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By the term "discipline", I am referring to that particular sort of
student behavior which teachers and administrators worry about so much
in a school. Of course, what they are really worried about is the lack of
discipline on the part of the students - or, more accurately, a lack of
respect for them the teachers and administrators (said students may be
disciplined in their lack of respect!)
Now over the course of my thirty-odd-year (or odd thirty-year) career as
a teacher, I've had plenty of occasions to worry about discipline in my
classes. After all, I tended, by a natural tendency (some have called it a
"character flaw") to a rather informal style of teaching - one which
included much joking and kidding from early on. Ever hear the admonition
"Don't smile until Christmas"? On the first day of school I would invariably
introduce myself as "My name is Mr. May - as in the month we all wish it
were!" And, over the course of my illustrious (chequered?) career, I have
received a whole gamut of responses to that introduction of myself, from
dead silence, to chuckles, to guffaws. Such sorts of responses tended to
alert me as to what I might expect from the class during the year. (Of
course, my joking alerted them as to what to expect from me during the year
as well!)
Now although I have taught at a dozen schools during my sterling (if
tarnished) career, virtually all the vignettes below derive from my
experiences in one school on the North Shore of Boston, where I taught,
and/or tried to teach, for six-and-one-half years. It was my longest
stretch of any job; and it is the only school at which I received tenure.
So these are tales from classes at Peabody (for such was the name of
that system) Veterans' Memorial High School. They are all incidents of a
mostly humorous nature still recalled, mostly with affection, after these
many years. None strives to be anything more than a thought-bagatelle, a
wisp of memory. They each simply describe an incident between teacher and
pupils with a suggestion of the subject of discipline hanging about them.
The reader of the accounts called "Interviews" may detect an irony with
the present vignettes: whereas in the former I usually opened my mouth one
time too often, in the latter it could be argued that I didn't open that
mouth with disciplinary admonitions nearly enough. My only excuse is that in
many cases what was said or done by the students took me by such complete
surprise that I was too flabbergasted to formulate a suitable response on
the spot. It remains a matter for debate as to whether, in any of the cases
depicted, the non-response turned out in retrospect to be the best one!
8 March 2005
Bust Balls
Cheeze-It
Clickah
Double Entendre
Evan
Finger
Fireball
Game Boy
Hangin' Out
Mother Teresa
Moving Up
New York Times
Petition
Pony
Proxy
Rob
Robin
A Room of My Own
Serpent
Stupid
Tribunal
Ups & Downs
Watching My Back
Winking at Success
World Series
Bust Balls
The Department Chairman at this high school was a streetwise tough who'd
grown up in a working class suburb of Boston. Thus, his ideas for classroom
management were rudimentary, to say the least. For example, once when I was
experimenting with a class in the formulation of mathematical principles (we
were having a parliamentary debate), the Chairman poked his head in my room,
took me aside, and said, "You gotta be a cocksucker - they can't do nothin'
creative!"
Yes, he preferred psycho-sexual imagery, this Chairman who reserved the
Honors pre-Calculus class for himself while relegating the "problem" classes
to the likes of me.
One afternoon near the end of the school year I was about to enter a
classroom to teach when the Chairman called to me from down the hall:
"Don't forget - next year you have to bust some balls!"
I don't know which took me aback more - the suddenness of the
admonition; the public place in which it happened; or its brutal frankness.
Whatever - I entered the classroom in a daze. One student at least noticed
and asked me what was wrong. Fed up, I decided to throw caution to the winds:
"I just saw my Department Chairman in the hall, and he told me that next
year I was going to have to bust a part of my students' anatomies."
"Their asses?" inquired a fellow helpfully.
"No, not that", I replied.
"Their balls?" asked a sweet demure girl.
"Yeah, their balls", I assented.
"But that's not you, Mr. May!" she said with feeling.
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Cheeze-It
It was a typical afternoon in my pre-Algebra class. Which is to
say, they were failing to take seriously my exhortations as to how, with a
little more effort, they could pass from the "pre" stage of Algebra to its
actual Essence. No, they chose to fiddle while Rome burned; or, rather, they
set Rome ablaze and then they fiddled.
And so, since things were flying at me up front whenever I turned my
back, I decided to remove two of those conditions contributing to my
discomfort (and their merriment), namely: that front, and my back.
So I set them to work on some problems, and I stood facing them over to
their side. After all, I reasoned (which shows to what lowly state noble
Reason had sunk in my mathematics class!), no one can launch a missile
obliquely, and certainly would not dare to do so while I am watching their
every move. So I watched all their profiles all the time. Not even daring to
blink, I watched and watched and watched...
And then, abruptly, a Cheeze-It bounced off my forehead.
Well, they thought that was the funniest thing ever! As for me, well,
once I had gotten past a certain loss of dignity (that only took a second or
two), I found myself in something like - admiration - that something like
that could be carried off - something so imperceptible and yet so accurate!
So I smiled, shrugged, and shook my head to indicate the range of my
emotions: my own incredulity about the act; my admission that, despite the
best-laid plans, I'd been Had; and just a hint of an admonishment.
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Clickah
I was hired at PVMHS after the Christmas break to replace an older
teacher who had precipitately retired. I soon suspected that she had
been deliberately given a horrible schedule in order to force her out; for I
inherited no fewer than three pre-Algebra classes, any one of which was a
distinct challenge.
In one of these classes I was walking around the room ("like God in the
Garden of Eden") checking students' work, when I overheard a little
anemic-looking girl talking about "Clickahs" and "Head-Bangahs". Knowing
that I would have fewer problems if I showed a genuine interest in my
students' concerns, I asked politely, "And are you a Clicker?"
"Oh boy you call me a Clickah I swear to god I'll punch you asida de
head!"
I hastened to reassure her that, no, I was not calling her a Clicker,
heaven forbid! That, as a matter of fact, I distinctly preferred "that
Head-Bangah stuff" myself.
That seemed to calm her down. And from then on I chose distinctly
neutral subjects to discuss with her - like mathematics!
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Double Entendre
(I am sometimes reminded of that story of the psychologist who was
showing ink blots to a patient. Whatever image the doctor showed him, the
patient would reply with words like "penis" or "breast". Finally the doctor
asked the patient if he thought he had a dirty mind. "Not at all" the
patient replied indignantly. "You're the one drawing the dirty pictures!")
The bell had rung several minutes before and I was well into my lesson
for the day in my level 3 Algebra class, when there was a knock at the door.
It was two of my students (including the infamous one whose name graces the
vignette "Al Alpuerto") arriving late from lunch. I admonished them:
"Could you guys try to come a little sooner from now on?"
Instantly they responded in unison in the deep rhythmic tones of the
Male Imbecile:
"DATS WAT SHE SED!"
