Mr. Sweeney The Sweetie

      When I was in 5th grade my family moved from Arlington, MA to a small central Mass town named Hubbardston. I was heartbroken. I loved the man who was to be my stepfather but I didn't want to leave all I knew behind, especially in exchange for trees, trees, and more trees. Arlington was my home. Hubbardston was only (ONLY!) an hour away but it may have been Alaska for all I knew. 9 years old and zero control over any part of my life seemed absolutely unreasonable given that I declared at age 5 I could do whatever I wanted. At age 5 doing whatever I wanted included such luxuries as no bed time, not going in when called, ignoring all adult requests if I felt like it, and going where I pleased when I pleased, i.e. to the corner spa for Slush Puppies after breakfast. It didn't need to include long distance transport because everything I needed was within walking distance or a whine away.

     Kids find ways to cope with transition and change any way they can, good, bad, or indifferent. My way of coping was being social and my way of being social was close to down right obnoxious. I wanted to be accepted and the way I went about being accepted was by having annoying crushes on boys and disregarding anything that wasn't easy for me, like school. School had been somewhat easy for me up until then. I started my education at St. Agnes in Arlington. I made it through 3rd grade before I'd had enough of uniforms and looming religious statues that reminded me of how awful I was for sinning on a daily basis. My mother let me transfer to the public school in our neighborhood for 4th grade and I loved it. It was long before MCAS and current education practices so the level I entered 4th grade with was higher than the public school. I can say what I will about Catholicism but I can't say I didn't get the foundation of an excellent education at Catholic school.

     When I moved to Hubbardston, it was a different kind of new school experience than I had in Arlington.  I couldn't go home in the afternoon and find the neighborhood kids I grew up with  and play with them, kids who already accepted me and loved me. I was brand new. Hubbardston had one elementary school in comparison to Arlington's 6+. There was no avoiding the fact that I was going to have to find a way to fit in and focusing on school was the last thing on my mind.

     I can't say if Hubbardston was more difficult in it's curriculum but I can say that it didn't fit into my social agenda. My life had changed drastically in the past three years. My father had died at his own hand, my mother met and was remarrying another man, and we were moving to a new town. Survival seems like a dramatic term, but that was what I was doing when I was dismissing my studies, surviving. One class that was sinking my ship was social studies. I hadn't really had social studies the way that Hubbardston was peddling it so when I first sat in Mr. Sweeney's social studies class, I had no clue what I was in for.

     Mr. Sweeney was a slim, small man with glasses and black hair in about his 50s, if not 60s. I could be way off because I perceived him as teacher age and who the hell knows what that is at age 9. He didn't smile or laugh. He taught his way and he didn't tolerate any shit. In hind sight, he was the quintessential school teacher of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It was 1988 and he was still in the no bullshit mode so between that and my survival tactics, I was screwed.

     Mr. Sweeney was teaching us ancient history. We had to remember dates and who did what when, which is normal for history. It was not normal for me because I had never done it before and I wasn't clear on, or didn't care, what his idea of acceptable effort was. He had something called Thought Questions which today would be defined as an essay question. He gave us a question or prompt and without the book we had to answer it in full, dates, names, places included. As a teacher, it is an excellent way to get kids writing and thinking....hence THOUGHT Question. As a student, I hated it. So what did I do? I ignored school, mainly social studies.

     I've already made it clear that my mother didn't take any nonsense. She didn't give a rat's ass what my excuse was for much of anything because chances are I was being lazy, lying, or dramatic. My perception of how much Mr. Sweeney hated me was no different. She threatened me with military school on a regular basis. My father's death was no excuse for any kind of acting up or out, or any odd behavior really. It wasn't so much a cruelty on her part but a way of life and her idea of survival. You pick yourself up by the boot straps and you keep going. In an ideal world where I am void of the emotional Italian gene and genetic predisposition for depression, that would work. But, alas, I was the epitome of emotional Italian and I would have worn black for the rest of my childhood to show mourning if it had been an option. Back then, despite my weekly trips to a child psychologist, there was no reason to stop living or misbehave. I was expected to do what I was told and what she and my stepfather knew I was capable of doing without question, at all times. However, I was having a tough time all around.

     Mr. Sweeney may or may not have been privy to why I was such a nightmare. No one talked about death and suicide as a reason to take it easy on a kid back then. The school didn't even know until I told them that my father had not only died, not only shot himself, but did so while I was taking a bath. The school counselor called my parents immediately and on their end, it wasn't something they were sympathetic towards but embarrassed about. We had moved to start a new life and there I was, running my mouth, airing the family laundry in public. In reality, I was crying out for help of some sort because I didn't know what the hell was going on in my head or that I was most likely depressed. Needless to say, my parents were not impressed with me or my behavior, never mind my declaration of family laundry.

