"A School Dream"

Me during my early years teaching!

         I pulled my car into the fenced enclosure, neatly sliding into the correct slot, my assigned number. Walking around to the passenger side door, I heaved out my black tote, hitching it onto my right shoulder as I leaned forward to heft out the plastic crate filled with essays and a class set of journals. My muscles screamed in protest by the time I reached the Administration building where I quickly checked my box for any important messages, so I set everything down long enough to rotate my shoulders, fill my pitcher with ice, and chat with a colleague about the day ahead.

         Cutting across the patio, I nudged open the glass doors and trudged up a short flight of stairs, turning to the left towards my classroom. Outside my door waited an impatient group of students.

         “Finally.”

         “Geeze, Miss. Can’t they do something about your schedule?”

         “You’re always late!”

         I ignored their lament as they recited the same complaints every morning. My work day didn’t start at my own classroom on my home campus. Instead, my day began on our nine-ten campus teaching a career studies class to freshmen. I “borrowed” a teacher’s room on that campus every day, and her resentment at being displaced meant I had to schlep supplies back and forth because she forbade my students from using her tape and staples. She’d taped little X marks on the floor where I had to make certain the desk legs hit. Her rows must be perfectly straight. Because I had to leave these freshmen five minutes before the end of the class period to drive to my other campus, an administrator asked this other teacher to step in so the students would have supervision. This teacher refused, though. I reasoned that my seniors were capable of waiting in the hallway a few minutes every morning. Unlike the freshmen, I doubted they’d start throwing punches or vandalizing anything. However, they did like to complain.

         My key turned quickly in the lock. One student grabbed the crate while the others filed into the room. Someone flipped on the lights while another student pulled out the bin that contained the class’s journals. The instructions written on the board before I left the afternoon before meant these seniors settled down quickly while I caught my breath.

         The windowless room with its dark-paneled walls and orange carpet constantly carried a scent of mildew. I’d tried to warm the room with overflowing pots of philodendron and scented candles. I’d stapled an old bedspread from ceiling to floor along one corner of the room and placed a small couch with pillows and a floor lamp to create a reading/writing nook. The room, too tiny for the number of desks it contained, didn’t feel cramped because I’d clustered the them into groupings of various sizes.     

            Last night, I found myself back in that old classroom. I hadn’t step foot into that space in eighteen years, yet in my dream last night I lugged my tote and crate, swept up those stairs, and greeted my students. I caught the wafting aroma of mold and cranberry candles. I scanned the instructions on the board on the unit on Abnormal Psychology. And for a moment, I relived in a vivid dream a moment that represented millions of moments from my teaching career.

            This school dream marked the first return to work from my subconscious mind. I don’t know why this particular scene surfaced, but the memory reminded me of the joy teaching brought into my life for many years. I didn’t mind teaching five preparations across two different campuses because those seniors sitting outside my door resented losing five minutes of instructional time. They longed to delve into Freud, Skinner, and Bandura. So if I drift back to work in my sleep, it’s wonderful that I slip back into one of my best memories where teaching school was a dream.

 Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“A School Dream”

Me during my early years teaching!

         I pulled my car into the fenced enclosure, neatly sliding into the correct slot, my assigned number. Walking around to the passenger side door, I heaved out my black tote, hitching it onto my right shoulder as I leaned forward to heft out the plastic crate filled with essays and a class set of journals. My muscles screamed in protest by the time I reached the Administration building where I quickly checked my box for any important messages, so I set everything down long enough to rotate my shoulders, fill my pitcher with ice, and chat with a colleague about the day ahead.

         Cutting across the patio, I nudged open the glass doors and trudged up a short flight of stairs, turning to the left towards my classroom. Outside my door waited an impatient group of students.

         “Finally.”

         “Geeze, Miss. Can’t they do something about your schedule?”

         “You’re always late!”

         I ignored their lament as they recited the same complaints every morning. My work day didn’t start at my own classroom on my home campus. Instead, my day began on our nine-ten campus teaching a career studies class to freshmen. I “borrowed” a teacher’s room on that campus every day, and her resentment at being displaced meant I had to schlep supplies back and forth because she forbade my students from using her tape and staples. She’d taped little X marks on the floor where I had to make certain the desk legs hit. Her rows must be perfectly straight. Because I had to leave these freshmen five minutes before the end of the class period to drive to my other campus, an administrator asked this other teacher to step in so the students would have supervision. This teacher refused, though. I reasoned that my seniors were capable of waiting in the hallway a few minutes every morning. Unlike the freshmen, I doubted they’d start throwing punches or vandalizing anything. However, they did like to complain.

