Letter From A Retiree

Below is a link to a letter in the Washington Post written by a retiring teacher.




http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/03/10/i-have-had-enough-veteran-teacher-tells-school-board/

It's Me Against The Desk...and Gravity

     In order  to engage more effectively with my students, I had a habit of sitting backwards on student desks. Most schools have four legged chair/desk combos. Some schools have the chair with the desk that opens up on the right side and is suspended by the arm attached to the chair. The four legs are on the chair, not the desk. Anyone with half a brain would take one look at the chair with the desk appendage and see that attempting to sit on it is a pretty stupid idea.

     At one point I had a very small class of three students who were in need of extra support and attention. Two of the boys were from Jamaica, barely spoke English, and were having a terrible time at school. They were very nice but far enough apart in age that they should have been separated. Alas, they were not. Another student was a boy whose father was stationed at the nearby Hanscom Airforce Base. He had a rather southern twang to his voice but had come down from Maine. The three of them and me were all an awkward combination, no doubt about it.

     One fine day I went to sit on the desk, feet on the chair. I am what could be described as 'bottom heavy' and when I dropped all of my weight onto the desk, it teetered a bit. I was able to remain on the desk, but I looked at the kids and said, "Oh wow...imagine if I fell? I need to be more careful." They smirked and that was it...until the next day.

      As I stated above, a person with half a brain would never sit the way I had chosen to. A person with a full brain wouldn't have tempted fate by doing the same the very next day. Clearly I was void of both at that point because I threw one leg over the desk onto the chair and dropped my weight onto the desk as I brought  the other leg over. The other leg went over alright. As a matter of fact, they both did, right over my head. The minute I plunked my large, solid behind on the desk it was all over. The desk began to fall forward, so I was falling backwards. Instead of sticking out a leg and standing up to let the desk fall, I let the desk take me right over so that I fell in the chair in front of me, scraping my back as it slid down the seat and I landed on the floor, legs straight up, body in a perfect human V.

     At first the kids did nothing. They just stared, mouths agape, as I rolled over onto my hands and knees and pushed myself up. Thank God I was wearing pants. As I was untangling myself from the chairs and floor, I could only say, "It's ok. Ha ha, I'm fine! I'm fine!" and laughed awkwardly at what had just occurred. I mean, seriously -- what else was I going to do? My back was sore and I had been in probably the most compromising position those kids had seen and would ever see a teacher fall into. Unless, of course, they followed me in my career and saw the other times I bit it. They just sat and stared. No one asked if I was okay. They just stared. Finally I broke the ice and said, "It's okay guys, you can laugh. Go ahead--you might as well because if I were you, I'd be laughing." The boy from Maine was elated at the release of laughter he had been stifling. The other two just smiled.

     "I'm sorry Miss D, but that was funny. REALLY funny." Yeah, I know kid, I was the one on the floor. I gave my best smile, picked up my book, DID NOT sit backwards on the desk, and attempted to continue teaching. Later that day I told a fellow teacher about my stunt and asked her to look at my back. Sure enough, through her howling laughter, she exclaimed, "Oh my God! You have a huge scrape from your mid back to your ass!" It was tender, that is for certain, mainly because of the junk in the trunk, which has successfully saved me and preserved the rest of my body with it's excellent shock absorbing qualities. Thank God it was the only time I had to use it to cushion a desk fall. Falling down the stairs when my shoes were slippery on the bottom and I took out two students as I went down, that is another story entirely.

Twist and Shout

     I am a yeller. I come from a family of yellers. My mother yells. My grandfather yelled. My uncle yells. My cousins yell. We all yell, be it calling someone to dinner or calling someone out, we yell. It’s the way I grew up.

     I had teachers who yelled, many, many teachers who yelled. I had teachers who yelled as they picked up your little second grade desk and shook the contents to the floor so the victim could make his or her desk neat. I had teachers who yelled when students were talking when they were talking. I had teachers who yelled to get our attention during group work. I saw teachers yell down the hall to stop students from misbehaving. I saw teachers take students out into the hall to yell for misbehaving. There was no such thing as an ‘inside voice’ when a teacher felt the need to yell.

     Until now.

     I went to SMS from a rather difficult school placed in the city between Everett and Revere and it required me to yell frequently and loudly. I hadn’t had to raise my voice quite that much in my entire teaching career. Not that it did any good at this particular school because, well, the children were so ill behaved that they either yelled right back or couldn’t hear you because they were too busy talking all at once. I used to have the teacher dream where I am yelling but no students can hear me. That was no longer a dream…it had become a reality.  Upon my arrival at SMS, I was very much on the defensive about students who wanted to challenge me as a result of the daily battles at the other school in the other place I just mentioned.

     To be honest, it was awful to enter into a new school in a reputable community feeling unsure of my ability to keep a class quiet. I don’t enjoy yelling; it is a knee jerk reaction. It has come in handy many, many times in a variety of different situations, such as the time one student was holding another student up against a locker with a forearm to the neck. It stopped the mayhem, even if it was just among friends, but I had yelled none the less. This yell had fallen into the ears of my supervisor who was waiting in a nearby classroom for our monthly department meeting.

     Now, it has been said that I have a very shrill, high pitched yell. People have covered their ears in pain when I yell. I, personally, can’t hear that aspect of my voice. I can only feel the rise from the depths which the yell comes from. When my supervisor held me after the meeting to talk to me, she gently reminded me that yelling at those boys was not a good idea. It could have been handled differently. Really? Very interesting, because I thought when two people are about to kill one another, it would be okay to yell given that I wasn’t within ear shot to state politely, “Now gentlemen, is that any way to treat one another? Please remove your forearm from this boy’s windpipe because he’d like to breath. Yes, yes, that’s it. Remove the arm. Good! Now have a great day and be on your way.” Granted, it was ONLY a choking incident so I probably would have had time to walk calmly over and request ceasing before the choked passed out. Yet somehow, to my supervisor, this would have been the reasonable response be it choking, stabbing, punching, kicking,biting, scratching or shooting.

