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I was hired as Chair of the Math Department at The Rivers School in Weston to staunch a wound – though it was more like stopping a hemorrhage.
Two years before, there had been a young man as Chair. This lad was (from what I could tell from hearsay) a visionary in his use of the computer as a core basis to teach mathematics. There grew up around him a coterie of – what is the word? – disciples in the department.
And then at the end of the year, this guru (messiah? hot-shot?) suddenly announced that he was leaving for greener pastures. His flock was understandably devastated. The Head of School hired his replacement – a woman who not only was ignorant of the guru's methods, but knew little math beyond algebra II.
So the next year was not a pretty one for the Math Department, since much of that department had total disdain for its hapless Chair. As the Academic Dean would put it later, 'You could cut the tension with a knife.' The upshot was that three members (out of six) resigned for the following year, while the Chair's contract was not renewed.
This was the situation in the department of which I was applying to be the chair.
In the interviews I was told frankly of the Department's plight (one glance at its grim-faced members told me the same thing.) I was even told only half humorously by Head of School David Harmon that 'we need some gray hair in the Department.')
At length, the question of salary came up. I was prepared to make a heretical demand: that they match my $41,000 salary (a relatively modest one for a veteran public school teacher compared to other towns) at Peabody in order that I be able to pay college tuitions. Never in a million years would this private school have acceded to such an outlandish request, unless they needed help desperately and they viewed me as a sort of potential savior. They acceded.
But that high salary, together with my encroaching illness, led, I am convinced, to my downfall. From my first day the Business Manager seemed to harbor a resentment against me due no doubt to the salary. (And probably the illness too: I heard him employ the quaint term 'liability risk' to things of far less significance.) It only took a new unscrupulous Head of School to agree with these things and get rid of me.
(There was, in fact, a third reason to want to jettison me: the fact that I couldn't coach. This, together with the salary and illness, I called 'the Unholy Trifecta.')
Anyway, I began the math job of my dreams – that of directing and guiding a department through exciting educational endeavors. Unfortunately, I began to get sick just at that time. My teaching suffered as I could hardly stand at the board, nevertheless walk across campus to class. However, I received support and encouragement from the administration (they moved my classes, etc.)
Then one day towards the end of that first year, David Harmon stood before the faculty and announced that he was resigning as Head 'because I can no longer reconcile my public and private lives.' He had been having an affair with one of the teachers in the school. (I was so out of the social loop that, unlike most of my colleagues, I didn't even know this was going on.)
He was succeeded by an Interim Head named Ben Williams. This kindly avuncular gentleman was fair and just to all he came in contact with. At the same time, in the face of my illness I began to develop effective teaching strategies together with the courses for them in which to flourish. Thus, paradoxically, did my teaching improve as my disease got worse.
A new Head of School was hired for my third year at Rivers. And it soon became clear that he would not fit his two predecessors' molds as genial aristocrats. He seemed more in the plebian mold of a Napoleon, and he made it clear that he intended to shake things up (he even used the term 'benevolent dictator', though I thought the first word should be changed to 'malevolent.')
Below are two pieces which detail instances in which I misspoke at Rivers. The first, 'Interview', is a humorous depiction of how one word very nearly derailed my candidacy before I even had the job. The second, 'Four Words', is meant to show how a handful of words, and actions, seemed to seal my fate in the job itself. And even if, ultimately, the actual reasons for my dismissal were as stated above, the true account below gives, I hope, a flavor of the sort of situation I found myself in.
One Word
I had prepared well for this interview, for I was anxious to escape the dastardly confines of Peabody (see most of the vignettes under "Disciplines" to get a flavor of the place.)
I also made a resolution to be on my best behavior during my two interviews here.
Thus, when I was asked why I wanted to teach at a private school, I resisted the honest answer, "Because, despite the lousy pay, private schools have better disciplined students in smaller classes; and I'd only have to work 143 days instead of 180!"
Instead, I gave another honest answer, but one much more palatable: "Because I am tired of hearing my fellow teachers talk about retirement when what I want to talk about is making the math curriculum more exciting and relevant for the students."
And so it went, scores of questions like this. Until, at a crucial moment, I grew - weary - of giving the scripted response.
At some point they asked, "How would your students describe you?"
