me to her husband. While she claimed that she did, no offer of an interview ever materialized.

Another teacher always seemed to be smiling. In retrospect, she was probably on some kind of psychiatric medication. I liked her and, because of her habit of smiling to everyone, I assumed for a long time that she also liked me. We had a misunderstanding one day that reversed my assumption. I was in the schoolyard minding my own business, but I had a cold and was taking medication for it, making no secret of the fact. She sneaked up on me from behind, seized my arm, and accused me of selling drugs. Of course, I showed her the tabs where the medicine had come from. Nevertheless, she took me to the principal's office, and either the principal or she called my parents. My parents were both at work, however. I am not sure how much time passed, possibly a day or two, but eventually it was confirmed that I was taking medication for my cold. This defused the situation, although I never received any apology. But after that incident, I realized that I was tainted by being a student at this school. With the possible exception of the fired French teacher, none of the teachers trusted any of us and they tended to think the worst of us in any event. That was an intrinsic part of the school's culture, a meme shared by all of the teachers to varying degrees. Some resisted this meme better than others, but it was pervasive and inescapable. Even the good teachers succumbed to it.

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