Should I have punished them for talking dirty? With justification they
could have turned the tables on me: I was the one engaging in potty-mouth -
a fact they were simply acknowledging.
"Silly boys!" I exclaimed with affectionate impatience as I yanked them
into the room.
Oh yes, there were many more DATS WAT SHE SED!'s in that class during
the course of the year whenever there was the barest hint of a double
entendre. All of which I endured with quiet resignation.
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Evan
During the three years that I taught at The Rivers School, there were a handful of African-American students there. By far the most interesting of these was named Evan Burroughs.
I'm afraid that Evan fit the stereotypes for his race. He was an excellent jazz musician (I once heard a superb piece he had written for the Jazz Band); and he was the star of the school basketball team (he made over 1000 points while at Rivers.) He was also an indifferent student academically. Oh yes, he made a few stabs at studying; but his heart just wasn't in it.
The following are a handful of anecdotes about my interactions with Evan.
1. Evan was in my geometry class during my first year at Rivers. That was when I started having trouble walking -- and my classes were in far-flung buildings (the school eventually moved my room.) Even standing up and writing on the board was difficult, so that my whole way of teaching was being called into question.
At the same time I was under some misguided assumptions about what kind of behavior to expect from private school students. I assumed that all of them would be docile and obedient out of the fear that bad behavior would get them thrown out into the public schools. I found out soon enough how wrong I was.
One bit of subterfuge that Evan and at least one other student would use was to ask to go to the bathroom and then not return for the rest of the period. A combination of my concern with my own physical problems and a fuzziness about the rules there (though you would think that not returning to class would constitute a violation of a universal rule for schools!) resulted in my missing those infractions. So I'm afraid that Evan received neither a good geometry education nor a respect for my disciplinary skills.
I had Evan in my Topics class two years later and everything was different. By that time I knew my students and I knew what the rules were. I had also taught the same course the previous year: it was my one success story, as I had used the material to develop a student-centered classroom free of my limited physical skills.
So when Evan tried his little trick of asking to use the restroom and then not returning, I immediately turned him in for detention. He was soon cured of that peccadillo!
2. But he was dramatically resourceful. It was not infrequent that Evan would be the first one to my class when the period was starting. He would come up to me and throw his arms around me and bury his head against my chest in a big long silent bear hug. The first few times this happened, I would say to myself in wondrous disbelief: "He loves me after all!" But then a doubt began to steal over me. And sure enough -- it turned out, incredible as it may seem, that Evan had not done the homework due that day.
3. I was the basketball timer for the men's team in my third year at Rivers, and so I got to see Evan's skills on the court close up. He really was as awesome as people said he was even though he stood well under 6 feet tall.
One afternoon I got to the Fieldhouse early in order to set up my timing apparatus. The team was busy running through some drills shooting baskets and the like. One time as he ran by me, Evan casually dropped a sheaf of papers on my table. I picked it up and looked at it: it was the latest project for our Topics class. I had to marvel at the dramatic flair, the aplomb of the man in carrying off this graceful and humorous gesture -- something which was only diminished a bit by the fact that the project was several days overdue.
4. It was near the end of the men's championship basketball game that I saw Evan's true nature.
Rivers was down by one point and had possession of the ball. There were nine seconds left to play in the match.
The Fieldhouse was in pandemonium. People were screaming and stamping their feet. Players were melting down. Evan was inbounding the ball, and it happened to be right in front of my table.
Just before he threw out the ball Evan turned around, looked directly and deliberately at me -- and winked.
Do you see? Everyone else was playing their own role as spectator, player, timer or coach. But, uniquely, Evan was above all of that: he was playing a meta-role wherein he saw himself as part of an absurdist drama in which he had the central part.
More than any other student, Evan could be both endearing and exasperating at the same time. He is also the only student from Rivers whose name I still recall.
(8 July 2008)
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Finger
There was a student in the worst of my pre-Algebra classes (which
is to say, the Bottom of the Barrel) whom I shall call "Louie" (I have
thankfully purged his real name from my memory-bank.) Louie was a truly troubled
lad, totally devoid of any moral scruple.
One day when I was trying to teach this class some math, I noticed Louie
(who was sitting right in front of me) calmly rubbing the bridge of his nose
with his middle finger.
"Please stop doing that!" I directed him.
Louie was irate, a model of One Wronged:
"Doing what?? I wasn't doing nothin'! How dare you accuse me of
somethin' I wasn't doin'?! I'm sittin' here in the front mindin' my own
business! You're just out to pick on me and it's not fair!"
Beginning to doubt my own judgment, I was on the verge of offering Louie
an apology, when he suddenly exclaimed:
"Oh, did you think I was doing this??"
And he proceeded to thrust up his middle finger and vibrate it in angry
obscenity before my face for several seconds.
At that point I did a rather unusual thing: I told Louie to go see his
Housemaster.
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Fireball
Is there anything worse than a classroom situation wherein a
"crime" has been committed and, when asked who the perpetrator was, the class is
silent? We shall see.
I was helping a student in the back of a pre-Algebra (of course)
classroom, when a cry went up of "FIRE!" I looked up and there, in the
center of the room, was a large ball of paper in flames.
"Who did that?!" I yelled in true anger.
"I DID!" was the jubilantly shouted reply by every student in the room.
How did I respond? I no longer recall. Obviously, I should have punished
them all - and would have, if I had not set such a bad example by displaying
on the wall a print of Magritte's painting of a Tuba in Flames on a Beach!
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Game Boy
It was around my second year at Peabody that these hand-held electronic games came out. They became a rage at our high school. But students usually put them away at the start of class.
Not this fellow. I spotted him playing with it in the back of the room.
I wondered what to do.
Do I attempt to cajole him by flattery ('You're much too bright to be using that thing!')? But I realized that he would simply counter that he wasn't as bright as I thought he was. (His opinion would be buoyed by my obvious lack of sincerity.)
Do I use my father's oft-stated admonishment to me ('Don't be a sap - wise up!')? Well, no: sadly, I figured it wouldn't work any better for this fellow than it had for me.
So I proceeded to give him a veiled warning wherein I alluded darkly to 'the possibility of confiscation if present trends continue.'
But he didn't stop (he was hooked.) Finally I strode resolutely to the back and lifted the infernal machine from his dainty hands. 'You may have this after the period is over,' I declared as, despite his protests of 'Gestapo tactics,' I placed it in a drawer of my desk up front.
I was scrawling some new algebraic hieroglyphs on the board when I heard something rustle at my desk. I turned just in time to see my friend hustling away my rank book.
'What are you doing?' I demanded.
'You took something from me, I take something from you. Quid pro quo.'
