I was thinking about lessons taught and lessons learned. One of which is that if one’s going to put something out there on Facebook as divisive as “what happened to me that one time in high school” there’d be a vast amount of responses that had little to do with what *I* thought I was writing about… I think I expected what I got (and got what I expected). People not really thinking about how I’m still horribly aware of making these mistakes, even though I’ve been bitten by them in many ways, very few sympathetic posts, but a whole lot of judgment about the teacher and HIS methods.
Well, I’m certainly glad that many people have Lived such painless Lives so that you can refer to the above as “child abuse”.
Teaching is such a fraught activity. Many have opinions about how it should be done. Few step up and do it. All of us have been students, but few of us are able to step into the shoes of what it must be like to teach – and beyond the relatively simple act of regurgitating information into the vaguely-receptive minds of the class placed there in front of you – the layered complexities of packaging that information, dealing with inattention, malicious or otherwise, threats to self and others, discipline, interruptions, grading curves, mistakes, perfection, imperfection, administration, politics, the temperature of the classroom, getting enough sleep, angry parents, absent parents, REAL child abuse…
Talking to teachers and discussing their methods, remembering them from my time as a kid, remembering advice when I got pulled into the classroom : the ones who tried to convince you they were crazy and not to be fucked with, the ones that may have BEEN crazy, the one who’d slam plywood on the desk in an ear-shattering cry for attention, the ones that yelled, the ones that didn’t. The ones that were outrageous, the ones that were just trying to get through the day – the ones that wanted you to think they were cool, the ones that didn’t care. The drunk ones. The creepy ones. Sheesh. Which one was I?
Some teachers developed bizarre methods, some of them bought red phones and placed them on the stool in the middle of the classroom. As a teacher, I didn’t make it far. I quit. It’s lucky for ALL of us that more teachers don’t follow my example.
Thank goodness, though, they all choose different methods. Believe it or not, simply through the act of having such varied teachers, even in the public schools of America, that means we’re exposed to an awful lot of different methods of learning. We’re subjected to many different types of “superiors” in a semi-controlled environment. Even if some are simply there to get through the day, there’s a lot to be learned from that.
Pick your hill… you do the work or do you skip the homework from the class where you get a zero? Where the teacher might not collect the work? Where the teacher might make you call your mother?
Strangely, looking back at that incident – what I REALLY learned was: it was my response that was the killer. My mom, if anything, was sympathetic. My fellow students were sympathetic. The only person making me embarrassed was ME.
Not everyone would’ve had the same experience. At least someone answered the phone for me. There were some students who would rather scream at the teacher and get sent to the principal than call their parent, and I can only assume they were making educated decisions.
I don’t miss teaching and there are absolutely HORRIBLE teachers out there. But that biology teacher connected with me… later. He surprised me by writing a GLOWING recommendation for college. Thinking on it now, recognizing that he was probably younger than I am now – knowing the challenges of Suitland High School in PG County – more power to him for finding a way of making ANYTHING stick. His lab coat and affected drawl, Bamas and the -itis – he was probably more culturally aware then than I am now.
He certainly didn’t teach me to double-check myself, but he added to the tapestry that is me. For those of you who’re still sitting back and saying “okay musician, so when did you use Advanced Placement bio in the Real World?” – you might’ve missed the whole point of getting an education.
I think too many people really don’t grasp that an educational system that didn’t give you weird-ass and sometimes painful arbitrary hurdles really WOULD simply be about the subjects – and NONE of us know what subjects are going to be important later in Life! I wish unto thee a Life in which weird-ass, painfully arbitrary hurdles aren’t part of your adult existence – but I’m so grateful I got those kind of Life lessons hidden as courses about biology or math or English – and not just in a class titled “Sometimes, For No Reason, Someone Will Do Something Mean 101” or “My Way or The Highway – Dealing With Having a Petty Boss” or “45 Minutes of Derogatory and Passive Aggressive Needling From a Workmate” – because damn, if I’d know that Real Life was going to be like this?
Well, I wouldn’t even have gotten THIS far.