8/30/09
I tried, no, really, I tried. I tried to be good. I tried to put a new kink in the misshapen arc of my life and be part of the solution. Upon inspection, the solution dissolved my resolve. Casting aside vagaries, I quit the credential program therefore not become a high school teacher. I ascertained that there is no way for me to sink root and flower in the layers of administrative pavement of any high school system. I can’t blame the California school system.
In the first credential class of the fall ‘09 semester, after one full semester learning pedagogy, I discovered that I needed two years of a foreign language, I fact sidestepped repeatedly by the credentialing program director. In the first credential class of the fall ’09 semester, I was hollered at by the instructor (a former San Francisco Unified School principal) for attempting to remove a copy of the syllabus from his desk; a thing that hasn’t happened to me since I was in high school (class of ’72). Unpleasantly shocked at being made an example, I recovered and forced a chuckle as my classmates nervously laughed. Ha, ha, ha, the teacher is making fun of the oldest person in class.
His rudeness set me to thinking about years of insults from false gods; ego maniacal persons in positions of authority in school and at work and how over time I’d renounced these gods. Long ago I began fighting back; this does not lend to career building. Later I learned to pick my battles. In class this night I saw quite clearly that if I were teaching it would be a matter of time before a battle presented itself; snarky insults beg retort. I could not remain mum under false civility and the impending threat posed by all administrators; then there are the politics involving, principals, parents, and finally, students. And then there is me, a rookie teacher with a bad attitude at, if my math is correct, 57/ 58 years old. The insanity of the situation came brutally into focus.
Check this out:
I’m a poor speller, the first of my earned F’s was in third grade spelling; rules with a whole lot of exceptions don’t seem rules, suggestions maybe. I never got the ‘hang’ of spelling. In class that night I could see myself as teacher, I’m writing on the board, I’ve misspelled “arachnid”, there is a titter of glee from the young scholars’, embarrassment flushes my face, with no success on repeated retries, with a quarry full of chalk dust, with the class laughing like mad with frustration hitting me like a black-jack I’d say the magic word, “Fuck.” Magic because I’d disappear. Or like in Latin America I’d be ‘disappeared.’
So I’m out $2,600 and change and I’ve learned a lesson. I learned that teaching isn’t a passion in me that crowds out all other considerations. I learned what I’ve always known; ignoring prickly things it is to my detriment; if the thorn is sharp now, time won’t wear it dull. Sure, I’m passionate about reading and writing, I’m oddly passionate about art, truth, citizenship, and civility. There might have been a time, long ago, when I could have shucked off the thorns rudeness and administrative pricks for some perceived greater good; that time has passed, the greater good is to avoid the briar patch in the first place and in being honest and true to the self.
Experiment over. Does anyone need a used bricklayer?