Within five minutes he was sitting in the principal's office, weeping.
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Hangin' Out
Every teacher knows the feeling of being tested. But some are tested more than others.
I was walking down the hall at Peabody ('Puberty') High one day when one of my (male) students greeted me thus:
'How's it hangin', Mr. May?'
How should a teacher respond to such a thing?
In my experience, there were two kinds of teacher-testing: the benign and the malignant. The latter types tended to be malicious and mean-spirited. They were meant to embarrass, humiliate, or even physically harm the teacher. I had some instances of those at Peabody.
The benign type of testing, on the other hand, is actually friendly in intent. In this case the student likes the teacher, and is simply probing to see how much of a common level he can find with him. There may be some embarrassment, but it is of the comedic sort.
I decided that the student's greeting to me fell in the benign category. But as I said: How to respond?
One extreme response would be to cut the student with silence and a glare, thus signaling that he had unacceptably crossed a line and offended the teacher's dignity. Or the teacher could state something like:
'Sorry - I don't dignify those sorts of inquiries with a response.'
But this seems narrow-minded, harsh, unfair to a student who most likely is just being, if not totally innocent, at least happy-go-lucky and friendly. Better would be to respond literally, as to a greeting, thus:
'I'm fine. And how are you?'
Thus has the teacher deflected the lascivious implications of the greeting and at the same time maintained cordial relations with the student. It is a decent response; but, unfortunately, not a very interesting one. We feel cheated, precisely because we expect something that engages the spirit of the original greeting.
The problem, of course, is those two little words - the pronoun, and the verb-form which charges it so absolutely. The challenge is to make use of those words, but in a way that does not encourage the student to escalate to further libidinousness.
After much thought (far too much, I'm afraid, to engage in during the split-second one is mulling a response in the hall), I came up with this construct:
'Fine! And how are things hangin' with you?'
This seems good: it removes the expression from oneself with one single word, and simply tosses it back to the student. At the same time, with the word 'things' it subtlely changes to plural, thus managing to avoid the more charged singular. Note also the carefully chosen word 'with', and compare it to 'for' or even - gasp! - 'from.' This is, in fact, a masterful response.
What? You want to throw caution to the winds? Well, there's always this one:
'It's danglin' dandy! How's your's hangin'?'
Now that's really one swingin' teacher!
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Mother Teresa
Cheating probably occurs in any competitive environment in which the
outcome of a contest rewards the highest achievers. So the person who cheats
does so out of basic human instincts for survival. I strongly feel that it
is the competitive milieu itself that causes certain people to cheat - that
a true education would pit a person in competition with their own curiosity
and nothing else. For these reasons I have always felt a strong sympathy for
cheaters. Which didn't stop me from punishing them when I caught them: yes I
am schizophrenic!
When cheating occurs in school during a test, the cheater is usually
thought to be the one who "steals" the information from another's paper.
Rarely do we regard with equal contempt the student who conveys information
to the other. After all, that sort of student is not only knowledgeable but
altruistic as well. Yet there are times when the cheater could not cheat at
all without help from his abetter in crime. Should not the abetter be
punished too?
I had an Algebra class in which one student, a pudgy little fellow,
seemed to know significantly more than his classmates. I was only curious as
to why one so facile never handed in his paper until the last moment. One
day during a test he asked to go to the boys' room, and I noticed that he
casually left his paper face up on a neighboring desk, where other students
could consult it at their leisure.
When he returned, I accused him of being an accessory in crime. I told
him that he had two choices for punishment: either to receive a zero on his
test; or to be the first proud recipient of The Mother Teresa Award. Of
course he was curious as to the latter sort of chastisement. I replied that
this award "is given to anyone who attempts to ameliorate the plight of the
Poor Unfortunate Ones." I told him that this would oblige him to emulate
that sainted lady in one other respect: he would have to wear a white
kerchief with a blue stripe on his head during class for the space of one
week.
Of course you may guess the punishment he chose (yes, he looked cute in
his kerchief!) And thereafter he handed in his test promptly when he'd
finished it.
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Moving Up
The academic year 1975-76 dawned and I had no teaching job. I had squandered the year before in the Labor Party (see 'New Solidarity') when I should have gotten myself certified to teach. So now I was forced by dint of economic necessity (Dorothy was ready to have our first child) to take relatively menial work.
So I put in my name to substitute in the Arlington Public Schools. The phone did not ring very often, but when it did it was usually for something irrelevant to my field, such as Machine Shop. In those instances I was not expected to teach but rather to reside over a virtual study hall.
However, I did get called once to actually teach mathematics: that was in a ninth grade Algebra I class, a subject and level I felt absolutely confident to teach.
What I didn't feel confident about was maintaining discipline in a classroom. After all, my only teaching experience had been at the college level, where the students were mainly docile. And I'd already had one bizarre experience at a middle school there in Arlington (see 'World Series.') So I knew I would have to be on my guard.
Now, with over thirty years of hindsight, I know what I should have done: I should have walked amongst the students as I took attendance. Then, from the back, I could have asked, 'Who can show us something they learned while doing their homework last night?' and we would have been off on a series of student presentations.
But of course I didn't do that. Instead, I stood up in front and demonstrated as teachers have done from time immemorial.
Still, the class seemed fine when I first faced it – serious and well-mannered. I recall asking whether there were any questions on the homework, and then working some examples for them on the blackboard. Of course this involved turning my back on the class for extended periods.
At one point, I thought I heard the slightest, the most subtle scraping sound on the floor. When I turned to face the class, I did not notice anything untoward – everyone seemed to be diligently taking notes. When it happened again, I thought I saw the barest hint of a smile on some boys in the front row. I knew I needed to be watchful; but was I beginning to imagine things? I sought to rationalize it:
"What is that scraping, I implore,
That scrape-scrape-scraping on the floor?"
"'Tis the creaking of the door;
'Tis the room and nothing more."
I turned back to write on the board. When I heard the scraping sound again and turned around, the front row seemed to be a mite closer to me. Now I knew I was imagining things:
"As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The Wood began to move."
Shaking my head to rid myself of those phantasms, I turned back to face the board once more. Someone had asked a detailed question, and that demanded a detailed answer. So I was writing for quite a spell. I heard the scraping noises again, but I ignored them as a figment of my fevered imagination.
Suddenly I felt something nudging against my thigh. Turning for a last time, I beheld the entire front row of boys, their faces now wreathed in open grins, and their desks, as far forward as they could go, wont to push through me and the very board itself. I was pinned - utterly penned in.
What could I do? I grinned, threw up my hands, and mockingly exclaimed, 'I see that this little teaching sojourn has turned into a pressing engagement!'