Yeah, I know I should have regurgitated some of the old saws, such as "Caring" or "Knowledgeable" or "Kind" or any of the other virtues beginning with capital letters. But I didn't mention any of those phony things. Instead, I replied:
"I think they'd call me Eccentric".
No one gave any evidence that I had committed a faux pas (yes, they kept a Stiff Upper Lip.) Indeed, the rest of the day went well. I only found out later that, with that one word, I had set off a firestorm and very nearly terminated the interview!
Over the next week or two, my various references told me that they were called frantically by various members of the interview committee, asking whether I really was "eccentric". Of course, I seemed to be in a no-win situation here. For if my friends replied Yes, then I had the undesirable trait and so was screwed; whereas if they said No, then I would be unmasked as a liar and therefore screwed as well.
Fortunately for me, my friends were very smart, and so they went between the horns of this dilemma. Namely, they first acknowledged that, indeed, I was eccentric. But then they went on to prove that those faculty members termed "eccentric" are precisely the most interesting and creative ones.
So I got the job at The Rivers School despite my worst intentions!
Four Words
A semester of contradictions
Was I a hero or a fool? In particular, were the Four Words brilliant intuited prophecy or the babblings of a loose cannon?
I. How does one behave with a boss that one strongly suspects is out to get one? (I am speaking about the Head of a School here, where teachers have a contract for an entire school year.)
One approach is to cozen up to the boss, to try and seduce him into liking you. You can show how enamored you are with the boss's policies. And/or you can show how indispensable you are.
But what if none of that works? What if one cannot 'seduce' that boss?
Well, in that case one might choose to throw caution to the winds and, for once, behave like a real man with principles and convictions. No more being cowed by someone simply because he has control over one's job! No more bowing and scraping to a thug with inferior ideas! If one is going to be fired anyway, why hold back? Why not call him on every petty piece of bullshit he tries to get by one and one's colleagues, if the situation is hopeless anyway? Imagine being liberated in that way!
(Question 1: How does one know the situation is hopeless? Oh, one can tell. If you see the boss at a soccer game and you greet him but he pointedly ignores you, that is an indicator. If you attend the Christmas Open House at his home – that is, at the time of Maximum Good Will Towards Men - and, when you greet him, he looks away, that too would seem to be a bad sign.)
(Question 2: How can one tell when a policy of one's boss is utter bullshit? Actually this is easy once one is convinced that he is out to get one. On the other hand, being one of the Elect allows one to overlook a lot.)
When did I begin to suspect that he was out to get me? I cast back in my mind to the time of his interviews for the job, or the immediate aftermath; but nothing leaps out at me. But somehow I intuited something very early on – a barely-concealed hostility towards me present in a look or a turn of phrase.
Surely I must have internalized it by the time of the Four Words. Otherwise, why would I utter such a thing?
II. His name shall ever be odious to me, and I shall not sully this page by writing it here. Suffice it to say that it sounded like 'Overseer' or 'Ogreson' or even 'Ovaltine' – some names by which I called him to my colleagues, and which probably reached his ears at some point (not to result in the enhancement of my status, I imagine.) In my Journal I referred to him simply as 'LT' (for 'Little Tommy') and I shall continue that practice here.
It happened at the very first faculty meeting – the one where the new Head of School (LT) was to formally meet the faculty.
The first item on the agenda was for the faculty and staff to individually introduce themselves. We were all sitting at tables in a huge circle. I was to be the third speaker. I forget who went first, but the second stood up and said, 'My name is Dave; I'm Chair of the History Department, and I'm happy to announce that my wife just had our third child last night.' There was warm applause at this news.
I stood up next and said, 'My name is Ted, I'm Chair of the Math Department, and I'm not as potent as Dave (laughter) - I only have two kids!' (more laughter.) ['Maybe we could team-teach a History of Math course sometime; then we'd have five kids between us!']
(Note: I shall be including things I said in this report. These might be followed, as in the above report, by further things in brackets: these are things I wish I had said but didn't. Sometimes they are so close to what I actually said, so close to the surface therein, that LT probably intuited them anyway. At least I can hope he did.)
(You see, like most people I have a restraint born of my civilized upbringing. My tendency is to not say the things I am thinking. So what I normally say is pretty tepid compared to what is in my mind. But what if something isn't in your mind and you just blurt it out?)
