Teachers: the good, the bad, and the in-between

Gin

I liked going to school in my hometown of Pittsfield.  As far as I was concerned it would be okay if I were in school all my life. I realized even as a five year-old the way to do that would be to become a teacher.  

For one thing I loved the way teachers collected papers.  This collection method was based on fixed seating in rows. First we would pass our work to the kid on our right; they would add their work to the pile and pass it on to the kid on their right and so on until all the papers from each row ended up on the desks of the kids in the first row.  Then the kid in the last seat in that row would pass the pile forward to the kid in front until, miraculously, all the papers in the whole class arrived in a neat pile on the desk of the kid first in the row.  I always wanted to be in that front corner desk so I would be the one to hand all the papers to the teacher.  That never happened

All through elementary school, as soon as I got home, I’d line up my dolls and stuffed animals into rows and give them papers to do.  Then I’d do whatever was on the papers –getting some wrong so I could make big red X's on them and pass them back.   Sometimes when my power of persuasion was strong enough, I'd convince some of the younger kids in the neighborhood to play school with me.  This was hard work because many of them did not want to play school when they were finally out of school for the day.  I'm sure there were times when some of them would say, "Run, run, there's that Ginny girl wanting us to be back in school again." It's interesting, the school I made up at home remains stronger in my memory than my actual school.  But there are two huge exceptions.  My fourth grade and sixth grade teachers stand out for completely different reasons.

I went to four elementary schools in my first 6 grades. Rice for first grade.  Crane for second and third. Tucker for fourth and fifth. Back to Crane for sixth.  My family moved a lot in those years, always in Pittsfield, but in different neighborhoods. Shortly before I began fourth grade, our family fell on what you would call hard times.  I didn’t know all of the details as an eight year-old, just that we moved to a different part of the city beginning fourth grade at the Tucker school.  The outside wasn’t so different from my previous school, a red brick squarish building with classrooms on two floors and bathrooms in the basement. (For years, I called going to the bathroom going to the basement.) I realize now the school was located in a poorer section of the city. 

Fourth grade was the first time I had a teacher who didn’t seem to like children based on the way she treated us.  She was much older than the previous teachers I had, maybe even near retirement age.    She made me very nervous.  She would yell loudly at individuals who did something wrong.  It would be one thing if the kid was punching someone but she'd scream at us if we made a spelling mistake on a paper.  This was ridiculous to me.  After all, we were only eight. I was so anxious around her I would have trouble following her directions. 

In preparation for parents' night that October, we were all assigned to make a flag of a different country.  She gave us templates of the various flags to cut and fold and color.  I remember her walking around the room, impatiently, "Cut on the solid line, fold on the dotted line," she kept repeating in a high shrill voice.  I kept whispering those instructions over and over to myself.  "Cut on the solid line, fold on the dotted line."  I picked up those little stubby scissors and promptly cut on the dotted line.  I  stared at what I had done. It was incomprehensible to me how I could have made such a mistake.  She came over to my desk, disgustedly picked up my paper and crumpled it.  "Virginia, your parents will not have an example of your work to look at on parents' night."  I felt devastated.  Even thinking back on it all these years it still makes me sad.  I never did tell my parents what happened. They never asked why I didn't have a flag on display.   

Even stranger things were to take place.  There was a student in our midst who had been held back several years, consequently was much older than everyone else in the class. Age was the least of it.  Physically he was more like a junior high student but mentally he was below most of us fourth graders.  He stumbled when reading aloud and was seated in the back row for math groupings. Now we would call him developmentally challenged but in those days the school system did not know what to do with him so he ended up in our class.

When our teacher yelled at him for making a mistake, he would regress to childish behaviors, sometimes sucking his thumb.  "Stop sucking your thumb'" the teacher would yell.  "I don't want to see that."  Becoming exasperated one day she proclaimed, "No one wants to see that," and shut him in the closet so that no one could see that. This was frightening. Part of my reaction included empathy but I was also afraid for myself. What if she told me to get in the closet. 