And, by doing that, I had effectively turned the tables: now it was the students who felt punned out.
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New York Times
I had been teaching as an adjunct in the Math Department at Salem State College for a few years when a couple of shakeups occurred in quick succession. First, the Math Chair hired the very first women in the Department, which was good (he remarked to me wryly that this would 'change the profile of the Department.') Soon thereafter, his tenure as Chair ended, and a new Chair was elected. But in this man's very first department meeting, he promised 'to restore the Department to its former greatness', thus implicitly insulting his predecessor. Soon, yet another chair was elected to take his place, and that man was named Peter Wong.
Peter was a busy man. For, in addition to his full time teaching and chairman duties, he owned a thriving Chinese restaurant right there in Salem (yes, we ate very well at department meetings!)
Soon after he became Chair, Peter assigned me a Basic Algebra course to teach.
Now up to that point, my teaching there at Salem State had gone very well. I seemed to connect well with the young working adults who were my students, not least because I tried to explain everything slowly and clearly, with a good deal of humor thrown in. (In other words, gone was the arrogance of my year at Muskingum.)
But Basic Algebra, I assumed, was different. The class would probably consist of students who had not been able to pass algebra in high school. By experience I've found such students consist of two main types: those who were too dumb to pass; and those who were indifferent to passing. And, by this time, I expected them to be in a full state of rebellion against algebra as well as those attempting to purvey it.
In other words, I feared that, in that class, I might have my first discipline problems at Salem State.
So I went to my Department Chair, whom I knew to be a veteran teacher, to see whether he had any suggestions about teaching Basic Algebra there. His advice came back bluntly and forthrightly:
'Subscribe to New York Times.'
For a moment I was taken aback at this response. But then I saw what he probably meant: I would use the Times to find the use of mathematics in 'real-world situations', thereby stimulating the students' interest by showing them the practicality of Algebra.
But that's not what he meant at all. I should use the Times to relieve my boredom while the students were working in their lab books.
Well, needless to say, I did not follow Peter's advice. Heretically, I actually taught the class: I introduced new concepts, and then helped the students work through them. Discipline problems? There was one girl who cut up a bit at first; but when she saw that no one else was interested in this (it is remarkable what paying for one's own education will do to one's behavior!), she soon applied herself.
But I felt sorry for poor Peter: apparently the only time he had to read the newspaper was during class!
P.S. Peter Wong was too busy to do other things a department chair would normally do. One day I asked him if he would write me a recommendation (I was applying for a full-time job somewhere.) He replied, 'Write yourself one and I'll sign it.'
What does one do in such a situation as this? Should one opt for modesty, as in 'Mr. May teaches his classes perfectly adequately.'? Or should one seize the advantage of such a situation and gush about oneself thus: 'Mr. May is the most unusual and enterprising professor in our department: he actually teaches his students!'
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Petition
This is an exception to the Discipline tales, in that it reverses the roles: it shows an attempt by students to discipline me the teacher.
When I arrived at Lincoln-Sudbury, the Math Department was just on the verge of radically changing one of its course tracks. The change was to what I call a spiral way of presenting the subject-matter. Here a little bit of everything is presented the first year; a bit more of everything the second year; etc.
Of course, what that meant was that each teacher of that course had to be sufficiently well versed in a large number of mathematical fields, including statistics and logic (two of my weaknesses.)
And so it happened one day, that someone in class asked a question I couldn't answer. I told the student, 'Offhand, I don't know the answer - I'll have to get back to you on that.'
But the next day, three guys who sat in the back of the class came up front and showed me a piece of paper upon which they had inscribed the following:
"WHEREAS Mr. Theodore May, so-called Mathematics Teacher, has admitted ignorance of his subject, we the undersigned do hereby judge him to be incompetent and call for his immediate dismissal from Lincoln-Sudbury FORTHWITH."
(signed etc.)
When they showed me this, I thought it humorous at first. But when I realized that they were actually serious, I sobered up at the vision of hastily called meetings in the principal's office with anxious and angry parents. (Indeed, I had no idea what to expect.)
I did point out a couple of things to them:
1. Should any math teacher who has any ignorance about anything in their field be dismissed? (If so, most likely you would have no teachers left in the department!)
2. When a teacher freely admits ignorance on a certain question, as I did, could not this teacher be considered strong and courageous?
They were having none of it. They took their petition away to present to The Authorities.
The upshot? I never heard a thing about this from anyone - not the principal nor anyone else. Indeed, the three students did not mention it again. But I can just imagine the response of such enlightened educators as my department chairmen Larry Davidson and Phil Lewis!
Oh yes - I made sure I answered (with obfuscating bullshit if necessary) every question presented to me in that class from that point on!
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Pony
In the same Algebra class as Robin (see "Robin") was a sardonic
fellow named Joel (again, not his real name - not that I'd have any
compunction about publishing it had I remembered it!) Joel would wear a hat on
which was written:
See Dick drink
See Dick drive
Don't be a Dick
So Joel had a taste for the risqué masquerading as social conscience.
One drowsy afternoon I was writing problems on the board for the
students to work on in groups. There was a low, satisfying hum of activity
in the class. Through that hum I heard Joel's voice from the front row:
"Say Mr. May, did you hear about that college kid who had to go to the
doctor because of anal bleeding?"
I decided to deal with this one creatively. So I replied:
"You know, Joel, for some people mathematics is so exciting it almost
has the effect of an aphrodisiac on them. Maybe if you work hard enough on
these problems they might begin to have that effect on you!"
No luck here. Joel continued his sordid tale as if I hadn't spoken:
"So they decided to set up a secret camera in his dorm room."
I tried once more: "Joel, telling stories like this can grow hair on
your palms. Then what'll people think?!"
Joel: "They found out that his roommate would drug him..."
At this point I decided to pointedly ignore Joel. After all, what thing
can be worse for the incurable raconteur than a spurning audience? So I
turned my back to him and gave a good imitation of indifference.
Why "imitation"? Because in truth I was by this point all ears. I had
been swept up into the story of the poor student with the anal bleeding, and
was eager to hear the outcome. Yet of course it would not do for me the
teacher to be interested in such a low tale. So I had to feign indifference,
even while my whole being quivered to hear the punch line. Which Joel
offered directly:
"... and then, when he was knocked out, the roommate would ride the
baloney pony."
Well, I thought I was going to lose it right there! All I could do was
say to myself, "Stay calm! Keep writing as if nothing had happened!
Whatever you do, don't laugh! Think about Death or something!"
The class continued; students worked math problems. I never did
admonish, nevertheless punish, Joel; for I hadn't heard what he said -
right?
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Proxy
In one of my level 3 Algebra classes I had a student who had
Tourette's Syndrome. So I was used to, and tolerant of, his periodic outbursts of
coprolalia.