The rest of my colleagues introduced themselves, and as far as I can recall they all did this in a serious straightforward manner. I point this out because, when all were finished and LT spoke again, he said (and he wasn't laughing), 'I see that there were some feeble attempts at humor.' But the only 'attempt' at humor was my own, and so I took this to be a pointed remark directed at me.
In other words, I had failed (due to my ignorance as to his prudishness about humor) LT's first 'test.'
Anyway, there was a break, after which LT would address the faculty. He was to be introduced by Jim Long, the Head of the Lower School. I saw Jim sitting there next to LT, reading over his remarks. I went over and said something to Jim. I have no idea why I said it (indeed, my action was completely unpremeditated.) It was only four words, but they were audible to the new Head. I saw Jim's neck turn beet red. Then I went and sat down.
At length Jim stood and made a suitable (that is to say, one utterly devoid of anything of interest whatsoever) introduction. LT then arose and began to speak. He began to describe his 'Ideal School.' I had my notebook open and I was taking detailed notes in a small crabbed hand. I had nearly filled the whole page (and it was a sizeable page) when I suddenly realized that it was all a bunch of nonsense. In particular, I thought his image of a pueblo house with a death's head over the door to be particularly inapt (or was he slyly making a reference to me?)
III. LT had put out what he called a 'position paper', which laid out scenarios for four possible directions our school might go in. It didn't take much to surmise that one of the four was the school as it presently was (there was a pointed reference to being a niche school for kids with special needs); while another was the direction he wanted it to go in. (Unfortunately I didn't save the document. All that I recall, in relation to the latter scenario, were references to 'tough' AP courses; and the words 'Our school will muscle its way into the I.S.L. [the athletic conference].') So in this sense LT was being a bit coy.
But, coy or not, he wanted to know which scenario we each preferred, and he wanted a meeting individually with each of us. You might say this was our first real test (if you don't count introducing ourselves at the opening meeting – which test I failed.) The test had two parts: first, were we able to divine his choice; and second, did we prefer it?
I think there are two kinds of school heads: those who value diversity of ideas amongst their faculty; and those who value allegiance to their own ideas. I was beginning to intuit that LT belonged in the latter category.
Nevertheless, I was determined not to be a yes-man to LT. Frankly, I resented this all-too-transparent test of our allegiance! I would show him that I could think for myself.
So, in my meeting with him, I described a student 'X' in my Math Topics class who had gone to the Carroll School in Lincoln (a special needs school.) 'He is the most diligent of any of my students,' I said. 'He keeps the most careful and complete and beautiful notebook of any student I've ever had. And he's a genuinely nice kid. I would be unhappy if this school became something that students like 'X' wouldn't be welcome at.' And then the kicker: 'What I'm saying is, I like this school the way it is.' [Besides, what is all that macho nonsense about 'tough' courses and 'muscle' sports? Your 'Ideal School' sounds like Rome: Engineering (AP) and the Army (ISL.) Or maybe Sparta.]
I had deliberately flunked this second 'test' he had set up for me.
IV. LT set up another 'test': he announced that he wanted to sit in on a class of each of us. Now in this I divined that he would be setting up for failure any of us he didn't like. (Isn't it amazing how I could see right through him?)
This time I was determined to beat him at his own game. Accordingly, I designed a gourmet class which LT as a connoisseur (if indeed he was such) could not help but appreciate (I knew he had once taught Math.) For the subject of the class would be nothing less than Scientific Evidence vs. Mathematical Proof.
(Shall I confess here that, with regard to LT, I was schizophrenic? True, on one level I wanted to expose him for the obvious fraud that he was. But, on a deeper level, I wanted him to like, to admire – even to love – me.)
It was a senior-level Introduction to Calculus class that he visited. This was a course that I'd improved greatly over the previous year because I had integrated (so to speak) the graphing calculator into the regular textbook material. That day we investigated the limit of the quotient of sin x and x as x approaches 0. (The limit is 1 and is non-obvious.) I posed several questions about this, and various students answered them by coming up front and demonstrating the solution either on the calculator projector or on the board. At the end I showed the class the (quite complicated) mathematical proof of the proposition.