As bad as all this was, I'll never forget the day she came in and started pacing around the room staring at us.  We just sat there wondering what was going on.  She told us to stand but instead of starting the day with the Pledge of Allegiance, she started talking rather quietly, looking at each of us in turn. “As I come to school each morning, I walk by the city jail.  I see the people in the windows looking out at me, watching me walking freely when they have bars on their windows.” Her voice got louder. “If you don’t mend your ways, that is where you will end up. Now sit down.”  I recall looking around the room wondering what any of us eight-year olds had done.  It was puzzling.  I didn’t like school very much that year. I never told anyone, even my parents, how upset these situations made me.  Things were better in fifth grade except for one incident not surprisingly involving this same teacher.  

Because there weren't enough kids to fill two classes, my fifth grade class at Tucker was a mix of fifth and sixth graders. While we never had as unpleasant a teacher as in fourth grade, we had another problem. We couldn’t keep a teacher.  No one seemed to realize that fifth and sixth graders could learn the same thing at the same time using the same books.  Instead the teacher instructed one half the class from one set of books and the other half from a different set. The teachers were always juggling, teaching the sixth graders while assigning practice work to us fifth graders.  While the teacher led the fifth graders in a spelling lesson, the sixth graders might be reading their geography book.  This must have been wearing on them.  My yellowed report card mentions only two names but we had five different teachers that year, some of whom were there for just two months before being replaced by a different teacher.  It took some adjusting as teachers came and went but after a while I became indifferent.   Besides I had a boy I was interested in.

He was a fifth grader like me  His name was Jack.  Even though he lived next door to me, I only saw him during school. He was a serious student, wanting to get good grades.  We sometimes checked each other’s answers before turning in papers to be sure we were both right. Sometimes we would be silly together.

One day while standing in line in the hallway waiting to be dismissed, I reached over and poked him with a rolled up paper. Don’t know why. I was nine. Who needs a reason? However, the scary fourth grade teacher who was our line monitor thought I had hit a kindergarten child who was standing between me and Jack.  She pulled me out of line and began to yell at me.  I began to cry.  She told me to go wait in her room.  When the other kids had left, she came back to tell me she had spoken to the superintendent of schools. "This incident is going to go on your permanent record."  Now I had no idea what the superintendent of schools was nor did I know anything about a permanent record.  What I did know was that it didn’t sound good.  I was quite agitated and, in a way, angry. Looking back on it now, I realize I should have stood up for myself pointing out to her I didn't do anything wrong.  My silence showed how much I was still rattled by her.  

As I walked home I resolved never to tell anyone else about this. Ever. She had made me feel I had done something wrong. I figured if I never spoke of it, it would be forgotten.  However, when I arrived home late, I was surprised to see Jack there talking to my mother explaining what had happened.  My mother, usually a mild mannered person, became incensed at this teacher treating me unfairly.  She made it clear to me I hadn’t done anything wrong.   

The next day I went back to school with some trepidation, happy that my classroom was on the second floor and not the first. I could avoid walking by her fourth grade class.  When dismissal time came, the dreaded teacher was back as hall monitor.  I saw her looking at each person in line, but when she came to me, her eyes lifted right over my head as if I didn't exist. She wouldn't look at me at all.  This continued the rest of the year.  I began to think I could do anything and she would just ignore it.  Years later I found out why. My mother had gone to the school principal lodging a complaint against this teacher.  I only found this out when I was much older.  My mother didn’t want any of her kids to think we shouldn’t adhere to school rules, but when faced with what she perceived as injustice, she stood up for us. 

It's summer, almost time for sixth grade. We move again. This time back to a previous neighborhood. I would be starting sixth grade in the school I had attended for second and third grade, the Crane School.  I looked forward to the big grassy play area behind the school for recess instead of the more traditional black-topped schoolyard at Tucker.  The teachers I had earlier at Crane had been friendly, not scary like fourth grade and not as impermanent as those in fifth.  I was excited and happy to start my sixth grade at Crane. 

That first day in September of 1955 I walked to the school alone, not having made new friends yet, nor connecting with any former ones.  As I reached the front door, I saw the principal, Mr. Mullens, greeting everyone as they came in, and he was greeting the kids by name.  "Hi, Edward, welcome back to school."  "Hope you had a good summer, Molly, nice to see you back."  He paused when he saw me. “Virginia, I'll be with you in a minute to tell you where your class is.  Go down the hall and wait in my office."  I was so happy that he knew my name, thinking he had remembered me.  I didn’t occur to me until I was much older that since I was a new student that year it wouldn’t take much effort to learn my name.  Regardless of whether he remembered me or not, his saying my name gave me an immediate sense of belonging setting the stage for what would be an extraordinary sixth and final year of elementary school.

I never had a teacher who was so young and alive as that year. Up to this point, teachers owned the classroom. They passed out books and worksheets, made up the schedule for the day, and generally kept us busy. It was their space and we were just small people in it.  Miss Tracy wasn't like that. She told us, "This isn't my classroom. It belongs to all of us.  Help me make it the best it can be." 

She came in one morning, looked around, and said, "We need something on that bulletin board about Fall."  Looking at us she'd add, "What do think would work there?"  We all made suggestions. A list appeared on the blackboard.  "Apples!' "Baskets of leaves!" "Pumpkins!"  Excitedly, different kids would volunteer to work on some part of it, including me, the girl who never volunteered for anything the previous two years at Tucker. Out would come scissors, construction paper, crayons. Our day would begin in both a motivated and constructive manner.  Little did we know this is how she integrated the art curriculum into our school day.

We had class meetings at which we, the students, talked about rules for our classroom, when to talk, when to raise our hands, how to treat each other.  Even though these were rules, we didn't mind following them since we had been a part of establishing them. We became an integral part of everything that went on.  All of this was a revelation for me.  A teacher willing to share some of her authority with us.  I can't tell you how amazing this was.  

She even got us out of the classroom once a month on field trips. The field trips were related to something the teacher called, “Health Club”. Health Club met every other Friday afternoon.  We elected officers. The president ran the meetings.  At the meetings, we made suggestions of topics to study or places we might go on a field trip. I think we even did some fund raising—getting our mothers to bake cupcakes and selling them at school—to provide money for the field trips. We made posters announcing "Bake Sale This Friday.  Bring Money for Cupcakes and Brownies." We'd set up a folding table in the corridor at the end of the school day.  As classes were dismissed kids from the younger grades would stop by our table and buy things.  It made me feel grownup to be behind the table collecting money and making change.  

I recall two of the trips.  One was to the local water treatment plant.  Somehow I can’t believe we came up with this idea. I mean what sixth grader is going to suggest,  "I have a great idea.  Let's go to the water treatment plant."  Perhaps the teacher’s vote at the meeting was worth more than ours or perhaps one student had a parent who worked there.  Maybe the teacher turned a question about drinking water from the school water fountain into a plan to discover how the city got its water.  I recall the excitement of getting on a school bus one day and driving through the city to the plant.  Since I always walked to school and never took the bus, it was that aspect of the trip I remember more than the facility or what we actually did there.

The other trip was to Crescent Creamery, a local milk processing plant, to see how milk was pasteurized.  Another bus ride. Even though the neighborhood passing by outside the bus window was familiar to me, it was a different view from the window of a moving vehicle. Maybe the fact that my parents did not own a car gave me this unique perspective.

Once we arrived at the creamery,  we were split into smaller groups each with a plant guide who led the tour.  What I remember the most was the end.  The tour wound up in the lunchroom of the factory. What came next was so unexpected.  Here I am thinking all they did there was process milk. The next thing I knew they were handing out Crescent Creamery ice cream bars.   A treat in the middle of the school day and it was free! 

Early in October, we had a new student enroll.  She was from Italy not knowing any English. She was placed in sixth grade even though she was clearly two or three years older.  I got this impression from her figure. She had one. I didn’t!   We were told she couldn't go to the junior high until she could understand more of our language. Our teacher told us it was our job to be sure our new classmate knew English by the end of the year. We were given time each day to teach her words.  I took this very seriously. It was an important assignment.  Part of each day was devoted to helping our classmate associate “run” with moving around fast, “sit” with remaining in a chair.  We weren't too subtle about this.  Someone would yell "Run" and we'd all run around; someone would say "Sit" and we would all sit down. I'm not sure how we pantomimed words not commonly found in Dick and Jane, like memorize. Surely, there was more to it then than saying words and acting them out, but that is what I remember as being so much fun. I felt proud we were given something so important to do. At the end of the year she graduated with the rest of us.  

It wasn't just the class projects that made sixth grade memorable. It was also how Miss Tracy treated us as individuals.  During the attendance period I was assigned to collect money for milk we had during our mid-morning snack.  She let me make up my own chart to keep track of who paid and how much.  I developed a system she liked which pleased me.  I had another job before lunch. I went to the cafeteria where I spent a half hour helping to get it ready for the students who had been bussed in and couldn’t walk home for lunch. I set up place mats, put out silverware and organized the trays. I didn't wonder what the rest of the class was doing while I was gone or feel that I was missing anything; I just loved the idea that I was being useful.

When I look back at my report cards for elementary school, I see teacher comments, "excitable” or “ getting nervous again”. In contrast, my sixth grade report card has stars and ribbons attached.  This teacher knew how to handle my energy.  Instead of chastising me for not sitting still, she assigned me what she called "special projects" channeling my energy and making me feel a productive part of the school. I never saw her again after I graduated sixth grade. She never knew that eventually I came to appreciate her skills at figuring out what I needed and finding ways to address those needs.

I’ve thought over those two contrasting years of school many times during my life.  As I was preparing to be a high school mathematics teacher my thoughts were simplistic. I want to be like the sixth grade teacher and not the fourth grade one; friendly, not mean. That seemed like a declaration of intent, but contained no details about how I could bring this ideal to my teaching.

I've replayed that day the fourth grade teacher told us about the jail, wondering what in our behavior prompted that harangue? She was talking about all of us, but the only similarity I could see was that we were all nine.  As I grew older and perhaps a bit more sophisticated socially, I began to realize this school was located in a poor section of the city.  It might have been this teacher (and perhaps other school officials as well) didn’t expect students in this area to be successful, to get good jobs, or to go to college. There was the assumption if we lived in this section of the city, it was less likely we were smart or going to be successful. It was more likely  we were going to be the kind of people that ended up in jail. 

Once I returned to the Crane School, the expectations were different.  Miss Tracy gave us responsibility expecting us to rise to her challenges.  She had a different message. We were capable and we would be successful. Once I became a teacher myself, I wondered that if all the kids in that fourth grade class had been transported to the Crane School, mightn't they also have risen to the challenge?   

These experiences had an impact on me that I drew on in my own teaching. I tried to see my prejudices and rise above them.  I went with the assumption all my students could be successful. It was not predetermined they were good or bad at math due to race, gender, or social class. If they were challenged to think for themselves, they would thrive.

There are times this belief failed me, lapsing as I did into thinking one or another student was just lazy or didn't care. In spite of my self doubt, I endeavored to keep an open mind even as I tried to open the minds of my students.  I wanted my students to know that making a mistake wasn't a sign of failure but a step in the learning process. 

Currently there is much discussion in education about the concept of a fixed mindset (which is limiting) and a growth mindset (which is not).  Now, with many years as a teacher behind me, I can see my fourth grade teacher as one who had placed limits on us as students, assuming, because of where we lived, we would not be capable of very much.  My sixth grade teacher did just the opposite, helping us expand our visions of ourselves and our abilities, something I continue to strive for in my own teaching.

In some ways the skills and deficiencies of those teachers mark two different points on a scale defining good and bad teaching. At the most basic level, cutting on the dotted line and folding on the solid line is perhaps something we should all do more often.