But one day, as I was watching him, I heard "Fuck you!" spew forth from
his body, even while his lips didn't move. I wondered whether I was
witnessing a sort of obscene ventriloquism.
"John", I asked, "What's going on?"
"Eat shit!" he responded, though again with no verifiable lip movement.
But finally he laughed and took from his pocket one of those little key
chain gadgets which can be bought in joke shops. It consists of a chip
and a tiny speaker and little else. When you press it, one of a handful of
obscene expressions is emitted.
Now we only tolerate the coprolalia associated with Tourette's because
it is involuntary. But wasn't John's use of that device voluntary? Or,
feeling an episode of coprolalia coming on, did he train himself to squeeze
the device, thereby saving himself the trouble of yelling the obscenity
himself?
But then, once the squeeze had transplanted the scream, why not
substitute another device - one that emits the likes of "Have a nice day!"
(which, as a matter of fact, I find to be much more obscene than what is
generally regarded as coprolalia)?
Anyway - I didn't punish John!
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Rob
The single most interesting student I had at Peabody High was named Rob Savoie.
I had Rob in my homeroom for three years. There, for fifteen minutes each morning before school, we would chat about whatever interested us (and that included a sizeable number of topics.) Rob carried a notebook around in which he would record, among other things, his own poems and original theorems he had devised. He was the only student I ever had who would ask such questions as, 'What would it mean for an angle to have a negative number of degrees?'
Rob was also in my math classes for two years. The first year it was a medium-level geometry class. Such a class had the potential to cause disciplinary problems under normal circumstances. But this one was held in a room without windows. And so periodically, as I was going around checking homework, someone would sneak up front and shut off the lights. This sort of thing, as you might imagine, precipitated much yelling and banging on desks and other sorts of merriment best effected under the cover of darkness. And yet, through the din, as I felt my way to the front, I could hear Rob's plaintive voice in the front row beseeching: 'I want to learn, Mr. May!'
That year Rob won the first vest. That was a prize I gave out, in reference to the favorite part of my habiliment (I owned some 40 vests myself), to any student who achieved a perfect '100' average without benefit of a curve. There was a formal 'investiture' ceremony in class in which the vest (Rob's was a tan corduroy, as I recall) was placed on the honoree. The most interesting thing about it was that this oft-raucous class was actually quiet - that they seemed in reverence of Rob and his achievement.
The second year I had Rob for a higher level Algebra II class, and this was as different from the other as night and day (literally: there were windows in this room.) All the students were achievers, and so there were no disciplinary problems in that class - only mathematical ones.
Rob had the Department Chair 'Broderick' for Honors Precalulus his last year. I think that Broderick was jealous of Rob's attachment to me, for one day he told Rob that he wanted him to derive Hero's Formula for the class the next day. I don't think Broderick knew how arduous that task was (the proof was ten pages long.) Anyway, Rob actually prepared the derivation and was we1l into it in class when Broderick growled, 'That's enough!' That year I was experimenting with my 'Build-A-Book' geometry classes, and Rob was my greatest cheerleader.
And then Rob graduated. He went to Hampshire College - a school admirably suited to his off-beat learning style and passionate mode of inquiry.
One day during the year after Rob left, I was 'teaching' (that is, attempting as usual to cut through their hostility and derision) a typical pre-algebra class. Suddenly, as if in answer to a prayer, Rob appeared at the door. It was the first time I had seen him since he had gone off to college. I noticed that he had already assumed some of the counter-cultural aspects of his school: long curly locks, and in general a decidedly bohemian air. We greeted one another warmly.
Somehow the class and I saw Rob as a worthy diversion from the failed business at hand. For, a couple of minutes later, Rob was sitting on the desk up front facing the class, he having agreed to a no-holds-barred question session.
Q (Important things first!): Do you smoke pot?
Rob: Well, I'm vice president of the Cannabis Club at school! I have an official membership card (takes card from wallet) - see?
Q (in awe): Does that mean you can smoke pot there?
Rob: Yes. We can smoke in the office and other designated places.
(This established Rob's 'credentials': from then on he could do and say no wrong.)
Q (Fishing for embarrassing information): Is Mr. May gay?
Rob: I thought he was at first. But then I went to his house for dinner and saw that he had a wife and two daughters.
Q: That could be a cover.
Rob (laughing): That seems like a rather elaborate cover to me!
Q: You had Mr. May as a teacher?
Rob: Yes - twice. And for homeroom too.
Q (More fishing): How did you like him as a teacher?
Rob: Mr. May was the single greatest teacher I've had anywhere!
And so it went. Rob held forth until the end of the period. And then he left. I would like to say that the encounter with Rob changed this class's attitude toward me - that would be a suitable ending for a feel-good story. Alas, I'm afraid that, after the initial shocks wore off, things reverted back to normal: my attempts to instill even a fraction of Rob's curiosity in them, and their strange refusal to accept the possibility that they could become thinkers.
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Robin
Robin was a slight, olive-skinned girl in one of my level 3 Algebra
classes. She was basically a good kid, but she always had a mischievous
gleam in her eye.
She had told me that she wanted to become a pharmacist, and that she was
taking an Anatomy and Physiology course. "Well, that's great, Robin," I
replied. "I hope you learn a lot - though not too much, if you catch my
meaning!"
One day I was in my classroom waiting for the Algebra class to come in.
Robin was the first to arrive. I asked her how her Anatomy class was going.
"Fine," she replied. "Here's something we learned today, Mr. May: Do you
know what that hole at the end of your thing is called?"
"Robin..." I began to admonish her. But she continued unabashed: "The
MEATUS."
"Robin," I could only retort in resigned humorous exasperation, "Were
you born Outrageous, achieve Outrageousness, or have Outrageousness thrust
upon you? Or was it perhaps all three?"
Funny - I can only recall a handful of names of students from my Peabody
years, but Robin's is one of them.
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A Room of My Own
When I was at Peabody I became more and more convinced that one reason teaching there was so onerous to me for so many years was because I did not have my own space – that is, a room to decorate to my taste, inhabit, and thereby make my own.
True, I had my own room at Chelmsford, and I still had discipline problems there. But I was only there for a year, and thus had no real chance to develop my 'teaching legs', nevertheless fix up my room.
I also taught in places where I had no disciplinary problems and no room of my own. But those were colleges like Bradford or Salem State, where virtually all the students were diligent.
When I arrived at Peabody, it was already the second half of the year. I was taking over from a teacher whom the students had virtually driven into retirement. So there I was, inhabiting the room of someone they had despised. It was not a good half-year.
For the next four years I was assigned to rooms belonging to other teachers. Thus I found myself teaching in rooms with, if anything, either cute-sie Garfield posters, or blasé mountain scenes on the walls. I was half ashamed to be teaching in such spaces, thinking that the students assumed that I had sanctioned such idiocies.
My feeling was, that when (as was inevitable, despite my charisma) the students got tired of looking at me and they glanced around, there should be something visually interesting and engaging for them to encounter wherever they looked.
I finally got my own room for my last two years at Peabody. By the beginning of the second year I had it decorated the way I wanted to. What follows is a partial description of my room:
On the left wall were seven large colorful prints called The City in History. These were fanciful paintings of the same downtown area of a fictional midwestern American city in the years 1875 (when it was first being settled), 1910 (at the height of its bustling opulence and success), 1935 (when it began falling on hard times), and four other views up to the near future. These were provocative and instructional as well as colorful; and there was a myriad of interesting little details waiting to be discovered.
On a cart under this display were various metal geometric figures which were painted in Prussian blue. I had rescued these from where they had been forgotten in the corner of a book closet. There were also clear plastic shapes. I actually used these for demonstrations in my geometry classes.
What is looked at the most in a classroom? Probably the clock. So I put a print of Salvadore Dali's The Persistence of Memory up above it. The following description, along with the others, is taken in part from the internet:
"Three limp blue-faced clocks are draped over various objects; a fourth is face down and its back is being eaten out by maggots. A monstrous fleshy creature sitting in the painting's center may be Dali's own face in profile, its long eyelashes insectlike or even sexual. There is a tongue oozing from its nose like a fat snail. The distant golden cliffs are the coast of Catalonia, Dali's home."
(Did pictures like this have to do with mathematics? Not directly. But I figured that the reason the kids were looking away was because they were temporarily sick of math [maybe of me too.])
Up above the blackboard and running its entire length were two provocative things: the first 74 digits of the number pi; and a print of Escher's extended series of woodcuts Metamorphosis II:
"The process begins left to right with the word 'metamorphose' in a black rectangle, followed by several smaller metamorphose rectangles forming a grid pattern. This grid then becomes a black and white checkered pattern which then becomes tessellations of reptiles, a honeycomb, insects, fish, birds and a pattern of three dimensional blocks with red tops. These blocks then become the architecture of the Italian coastal town of Atrani. In this image Atrani is linked by a bridge to a tower in the water which is actually a castle piece from a chess set. There are other chess pieces in the water and the water becomes a chess board. The chess board leads to a chequered wall which then returns to the metamorphose image."
(I also created and pinned just above the blackboard five concise visual images-without-words, in green and yellow, of the first five postulates from geometry.)
There were smaller prints (often taken from calendars) of art works by Escher and Magritte throughout the room.
Here is a description of a painting called Entre les Trous de la Memoire ('Between the holes of memory'), by surrealist painter Dominique Appia, a print of which I put up on the right side wall where all could see it:
"Two identical transparent girls are in an open room, one staring out at a hot-air balloon floating over huge ice crystals, the other reading a book. In a back room is a large stone head that appears to be an older version of the girls; its 'hair' is some kind of plant. Next to the girl reading the book is a pile of books in flames, one of which contains a picture of the head. A mirror, reflecting only sky, stands above a fireplace (which is capturing the smoke from the burning books). Stuck between the mirror and its frame is a photograph of the same girl. The room is being flooded by an ocean outside a back door, and an ocean liner is approaching the room."
(This was a favorite of the students. Once in awhile one would ask me for a copy of their own, and I would get one for them at The Coop.)
I do not recall any major discipline problems once I got a room of my own and put those sorts of things up.
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Serpent
I got the teaching job at Winthrop in March: I was to take over from a teacher who was going on maternity leave.
So I went in during her last couple of days to observe the classes I would be teaching as well as confer with her about the students.
She was showing me her rank book, when she wrote (in ink) an 'S' by a couple of students' names. I asked her what it stood for (perhaps 'superb'?) She replied: "'SNAKE': they're devious little sneaky weasels!"
She then wrote (also in ink) 'PS' in front of some other names. I was at a loss as to what that could mean ('Pre-Snake'?), but she soon told me: "'POND SCUM': because they're little more than masses of quivering protoplasm lying there and doing nothing!"
Needless to say, once these classes became my own, I ignored those quaint little designations, preferring to encounter my students on our own terms. But I don't recall any students who were particularly slithery or scummy!
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Stupid
The Math Chairman was a macho man who liked to swagger and to bluster
and in general to throw his considerable weight around. In fact, I would
refer to him as "Broderick", after the veteran actor who played the top cop
on the "Highway Patrol" TV series in the 50's.
It was not uncommon for Broderick to walk by my room, intuit a
commotion, and, sashaying in, confront a student he didn't even know with
real or imagined crimes. Sometimes he would "merely" belittle the student in
front of his fellows; at other times he would take the student (always male)
out into the hall, place him against the wall, and then, with legs outspread
and arms crossed over his chest, his face within a couple of inches of the
student's, challenge him with "You got a problem, son?"
(Did Broderick, I wonder, have unresolved issues from his childhood?)
And so it was that, on one of the many days I was having trouble with a
certain pre-Algebra class (see "Cheeze-It" for a sample), Broderick came
storming in and confronted a student, one Louie, with his (Broderick's)
usual swaggering stance and verbal challenge. Today he asked, "Are you
stupid, son?"
Immediately, Louie shot back a response. It flew out of his mouth in one
rapid burst:
"MAYBEYUSTUPIT"
Broderick was taken aback. He had thought he had heard something
heretical but he didn't know for sure. So, with just a hint of uncertainty
in his voice, he asked, "What did you say?"
"ISEDYOUSAYINIMSTUDITMAYBEYUSTUPIT"
Broderick's swarthy skin blanched. This was the first time I ever saw
him paralyzed to act, and frightened in his own impotence. Finally he had to
withdraw with a pathetic "You'd better watch yourself, son!"
And, although in general I found Louie to be a sneaky vicious little
weasel (see "Finger"), I was definitely on his side that day!
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Tribunal
While I was at Rivers, one of my advisees was ordered to appear before the Discipline Committee for having committed some sort of faux pas.
I had hardly ever encountered discipline committees in the many schools at which I've taught. In fact, the only other school I even recall having one was the Mont Alto branch of Penn State. There I was on the Discipline Committee. (I remember but one case that we heard: it concerned a student who had apparently gotten drunk and driven his car up the sidewalk to his dorm. He had to appear before us with a person who would speak for his defense. Of course they had no real defense, as the student had been caught red-handed; so they basically threw themselves on the mercy of the 'court.' I remember thinking what a monumental waste of time this was for a lot of people - that the case could have been handled with quick dispatch by a single dean.)
In fact, I began to assume that the purpose of discipline committees was to intimidate the defendant through sheer force of numbers, through the ponderousness of the body confronting the miscreant. (I thought they could have an even greater effect if they were sitting on a dais arrogantly looking down on the poor defendant.) I also thought their purpose was to diffuse the verdict, so that no one person could be accused of a personal vendetta.
Anyway, my advisee at Rivers was ordered to appear before the Discipline Committee at 7:15 A.M. (I thought that perhaps they also chose to intimidate my client through this summons at an early hour. The real reason, however, was probably more practical: it was the only time when everyone on the Committee was free.) The intimidation factor was further enhanced by the Committee Chair Tom Walsh, who had a deep booming voice.
My advisee was to meet first with the Head of the Upper School Martha Shephardson. I gathered that the purpose of this particular meeting was for her to 'soften up' the defendant before he appeared before the Committee. She would get him to confess his crime and then browbeat him a bit on the subject; then the Committee would only have to breathe hellfire and damnation on him to complete the session.
The problems for me were two-fold: first, that no one had bothered (or shown the courtesy) to tell me what my advisee had (allegedly) done. The second was that no one had ever told me what my role was in that proceeding - that is, why I was there in the first place. Was I there to (symbolically) hold his hand? Or to function as a sort of defense council? (If it was the latter, then the situation was - from my standpoint at least - kafkaesque, since I wasn't told what the charges were.)
So I sat there with quiet dignity, as befits those who don't know what the hell is going on. And of course my mind raced over all the probable crimes that this young fellow might have committed.
Certainly it was not murder or rape or even assault, otherwise this youth would probably be in the custody of the police. Indecent exposure? A titillating possibility to consider! What else?
Martha and I were in a room alone with the supposed miscreant. She was confronting him with his crime while I looked on. (I wondered anew: was I there to act as a witness? I could be a truthful one if he were to claim manhandling; or a false one should she slap him around a bit.)
But now she stated her accusation plainly: he had called another boy a name - a 'hurtful, awful' name. Aha! That narrowed it down a bit! Good old argumentum ad hominem! (I tucked this expression into the back of my mind for possible use as defense council, knowing full well that Committee Chair Walsh was the school's Latin teacher.)
I cast my mind over the multitude of names I'd been called in my younger years. Were we talking about such prosaic possibilities as 'dufus', 'dweeb', 'geek', 'dolt', 'goon', or 'idiot'? But I doubted these were serious enough to warrant a hearing before the Discipline Committee.
So was it one of the more sexually suggestive names such as 'douchbag', 'numbnuts', 'jerkoff', 'dildo', 'motherfucker', or 'dickhead'?
Perhaps it involved sexual identity, such as 'sissy', 'queer', 'fairy', 'homo', 'queen', or 'faggot?'
Or did he enter the delightful realm of ethnic slurs? Just recalling the ones my father used makes a sizeable list, of which 'dego', 'hunkie', 'sheeny', 'polock', 'shine', 'spic', and (he did not even spare his own ethnic group) 'heinie' constitute just a few. (Lenny Bruce would do routines wherein he repeated those sorts of words so much that his audience could not help laughing - nervously.)
Or was it something more exotic, like 'narcissist'?
I was mulling over this realm of possibilities when I heard Martha say to the boy, 'I mean, what were you thinking when you called that fellow a 'fudgepacker'?"
Well, I practically fell off my chair! I had never heard that expression before. And my reaction was similar to the one I had had when the minister of a church at which I was playing offered a prayer for 'those caught up in the grips of masturbation.' In short, it conjured up a certain image in my mind. I had to turn away and try as best I could to keep my body from shaking.
Did I realize how 'hurtful and awful' that name was? Of course I did. But somehow the combining of two ordinary everyday words into one super-charged one was too funny for words.
I managed to compose myself enough to turn and face them again. And I was even able to simulate a look of disapproval.
What was the punishment meted out? Probably a stern warning and a period of probation. As for myself, I never exchanged a word with anyone that morning. I guess I was merely there to be advised that my advisee was a real shmuck.
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Ups & Downs
I wanted to tell another horror story from my teaching at Peabody High.
One day toward the end of the period when an Algebra II class was starting work on the homework, two big fellows suddenly stood up. I knew that they were both football players, though I'd never been to a game. Both of those guys, like true jocks, were suitably attired in sweat pants.
They stood silently facing one another. One of them (who I knew to be fairly bright) seemed to be acting the part of the doofus: dumb, panting, even drooling. I gathered that he was impersonating the faithful dog; or perhaps a goofy guy who just wanted to be the other guy's friend.
I know that I should have asked them what they were doing in standing up like that in the middle of class when they should have been working. But – shall I confess? – I found myself caught up in the doofus act. I was the victim of a natural human curiosity: what could this mean?
I soon found out. The 'straight' fellow pointed up in the air. Obediently, the goofy guy looked up. Curious, I raised my eyes as well. But all I saw was the ceiling.
When I looked down again, I was horrified to see the goofy guy's pants around his ankles. Apparently the other fellow had yanked them down in a flash while the goofball was dutifully looking up. He had completely fooled the poor doofus! (Indeed, the pathetic fellow stood there looking down, scratching his head as if to say, 'Now I wonder how that happened?')
But of course in another moment the truth hit me: I was the one who had been fooled; I myself was the fall guy. I was the doofus.
(I was just grateful that the 'goofy' guy was still wearing a pair of boxers!)
I don't recall the outcome of that little incident - I think the bell rang at the climax. But it is a good example of the sorts of things that happened when I taught in a room that wasn't my own: the kids had nothing to look at apart from me except one another. And, as the above shows, sometimes what they saw was artfully staged!
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Watching My Back
I once had a prealgebra class at Peabody High that was so bad, so malignant, that it made all the other prealgebra classes I'd taught seem like paragons of virtue by comparison.
This class had some students from the Vocational School. These kids would take their technical courses down there in the morning, and then come up to the high school for their academic courses in the afternoon.
It was easy to see how they might feel like second-class citizens at the high school. And they acted out their frustration and rage in my class.
One day I thought I saw a way for them to be useful and productive. The telephone in my classroom wasn't working. The Voc students told me that they had had instruction in phone repair, and that they could fix it for me. So I trustingly handed over the phone to them.
They took it all apart and then just left it that way. (Of course they claimed they couldn't fix it after all.)
After that things only got worse. The climax came when a couple of them began shooting thick U-shaped pieces of insulated wire at me when my back was turned. I actually began to fear for my physical health. But the two students only shot at me when I wasn't watching; so I could never catch them in the act.
In desperation I began casting about for someone to help me.