     I continued to brush off school. I was constantly grounded. I got caught cheating for social studies. By 'got caught' I mean that when my mother found my stone washed jeans with a huge blue pen scribble on the leg and asked what it was with complete aggravation, I defended myself with, "IwroteonmylegtocheatinsocialstudiesbutIdidn'tuseit". Similar to when I stole two strawberry candies from the sub shop in Arlington, she marched my ass right up to school the next morning so I could tell Mr. Sweeney that I had cheated. I think he was as surprised as I was that my parents actually went through with it. We needed to remember three sets of dates, in the B.C. range for a Thought test. As is almost always the case with my few attempts to cheat, once I wrote down the info to remember on some surface, I no longer needed to actually look. I remembered those dates perfectly for the test. I didn't remember them when I got home that night or even the next day. Now, don't ask me what happened with that Thought Test because I assume I was made to take it over or even get a zero. The point here is this: I was in a pre-adolescent nervous breakdown and under no circumstances was I going to get away with misbehaving. It simply was not acceptable.

     And when things didn't improve, and the twelve walls of my bedroom were becoming like indelible images in my brain (I lived in a round house with 12 walls), my mother was furious. Of course, she threatened reform school and I took her seriously. If I didn't get a C in social studies, my ass was grass and she wasn't simply a lawn mower, she was a freakin' tractor. Poor Mr. Sweeney, I think he felt my pain. He probably saw the fire in my mother's eyes the night she went to a conference with him and told him I would be attending reform school if I didn't get a C in his class. I don't want it to be mistaken, she didn't threaten Mr. Sweeney into giving me any grade; she simply shared with him that I would no longer be getting away with my crap if all of my grades didn't add up to a C. She didn't expect a C, she expected the truth and if truth was a D, then I was packing my bags.

     Somehow, someway, Mr. Sweeney came through for me because when I got that report card and saw a C, I was elated. I showed my mother, smiling, and was met with the look of steel.

     "That was a gift," she told me. I was confused.

     "What do you mean?" Why the hell wasn't she pumped? I managed to get a C!

     "You didn't get a C. You should have gotten a D. Mr. Sweeney obviously felt bad for you when I told him that you'd be going to reform school if you didn't get a C." It never even crossed my mind that it could have been a threat or a suggestion or anything. I saw it for what it was -- she was pissed and it was because of me, not Mr. Sweeney who was doing his job.

     "Oh," I said, mentally shrinking into the floor.

     " 'Oh' is right! He won't be so nice next time so I suggest you stop being so Goddamned lazy and do the work you are capable of. You are not trying your hardest. You better thank your lucky stars that he was nice enough to help you." I'm sure I had a smart ass response, but deep down, I was thanking Mr. Sweeney. He didn't have to help me, but he did. Did this mean he liked me? No...wasn't possible...or was it? Either way, I had a new respect for him. I never told anyone I respected him, but I did. I still don't know, and never will, if he knew my situation or not. What I do think he knew was that my mother was serious and no teacher, not even me, wants to be the reason some kid is being so severely punished. I had a student who made me absolutely insane with laziness and lying and so forth. His mother threatened to take away Christmas, which she had apparently done before, and I just couldn't bring myself to make that happen. I expect kids to tow the line, but I just couldn't be the reason some sixth grade boy wouldn't get any gifts for Christmas. Seniors who think they never have to do a lick of work after the first semester of school, different story, but a kid, and an immature one at that, I just couldn't do it.

     Mr. Sweeney was my social studies teacher the following year as well, in sixth grade. It went much smoother, I think, than fifth. By then, it was my big mouth that was getting me grounded, not bad grades. Either way, never at one point did I expect that I would be coddled because of my home life or parental situation. My mother didn't expect it and my teachers weren't offering it. And just like Ms. Kostandos, there was an expectation I was to meet and if I didn't, I would have to work at it until I did. It wasn't about learning the material; it was about the discipline and shaping of a human being that mattered. You know, back in the day when teachers were allowed to be a part of that, shaping a human as opposed to coddling one? Hands down, whether I liked it or not, Mr. Sweeney helped shape me. It is something I admire in a teacher. If we were all more focused on shaping humans as opposed to testing them, we'd be a much different society. 

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?