         My key turned quickly in the lock. One student grabbed the crate while the others filed into the room. Someone flipped on the lights while another student pulled out the bin that contained the class’s journals. The instructions written on the board before I left the afternoon before meant these seniors settled down quickly while I caught my breath.

         The windowless room with its dark-paneled walls and orange carpet constantly carried a scent of mildew. I’d tried to warm the room with overflowing pots of philodendron and scented candles. I’d stapled an old bedspread from ceiling to floor along one corner of the room and placed a small couch with pillows and a floor lamp to create a reading/writing nook. The room, too tiny for the number of desks it contained, didn’t feel cramped because I’d clustered the them into groupings of various sizes.     

            Last night, I found myself back in that old classroom. I hadn’t step foot into that space in eighteen years, yet in my dream last night I lugged my tote and crate, swept up those stairs, and greeted my students. I caught the wafting aroma of mold and cranberry candles. I scanned the instructions on the board on the unit on Abnormal Psychology. And for a moment, I relived in a vivid dream a moment that represented millions of moments from my teaching career.

            This school dream marked the first return to work from my subconscious mind. I don’t know why this particular scene surfaced, but the memory reminded me of the joy teaching brought into my life for many years. I didn’t mind teaching five preparations across two different campuses because those seniors sitting outside my door resented losing five minutes of instructional time. They longed to delve into Freud, Skinner, and Bandura. So if I drift back to work in my sleep, it’s wonderful that I slip back into one of my best memories where teaching school was a dream.

 Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Teacher Bashing”

            “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” All of us have heard the idiom. A few of you have said it. Some of you may even believe these words. I doubt when George Bernard Shaw wrote the phrase in Man and Superman, he expected his personal prejudices to belittle generations of teachers. These eight words have made it easier for people to hate those who educate. Well, maybe not hate—but the shifting attitude directed toward American teachers saddens and frightens me.

            When I entered teaching thirty years ago, I intended to stay in education for only four or five years until I attended and completed graduate school. Something unexpected happened. I loved teaching. I enjoyed opening the minds of my students as we read 1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Catcher in the Rye. The years I taught Psychology, we reveled in Freud and Jung, paid homage to Skinner, and recognized the importance of Maslow. It didn’t matter if I taught seventh graders to listen to their inner voices when they wrote, or if I helped struggling seniors finally figure out rhyme schemes. I loved the vigorous demands on my creativity and intellect that teaching imposed each and every day.

            During any typical day, American teachers must relate to their students (some years I had 150 students per semester) and to the parents of these students. They must juggle Federal laws, State mandates, and District policies along with principals and peers. Some days, I came into contact with overt two-hundred people. And all of them wanted or needed something from me. They needed my intelligence, my attention, my guidance, my firmness, my determination, and my heart and soul. So you see, teachers are those who can.

            The recent trend to blame teachers for society’s shortcomings troubles me. Disrespectful words and attitudes within our media spill into our school hallways. Parents and students feel entitled to special treatment out of a sense of superiority over the instructors. I know not all teachers are excellent. However, I worked over the years more with exceptional instructors than with unskilled teachers. Burn out is a real problem within the profession.  I’ll admit that my last two years, I wore a whistle around my neck and blew it in the classroom because groups of students behaved no better than dogs. Actually, they didn’t behave as well as most trained pets—they didn’t know how to sit in a chair, how to stay, how to be quiet, or how to show respect (for anyone). These behaviors didn’t suddenly start when these  twelve-year-old students crossed the threshold into my classroom. These behaviors began long before I ever entered these children’s lives.

My job, though, went beyond teaching my students the nuances of literature and the delights of writing. I had to teach them (and many times their parents) consequences for their actions. I maintained high standards for my students, but I provided the support they needed to reach those objectives. Many times, it meant I didn’t give second chances. I sat in parent-teacher conferences and told mothers, “No. I will not take the assignment late. We spent five class days working on this assignment. I sat down with your son each of those days to help him do the work. He made the choice to refuse my help. He must learn that doing nothing is not a choice he can make in my class.” I didn’t have a high failure rate. The thing about difficult students is that once they realize resistance is futile, they begin to do the work. These same students will play the system for as long as possible if they sense weakness.

I’ve pondered over the reasons for the slander of my profession and the anger directed towards educators. I’ve decided that it must be easier to blame that horrible seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Chapman, for a daughter’s slapping her mother’s face. It must be easier point a finger at her and yell and accuse when your son fails six out of seven classes (even P.E.). It must be easier to befriend your child as you walk away from the school in an Us versus Them camaraderie. It must be easier to lay culpability upon an entire profession than to accept responsibility within the family. And our politicians feed this abusive attitude and encourage the bashing because they need an enemy that’s real and solid—not poverty, not broken homes, not drug or alcohol abuse, not violence.    

  

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman