A reminder as to why I no longer teach high school

A few people still ask if I miss teaching. No, I do not, and I am seriously reminded what I don’t miss when I read blog posts like this one from Ricochet who is still teaching high school math.

 

Tell people

Still stunned from last week’s carnage, I sit and listen to the stories of lives lost. Heroes who protected small children. Small children who had already lived remarkable lives but had so much more to do. Stories cut short with an improper ending. And I think of all the people in my life who mean so much and yet, if they were gone today, would they know how much they mean. Or, would their story be told in past tense?

As I listened to friends and family talk about Sandy Hook’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung, I knew that her story as a prinicipal was true for so many like her. People who take on a very hard job and love what they are doing. They protect, guide, encourage, and just love the schools where they are assigned. They would do anything for “their” kids. Which, of course, Mrs. Hochsprung did. I can pretty much bet that she didn’t think twice about confronting the boy with the gun. She just knew what she had to do for “her” kids. It may not be in the job description, but it’s in the heart.

This morning, after listening to the stories of children, teachers, principal, I thought about those in our life who mean so much. We need to tell them, now, while they are still with us. This made me think of the principal for whom I worked the longest, Bob Reyes. For those dear Readers who have been here all along, you’ve heard me sing his praises before. Hard work being an inner city high school principal. Hard work with little appreciation for the tough choices that had to be made at times. I wrote Bob a Facebook message, for others to see as well as Bob, telling him what a great job he did as principal.

Bob Reyes & me at the last winter formal we attended.

Who are the people in your life, dear Reader, who should be told, now, that they are your hero?

 

Encountering former students everywhere you go

The trip to the Naval Base in Lemoore garnered a reacquaintance with a former student from the class of 1996, same year our daughter graduated from another large high school here in town.

Nicole was one of those students who took every business class we offered as well as being our department aide. In her senior year she took a class that allowed her to work outside of the classroom, and I believe her placement was at City Hall. After all these years, she is still there, now as chief of staff for the politician for whose retirement ceremony we had come to Lemoore to witness and photograph.

When I first saw Nicole, I recognized her from somewhere, but it didn’t register until she came over after the ceremony to chat. We had previously run into each other at City Hall when I had been there on one of those innumerable field trips with the Marketing Academy students.

It’s good to see our former students doing well. Not only does she have the high-profile job, she also has twin daughters. Busy lady.

Delaine and Nicole

Unfriending on Facebook

Over the years a number of former students have found me on Facebook and asked to be friends. In almost all cases, I have agreed. Sometimes I agreed because I saw that they were friends with other people whom I admire and care about. In most instances, these friendships have been okay as the former students have gone on to lead successful lives and it’s been fun to see the progress. However…

I have recently seen, played out on Facebook, the unraveling of lives. Some of the former students have small children, and the tragedies of failed lives are involving those children. I can hardly sit still and not give advice. Well, most of the time I don’t sit still but let my feelings be known. I can see the terrible mess they are making of their life, much like the life of the parents before them, and it makes me so angry that they did not learn from those mistakes. And, they seem to have forgotten what we taught them in class.

Today I started unfriending those who make me the most upset. It seems cruel to drop them, but I cannot keep watching the train wreck as its happening. They aren’t going to listen to my advice to get out off the track and out of the way of the speeding train. It all makes me feel like a failure. So, I’m going to look away.

Next principal come on down

It’s been two years since the principal and I retired from the large inner city high school. As I think I have mentioned more times than anyone cares about, I was not replaced upon retirement. The principal, however, was; but his replacement, after two years, is moving north to become an assistant superintendent for a school district near Sacramento.

I said he was just passing through, like a train in the night. Very young, with a doctorate, I knew he wasn’t planning to stick around and make a lifetime commitment to the district. Oh, just typing that sentence makes me laugh. We will see who filters out and gets the job for the next year or so at the inner city high school. It will be hard next year as the campus is AGAIN being remodeled. You might remember the theme for the 2005 yearbook-Lost in Modernization–the year that gave me ulcers.

If I was not already retired, I would definitely leave this year as 2012-2013 will be pretty hellish–new principal and remodeling.

Pride in a job well done; shame in messing up

The year I was in sixth grade–1963–was a water-shed year in many ways. Not only was it the year President John F Kennedy was assassinated, which is really a major memory, it was also the year my parents bought their first ever new car and remodeled the house I grew up in. The previous year had brought record prices for cotton and my father finally felt that he had money to do all those extras. My dad worked very hard and he was very proud of the excellent cotton he grew and the high prices it brought. He believed that his fields were a reflection on his character and the resulting crops a sign of his success.

But, getting back to me, 1963 was a year when I learned a skill that I have used the rest of my life, and it’s what I want to share with you, dear Reader, today. Why today? Because I read this piece of news this morning.

I was very concerned about being called “out” by my teachers. I only wanted to be noticed by the teacher for my good work, not for something I did wrong. Because of my fear of being “shamed” in class, I always worked hard and took pride in my work until one assignment in that sixth grade class. The teacher showed one to two movies and week, and she expected us to take notes on each movie, using a notebook she gave us specifically for this task. She also had a specific way in which she wanted the notes written, having drilled us previous to the first movie. When the lights went off, and the movie started, all of her instructions went right out of my head. I couldn’t get the hang of writing in the dark. It was hard to watch the movie, and then write the notes, going back and forth from screen to paper. I was totally bewildered, and went home, nearly in tears. I thought about this all night. I just knew that when I turned in my notebook the teacher would hold it up to the class and say, “Look. Delaine Kissinger does not know how to take proper notes.” I would be mortified.

So, I thought long and hard on how I could keep that from happening. I decided to practice writing, in my bedroom, with the lights turned off. When the news came on TV, I practiced taking notes on what I was hearing. I also brought my notebook home and tried to fill in some notes for the first movie. By the time the next movie was shown, I was better at the note taking, but still not good. The fear of humiliation was still there, but I kept practicing at home, and by the time we had to turn those notebooks in for a check-point, I was doing pretty well. The teacher made some comments in my notebook, giving me some tips on arranging my notes. I followed her suggestions, and by the end of the sixth grade, I knew how to take notes on movies, speeches, presentations, anything and everything. College was much easier because of this ability.

To this day, I give credit for my ability to take notes to my sixth grade teacher, Miss Pugh. Oh, and some credit to my shorthand teacher in high school, Mr. Arntz. He was another instructor whom I didn’t want to disappoint.

Where and when did that change in the schools? Why aren’t students still fearful of messing up and getting called out for doing inadequate work? Just as my dad saw the importance of high yields and excellent quality in his crops, I too saw the importance of good work and high grades in my school work.

Field trips redux

When I taught in the large inner city high school, there were lots of field trips. If you were with me back there when I had a teaching career, then you may remember the details of those trips.

We went everywhere, making sure our students dressed professionally, behaved well, asked intelligent questions (because we did lots of research before hand), and wrote thank-you notes when they got back. I was the crazed teacher who worried constantly about how well her students were behaving and keeping an eye on the clock to make sure we got back to the bus on time. Now, I am on the other end. I am the tour guide. It is so much more fun.

The bus arrives, the kids and teachers pile off, they split into groups, and I ask the  mansion tour group to line up on the steps of the large home. I have my script; I know how to line up the students; I have 45 minutes to get them through the house with all the information they will need and then line them up for the servant’s quarters/gift shop visit which is someone else’s responsibility. Then I make a dash through the house, open the door, and greet the next group of students. Two or three of these groups and I’m done and can go home.

It is so much more fun than getting the students back to school and teaching a couple more classes as well as preparing for the next day’s lessons. Less stress, too. I like being the tour guide.

Some of my Sunday School history

Going through boxes of pictures, clippings, files, and all sorts of historical pieces for the church history project, I have found a photo of one of my Sunday School classes from years ago. For almost 20 years, I taught second, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade Sunday School classes. Not all at the same time, but different ages, scattered over the years.

One time I quit teaching second grade because two little boys, who were too energetic for my style, were going to be in the class. I could have handled one but not two. I was very young at that time, and now with years of teaching experience, I could easily handle them, but back then they terrified me.

A few years passed and I was asked to take on fourth grade. We had lots of fun putting on plays of Bible stories and doing the big project of the year–building Jerusalem. I would take the kids to the church library to look at books with pictures and maps of Jerusalem during Bible times. We talked about all the things that went into a city–the buildings, the people, the animals, the temple, and the wall. Different students were interested in different things, some wanting to make the people, others wanting to build houses. We would collect cardboard boxes, paper tubes, popsicle sticks, and plastic plants and animals. For a few weeks, each Sunday, the class would work on the various parts of Jerusalem until we thought it was good enough. Then we would invite parents in to see the finished product. Here is one class’s interpretation:

I think I did this for four years. My friends could probably tell me for sure because I always bugged them for boxes and other such supplies. Then I went on to teach fifth and sixth grade, and many of those students had already done the Jerusalem project so I let it lapse. No one else picked up the idea. It was just easier to do the lesson in the book.

It’s been four years here

I started this blog four years ago, having no idea what I was getting into or where it would lead me. I had been told that if I planned to leave teaching and pursue another career that I needed a better web presence. My google page had about three entries at that time. I wasn’t even a blip on the social media scene yet because there wasn’t much social media out there. That has all changed in these four years.

Here is that first post:

Ah, Friday before a 3-day holiday.  This is one of the reasons I chose to become a teacher for a new career after working in publishing and sales.  We return to a 4-day week before leaving for a one-week Thanksgiving break.  Where in the “real world” do you get those kinds of vacations?  I keep telling my students, “become a teacher, or you’ll find yourself with 2 weeks of vacation a year.”  They usually moan, and lament, “no, I don’t want to deal with kids!”   Where are we going to find future teachers? 

So many teachers are coming up on retirement age, and yet we see few student teachers signing on for this profession, especially after student teaching at an inner city school.  It’s not just the students who cause people to flee, even though my students seem to think that.  It’s also the issues of constant testing, constant criticism of teachers, constant bureacracy.

I will definitely enjoy my 3-day weekend.  It will give me an extra day to grade projects and enter grades into the computer.  It will give me an extra day to plan the next week’s lessons.  Of course, even when I plan, the tyranny of the moment can change all those plans.  Just like next week, I had planned a checkpoint for my Marketing I students’ big project, but then today I realize I will be gone all day for a district meeting and will have a substitute.  So, there go my great plans.  But it doesn’t stop me from making those plans.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Apple cake, room mothers, and a warm fall afternoon

Do they still have room mothers? You know, those mothers who arranged all the parties for the class during the year when you were in elementary school? My mother was often a room mother. I remember the Valentine’s Party she planned when I was in third grade and my best friend got the chicken pox and couldn’t come to school. My mother boxed up her Valentines, made sure a cupcake was saved for her, and we dropped it all at her house (I had to wait in the car) on our way back home from school. Since my mother didn’t drive, Daddy had to take the afternoon to do all of this tote ‘n carry business. I guess he didn’t mind because I remember my mother doing lots of these parties.

Being a room mother, she was also a part of the Mother’s Club, which I guess was the forerunner to PTA, which I think is now called something else. As they continue to do now, part of the responsibilities then of the club was to raise money which this group did by having a large barbecue for the community some time during the year. I think it was spring time, around May day. The dads all got together and barbecued a massive number of chickens and the Mother’s Club members made the rest of the food, none of which I can even remember except for the apple cake. My mother, for a few years, was in charge of the apple cake.

I’m pretty sure, that back in the late 50s, there were no copiers, just those stencils that had to be typed and then run off on mimeograph machines. Remember how the paper always smelled when the teacher passed those out? I can only figure that is how the apple cake recipe was dispersed to all those mothers.  Every mother was given the same recipe, to bring on the day of the barbecue. My mother gave explicit directions on pan size and labeling so everyone could get their cake pan back at the end of the evening. No one used disposable anything back then. The meals were served in the cafeteria, using the same trays we used for lunch every day. If you wanted to carry out your dinner, then you brought your own pans for take-away. My mother always washed out her cake pan and filled it with leftover chicken that tasted even better the next day.

Every year my mother would marvel at how, using the same recipe, every mother’s cake that was put on the table looked different. They all pretty much tasted the same, but they looked different. Even the pan sizes were not uniform. I think the first year it really bothered her, as my mother liked uniformity; but as the years passed, and the same thing happened, she laughed about it. Just as the children were all different, so were the cakes their mothers made.

Today I made my own apple cake, fiddling with the recipe a bit as I didn’t have quite enough apples. And I don’t like allspice so I put in cloves. Wonder what my mother would have thought of my version:

It is such a beautiful fall afternoon–warm and sunny–so I decide to enjoy the cake out on the patio along with my computer and my book.

I think my mother would be smiling at this, until she learned that I needed to dust the bedroom furniture. For you see, she believed that you didn’t get to goof off until all of your work was done.