During all this I noticed one of the students in the back whispering to her friend. This was the weakest student in the class; but, as she appeared to be discussing the subject at hand, I didn't say anything to her.
But after the class had ended, I saw LT talking with her out in the hall (he pointedly ignored me.)
My teaching 'evaluation' from him, received a few days later, contained only one reference to that class: 'No student I talked with had anything positive to say about your teaching.'
Despite my best efforts, I had failed LT's third 'test.'
V. There was a faculty meeting before the Christmas holidays. It was in the afternoon, and some teachers were out coaching sports.
At one point LT described what he would like our school to become. It sounded very familiar. So I raised my hand and asked, 'How would that differ from the school we have now?' LT gave his (notorious) response:
'We don't challenge students.'
We were all a bit stunned at this, I think. No one was responding. So finally I said, 'Actually, what I hear from various of my colleagues are complaints about how they are challenging the students, but that a lot of the students aren't meeting the challenge.'
LT simply repeated his assertion: 'We don't challenge students.'
I replied, 'Do you mean that some of us don't challenge students?' What do you mean by that all-encompassing 'we'?'
LT reiterated in an unchanged voice: 'We don't challenge students.'
I persisted – something unlike me: 'Well, I have a colleague who sits right next to me in the math office. I have observed several of her classes and I've seen her challenge her students to think in a different way. I've seen her tests, and they are difficult and demanding. Her projects are chosen to challenge the students to think differently. I know she's challenging her students because I see her giving extra help in all her free periods, including lunch. So you don't mean teachers like my colleague when you say 'we', do you?'
He answered in the same flat tone: 'We don't challenge students.'
I did not dare to state my conclusion. But I'm sure he could feel it crackling around me:
['Then what you are saying is an insult to my colleague and the other teachers here who do challenge students!']
LT had just insulted the faculty. I was bewildered and angry. I looked around for someone else to jump in, to second what I was saying. But no one did. I had been the only one to stick my neck out.
So I had just failed LT's fourth 'test' – that of blind obeisance to The Leader.
The next morning as I was walking up the path past the Lower School, a few teachers leaned out the windows and applauded and cheered me for what I'd said. I felt like Jesus riding into Jerusalem.
And look what happened to him.
VI. The End came swiftly after that. At the start of the new term, I was moved to a new classroom/office which was accessible to the outside and to bathrooms. They moved over whatever I requested – just as a prisoner is granted his last meal. Thus was I severed from the Math Department office – the interactions with colleagues and students - that I loved so dearly.
Essentially, I had been placed in solitary confinement.
One day a couple of weeks after I was moved, LT unexpectedly entered my room. He was affable and he greeted me as a normal person.
I should have been most on my guard at this atypical behavior. Instead, it gave me a sense of hope: I was convinced that, for whatever reason, he liked me after all.
I assumed that he wanted to talk over a policy question with me. I was walking (or lurching) over to get some notes I had taken at a faculty meeting (you see? I wanted to show how obeisant I really was) when I heard him say, 'I've decided not to renew your contract for next year.'
Prepared as I thought I was, this nevertheless hit me between the eyes. I asked one of the most rhetorical questions of all time: Why not?
He replied with one of the greatest understatements of all time, 'We're not on the same wavelength.'
[Well, I don't know about you, but I'm broadcasting from planet Earth!']
I told him that I was implementing all the changes he had proposed – the AP courses and the like. I tried to show how much of a bootlicker, how much of a lickspittle I really was. It did no good; he just reiterated:
'We're not on the same wavelength.'
I wanted to ask (but didn't because I knew he wouldn't tell me): Why are you really letting me go? Was it the Unholy Trifecta? The Four Tests?
Or was it the Four Words?
I must admit: I was long ashamed of uttering those Four Words. In fact, I did not even inscribe them in my Journal – a rare omission by one given naturally to effusive self-confession in those volumes.
But very recently I have come to see them differently. I now consider them to be prescient. For, from the little bit that LT had said up to that point, I was able to divine what had to be done from that moment on.
So what did I lean over and say to a blushing Jim Long that day? Just this:
'Contradict everything he says!'
You see? Jim of course wouldn't undertake such a thing. I knew instinctively that I'd have to be the one to do it.
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