Admittedly, there are times when I shouldn’t have yelled. But apparently, thanks to the new way of American education and parenting, yelling shouldn’t be accepted at all. Remember the Time Magazine cover with the picture of the woman breast feeding her school aged child? Yeah...that is a reality in more ways than one. 

     For three years I tried very hard to bring my voice down to a pleasurable level. For three years I watched what I said. For three years I expected the exact thing from each of my students. Would you like to know what my review claimed after three years at the same school? I was too strict and my expectations were too high. Too strict essentially meant that I clearly wasn't lactating enough to make sure all of my students had equal time suckling at my teet.

     I didn't need to read the Time article to know what I had known for the past three years: you must breast feed or you can take your tits and go home. If a teacher is not willing to coddle, hug, kiss, pet, and speak like every idiot does when talking to a baby, then that teacher needs to go. Clearly the child's needs aren't being met when they leave their homework in their locker every day and the teacher doesn't let said child go to their locker and gives them a zero. Did I mention that teacher is following the handbook that clearly states "No Going To Lockers During Classes". Yes, it's right there next to No Gum Chewing, No Bullying, No Running In The Halls, and Don't Bring Weapons To School. I should have known that when all of those rules were blatantly ignored, I was in trouble.

     It is this mentality; this twisted way of raising children that has them thinking everything in life is a negotiation or a note written from mom. Excuses such as "Johnnie was with me in the emergency room with me" or "We got home late from a game" are standard. I'm blessed to not have been in need of the emergency room recently, but I'm surprised they now have a policy where "no idle child will be allowed to pull out a book, paper, or writing utensil". What's that you say? There is no such thing as that policy? THEN WHY DIDN'T THE KID BRING THEIR BACKPACK FULL OF WORK???

Even better are the days that apparently everyone was at the hospital with Johnnie's Mommy because not a single Goddamn kid has their work. As a matter of fact, this is an every other day occurrence.     
     That's right, and teachers are supposed to smile, hug, kiss, pet, and dismiss this b.s. habit and make sure the student feels good about themselves and the test we're prepping them for. Bitter? Me? NO!

     This is the point where I'm a little tea pot, short and stout and really pissed off. I'm a kettle that is sitting over an open flame trying really hard not to whistle. Oh, too late, I have to whistle! Seriously, I am supposed to be happy about this and not lose my mind? I lost my mind alright. Every marble took off, every card fell out of the deck, every turd hit the fan and I let loose. I let loose to the point where I scared myself. I yelled. I yelled loudly. The louder I yelled, the more clever my tirade became. I told them that the squirrels outside would be better students than they were. The more clever and loud my tirade became, the less I wanted to stop, but eventually, I did. My chest was heaving, my mouth was dry, and my head was pounding. I looked at the clock and saw a good 35-40 minutes left to the period. Guess what? I made them sit, hands folded on the desk, in silence until the bell rang. Remember those days? That happened twice in one day. What was I going to do with a class whose homework completion was part of the next day's lesson only not too many kids did their homework?  This isn't supposed to bother me, not one bit? Get.Out.Of.Town.

     You see, it wasn't so much that one time they didn't care about homework. No, it was the fact that I was forced to change grades during the first term because so many of them failed due to low homework grades. The administration didn't like that too much, this holding kids accountable crap, so they needed to change. I was against it. I really was, but I wanted my job. I wanted to be there the following year, with tenure, waiting for a position to open up at the high school. I was furious to come in the day after those little brats got their grades only to have them continue to ignore homework. So, I yelled and screamed and ranted and raved like a lunatic. I was the mad dog in To Kill a Mockingbird that was walking sideways and foaming at the mouth. I needed to be put down because I was on a rampage like no other. And let me tell you, it felt good. It felt amazing to give these kids the tongue lashing they deserved.

     The message sent to those students was this: You will pass even if you don't do your homework. In some cases, this might be true, for the super smart kid who is just bored and retains everything taught in class but for the rest of them, not so much. These students saw that even bombing quiz after quiz and test after test, they would still pass. "It's only 8th grade," was what one administrator told me. "You don't want this failure to follow them in their records do you?" Record for what? Colleges don't care about 8th grade so why don't we give them the lesson they deserve, fail them, and make them bring their grade up? Well, that would break their spirit. Really? Let's talk 'broken spirit' when your father dies and upon return to school your shitty attempt at handwriting is handed back to you to be redone, no excuses (see Second Grade Trauma). Take a wild guess what my brilliant supervisor's idea was. I will give you a minute because it's Nobel prize winning, let me tell ya. Ready? No more homework. No more homework! Do all the work in class and then quiz them on it. Let them retake the quiz, in class, until they get a 70, even if they have to retake the assessment 20 times. The kids who got a 100 off the bat? Have them do independent work. Like what? A frigin cross word puzzle? Are you kidding me?

     There will be more about this MENSA later, but for now, let's just say my style of teaching wasn't really meshing with hers...or the upcoming Core Curriculum expectations that have been implemented in schools across the nation.

     Yeah, you bet I yelled. I may have broken sound barriers. But that's okay because I went down yelling and I'm not going to stop, because I refuse to believe that breast feeding contains enough nutrients to sustain minds through high school and college. Which makes me wonder...is it cottage cheese by that time or are we still talking liquid-ish here?