It’s an exciting time, the opening of school … crisp new folders, notebooks, backpacks … new clothes, new teachers …and new students. I loved going back to school as a student, even more so when I was a teacher. There is a verisimilitude encompassing the excitement and the opportunity to start anew. How often to you get a chance at a fresh start?
There is a texture, a fulfilling challenge to the profession of teaching that begins again every year. I miss it.
The following is a piece that I wrote in 2008. I could have written it this morning.
I was the first appointment on that Friday. By 9:45 I was comfortably seated, hot coffee in hand, waiting for the chemicals to turn back the hands of time. I’d brought some work along with me, but being the weak-minded person that I am, I was easily distracted by the assortment of gossipy magazines and the conversations in the salon
My stylist’s second appointment arrived. Slowly and inexorably my attention was drawn to the conversation initiated by the new client. My stylist was enthusiastically telling her about the superb skills of two of her son’s teachers. Her son, early on diagnosed with learning difficulties, had struggled in high school until he had the good fortune to be assigned to these gals. We knew this boy from his visits to the salon and from his mother’s stories. We watched him grow from the bump in his mother’s belly to the handsome young man he is today. We learned about his love of nature and art and the challenges he faced in certain types of classes. It was only last month that I sent him a book about American history that I thought would catch his interest. It was wonderful to hear that he was blossoming under the tutelage of these teachers.
“Teachers are paid way too much for what they do,” the woman in the chair said. My attention was riveted.
The hairdresser, one of my favorite people in the world, countered, “But they inspire and lead young minds. They prepare them for success in later life.” You could hear the anxiety in her voice. I wondered how sage it was for the client to dispute the assessment of the person who was working on her hair with sharp objects in hand.
“Yeah, and they work from 9 to 2. What a rip off! And all that homework? … just a way to get out of work.” The woman continued with a caustic series of condemnatory comments about teachers and education in general.
I knew that my stylist, my long-time friend, was exercising great restraint. She glanced my way. Did she want me to enter the conversation? Ask the woman to step outside? She was at least five inches shorter than me. If nothing else worked, I could sit on her.
It took me only a second to decide that the critic in the stylist’s chair wasn’t worth the effort. She was one of those negators (I made up that word,) someone who finds joy in criticism, any criticism which makes her seem knowledgeable. She was, I thought, one of those who find delight in blowing out your candle so hers seems brighter. So, discretion in mind and with a mantra that I find comes in handy in such situations (“I am an adult, I am an adult,”) I changed the subject by interjecting my observations about dry indoor air and allergies.
“Mary Beth, do you have a tissue? I just can’t seem to find the right medicine for my allergies. I’ve tried so many of those medicines. They work for a while and then they don’t.”
The critic then started a diatribe against pharmacists, doctors and the medical profession in general. Geesh!
But what could I have said to convince that woman that she was so wrong? Could I have said that when I was teaching, my days started at 8 a.m. and continued until late at night? I could have told her how long it takes to write a functioning lesson plan; to modify that plan based on changes in what happened in class, on the evolving needs of the children within the framework of the curriculum. I could have pointed out that marking papers for 150 students takes hours and hours of work outside the classroom; that there were many days that ended after midnight; that homework is the same as practice, whether for the piano, soccer, football or drama.
I could have described the red-haired boy standing in front of my desk, tears streaming down his cheeks, as he handed me his text book. His foster parents, who he had believed were to become his adoptive parents, were divorcing and they were sending him “back.”
I could have told her about the 12-year-old who begged to sit up front, close to my desk, whose 28-year-old mother was often not home, and whose only friends were a pair of hermit crabs given to him by one of his mother’s boyfriends.
Would she have understood about a teenage girl’s bad behavior in class and her pain because her grandmother died, the grandmother who cared for her while her mother dealt with severe clinical depression? Would she count the hundreds of ordinary, good kids who tried their best or who needed a bit more to try their best?
I wonder if she could have understood how wonderful it feels to find a way to integrate the learning strengths of a student who had been struggling, as my hairdresser’s child struggled, with learning disabilities, into classroom successes.
I wonder if she would believe that the teachers with whom I worked lost sleep at night worrying about their students who were having difficulties, how they sought counsel and help to find ways to reach them? Would she comprehend the passionate power of teachers working together for the benefit of the students? How would she critique the effort of a group of teachers who, despite scheduling difficulties and a dearth of material, were able to teach the Civil War across the curriculum, engaging middle school children through math, English, art and social studies at the same time?
Would she be able to conceive how fabulous it is to give a child the tools to learn on their own?
I had visions of assigning this malcontent to teach 150 different students every day; hold her responsible for their success in mastering a program of study working with children whose home lives were challenging at best, listening to parents denigrate their own children and trying to make sense of the latest flavor of the year handed down from the state education department, often thought to be staffed by relatives of the flying monkeys.
I also wondered what this woman’s hair would look like if I were to change places with the stylist. And I wonder if she could understand the joy.