That year I shared cafeteria study with another math teacher named Earle Nason. The kids there actually did study, so Earle and I had a lot of time to talk. Earle did most of the talking while I egged him on.
He had lived all his life in the seaport town of Gloucester. (At this time he was fifty, divorced and living in a motel room.) He would spin endless tales of adventures he'd had in his hometown, which included bar brawls with sailors. The interesting thing about his stories was that many of them did not end in his favor - far from it; some had no resolution at all. (What Earle needed was an amanuensis to write his stories down for him. I would kid him about making another Winesburg Ohio.)
Did we talk about mathematics? Never! When he wasn't telling tales of youthful adventures, Earle was flaunting his own prodigious sexual appetite. He bragged that he had three times the normal amount of testosterone, and that he and his girlfriend would have sex four times per week ('The poor woman!' I thought.) He showed me a little notebook he would carry around: it contained a record of every sexual encounter he'd had since he was fourteen. There were a number of itemized columns which he'd check off. I saw thousands upon thousands of neat little checks in the book.
(I didn't bother showing him the notebook I carried around with me - I was using it to write my opera libretto.)
I learned a lot of other miscellaneous things about Earle. For example, he had organized a summer softball team wherein all the other members were in their 20's. The team was called 'The Dukes of Earle.' He deliberately wore short-sleeved shirts to show off his bulging muscles. (Needless to say, he had no discipline problems in his classes.)
It seemed like Earle Nason might be just the person I needed.
I decided to tell Earle of my plight in the prealgebra class. I would have been too embarrassed to tell virtually any other teacher; but I surmised - correctly - that, opposites though we were, Earle and I had developed a rapport. Besides, I knew he'd relish a tale about violence and feel challenged to do something about it.
It turned out that Earle had a free period at the time my class met - or so at least I assumed. So we agreed that he would come in and sit in the back behind the offending students, reasoning that his mere presence would act as a deterrent.
We were wrong. Brazenly, defiantly, a student shot at me as soon as my back was turned. Earle immediately collared the offender and led him out of the room. The student received a five-day suspension. Soon the other student was similarly caught and punished. Our 'method' was working!
But then, only a couple of days later, I was approached by my department chair 'Broderick' who told me that he didn't want Earle doing that any more. I asked why, but he wouldn't tell me. I wondered whether Earle had had a class that period after all and had just left them alone to help me (yes, he would do such a thing)? Or was it the macho 'Broderick' and his belief that every teacher should be able to solve their own problems by themselves?
Whatever. I don't recall any more dangerous incidents in that class. So perhaps the suspensions - and one dose of Earle Nason - worked!
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Winking at Success
His name was Evan and he was one of the few black students at The Rivers School when I taught there.
I'm afraid that Evan fit a stereotypical form of racial profiling, viz: he was an excellent jazz musician (a piece of his played by the jazz band was one of the best I'd ever heard), and a superb athlete (in his basketball career there, he had well over 1000 points.) And (to complete the stereotype) he was an indifferent student.
But perhaps 'indifferent' is the wrong word here. For Evan was at pains to show that he was interested in his schoolwork, and he did do some. But mostly it was just that - show - with little real substance. For, indeed, his heart wasn't really in it.
I had Evan in my class two different years. The first was my first year at Rivers. And, as I was unfamiliar with the rules there (I was also struggling with the beginnings of my illness then), I'm afraid I let him get away with murder. For example, he would ask to go to the bathroom at the beginning of the period and then never return.
He was in my class again two years later, and by then I knew the ropes: Evan received detentions for his peccadilloes. So he had to find more creative ways of evading responsibility.
One thing that would happen regularly would be that Evan would embrace me warmly and passionately as soon as he entered the room. My first thought would be: 'He loves me!' But then a doubt would enter my mind - the doubt of the oft-jilted lover. And sure enough, it turned out Evan didn't have his homework that day.
Before a basketball game, the players would run drills as I was preparing the timing apparatus. One day as he was running by on his way to the basket, Evan dropped some papers on my table. It was the project for our Topics class. I was in admiration of his flair in carrying off this act, and my appreciation was only dimmed somewhat by the realization that the project was five days overdue.
It was during a game that I truly saw Evan for what he was.
It was one of the most important games of the season - a playoff game in the tournament. The whole game had been very close, and now it had come down to the other team being up by one point with nine seconds to go. Rivers had the ball.
The fieldhouse was in pandemonium. The noise was deafening as people screamed uncontrollably. Several players were melting down. Evan was inbounding the ball directly in front of my table.
Just before he threw out the ball, Evan turned around - and winked at me.
Do you see? Everyone else was on the level at which they were obviously functioning - players, coaches, and so on. But Evan was on a meta-level wherein he sardonically saw himself as an actor in a drama.
More than any other student, Evan was both endearing and outrageous.
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World Series
The account below is an exception to the discipline tales, in that the setting was not Peabody ('Puberty') High School.
In the Fall of 1975 I was desperately in need of a teaching position. But college jobs, hitherto my bailiwick, were now closed to me due to their requirement of a doctorate. And I had not yet gone back to obtain my certification to teach in the public schools. (I do not recall looking at private schools.)
So I put my name in as a substitute teacher in the Arlington (the town in which we lived) MA Public Schools.
Now it is crucial to this story to recall that, at the time this tale takes place, the Red Sox were playing the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. So nearly everyone was glued to their TV set. Dorothy and I were among the few exceptions, for we had just moved to Boston a couple of years before and so we had not yet been bitten by the Red Sox bug.
I was called as a substitute in a middle school science class.
Science was a subject I was not qualified to teach, while middle school was not a level at which I had teaching experience. Mix these two together, add the catalyst of an open classroom design - and you have a potentially explosive substance!
The substance did so explode. With my laid-back (which is to say nonexistent) discipline 'methods' in force, the kids were running randomly rampant (or was it 'amorally amuck'?) about the room. As one energetic youngster ran by me, I heard him fleetingly ask, 'So what did you think of the game last night?'
Distracted as I was, I only half heard him. So I said:
'WHAT GAME?'
Every student in the room froze in position. They became utterly (or is it 'unutterly'?) silent, as my interlocutor continued:
'You know - the Baseball Game!'
I don't know what happened, but I had one of those moments of - fiendish inspiration. For I asked:
'WHAT'S BASEBALL?'
At that point, all those frozen students began to move again, but this time slowly and silently to take their seats.
And, as my questioner began to explain: "Well, you see, there are four bag-like things called 'basses', and then a wooden stick called a 'bat' which you use to hit a special ball called a 'baseball'...", the other students engaged themselves in a low-key debate over what country I might be from.
And that sufficed for that science class on that particular day!
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