I was on Reddit.com this morning and chanced to see a question thrown out to "teachers in Reddit" to relate the most interesting things that had been confiscated from students. Of course, my brain immediately wondered what I would have posted if I had an account on that site. And then some. I am writing some of my school stories here, with apologies for skipping around some. Bear with me, but enjoy. Some are funny. Some aren't. They are what they are, in no particular order.
1. My very first teaching position out of college was as one-half of the English Department at Heyworth High School, Heyworth, IL. It was a small rural district; the school building was OLD; and a state highway ran right past the school on my classroom's side of the building. There was no air conditioning, so in order not to swelter during the hot months, we had to open the windows (no screens), which ran from about waist height to the 15' ceiling. Having the windows open was quite noisy as the semi's drove past on a regular basis. It also made us vulnerable to all sorts of other critters that could come in and out at will.
I was a greenhorn teacher, totally insecure about how to teach literature to farm kids who couldn't have cared less. As happens sometimes, I had one class of Juniors that year that was mostly boys. This particular crew was proud of the fact that they had been instrumental in getting a previous teacher fired by hanging by their hands outside of the windows.
On Day One, I was calling role and came upon a student named R. G. Anderson. His response to my calling his name was: "That's me. R.G. doesn't stand for anything. That's the way it is on my birth certificate." Only he wasn't particularly happy to be telling me that. He spit it out, almost as a defense that comes from having had to say it sooo many times in his school career. That, plus that class's reputation for being unruly, put me on notice that it was going to be an interesting year.
In that same class was a chunky, somewhat-nerdy kid that the others always picked on. Can't remember his name, but I always had to be on the lookout for bullying--and that was in the days long before bullying was even considered a thing.
So, within the first week of my maiden teacher voyage--hot day in September, with the windows open--a bird flew into the classroom. Of course, it provided a total disruption in the lesson I was attempting to teach. It flew around and flew around, surely terrified. And then it crapped, as birds are wont to do--right on the shoulder of the nerdy kid. He reacted as you might expect, by holding the affected area of his shirt away from his skin and complaining loudly. His classmates also reacted as expected by laughing their heads off and making fun of him. Needless to say, thus ended any attempt at teaching that day!!
Also, in that same class, was a kid named Richard. He was a smartass nonpareil. One day, I asked the class to turn to a certain page in the text. He loudly responded, "Might as well. Can't dance." That's an old country answer to things that make no sense, but with him, it was an attempt to derail my lesson. I saw red. I said, "Sure we can! We can dance! You start! I'll wait! I was being sarcastic, of course...and he turned red, declining my invitation. He didn't pull that again.
2. There were a couple of other issues at HHS. There was a Supreme Court challenge about school dress codes in my second year there. (We're talking 1970 here.) The ruling said that students had a right to wear what they wanted to wear as long as it wasn't disruptive to the learning environment...and that included teachers. The Principal called a convo to inform students of what would and wouldn't be allowed. One kid asked if the male students could grow facial hair. The principal said, jokingly, "If you think you have the chicken manure to grow it, go ahead." So the kid grew a mustache and was sent home to shave. Being the passive-aggressive little activist that I was, I--also jokingly--told my students that it would be funny if we all showed up at school with penciled-in mustaches. It didn't happen, of course, but a couple of days later, I was called to the Principal's office to be told, in angry words, "Get off my back!!!" It was my very first reprimand as a teacher. I was a bit more cautious after that.
3. At the same time in the same school, I taught a class of Seniors. At the time, Senior English was usually just for college-bound kids, but I had a student who had a post-grad goal that required him to take English, even though not for college entrance. He was not a strong student, but he was a good kid and worked hard. I did everything I could to help him succeed. His name was Larry. Before the end of his Senior year, he told me that his aunt had died and had some books that he wanted to give me from her attic. What he delivered were eight tiny little green-covered books, published in the late 1800s--The Complete Works of Shakespeare. This was in 1971. Those books still have a place of honor in my house. But that's not the end of the story...
Sometime about the year 2000, I was talking on HF (high frequency; hence long distance) radio to a number of people who were tickled to hear a woman's voice on the air. I was talking to a fellow and mentioned that, even though I live in Indiana, I am an Illinois transplant. So was he. In the course of our conversation, I said I had taught school in some small districts in IL. And this is how that conversation went:
ME: I used to teach in Illinois, out in the boonies.
HIM: But I bet you've never heard of Heyworth, Illinois.
ME: I bet I do! That was my first teaching job! I was half of the English Department!
HIM: What year?
ME: 1969-1971.
HIM: I was in school there then!
ME: Really? What is your name? My name was Goossens then.
HIM: I am Larry Edwards.
ME: OMG, Larry. I remember you! I still have the books that you gave me!
For a couple of years thereafter, I saw Larry at the Bedford (IN) Hamfest in October. He looked the same, except that he was very much as gray as I was. When I had Larry in class so very many years ago, I was a scant 4-5 years older than he. Wow!
4. One other good thing happened at HHS all those many years ago. The Principal had to observe my teaching in order to give me an evaluation. The class he sat in on, unannounced, went swimmingly. At the end, he asked if I would mind if he had another non-tenure teacher (history, I believe) sit in to observe me. I was really tickled to know that he liked what he saw about my teaching.
5. A couple more things--same time, same station:
A) I had a sweet young female student who was acting strangely one day. Over-dramatic and uncharacteristically calling attention to herself. She confessed that she wasn't feeling well, so I sent her to the office for help. The next day, back in class, she confided in me,
"Mrs. Goossens, I did a bad thing."
"Oh, Dixie...what did you do?"
"I took drugs."
"Really? What did you take??"
"I took No-Doz."
Times sure were different then...
B) Since the school building was old with wooden stairwells, after the Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago in 1961, fire drills got serious--especially in schools with wooden stairwells. Our drills at HHS usually amounted to the usual, but at least once a year, the admin would block off the stairwell which would require students and staff to exit the building via the outside fire escape. The rule was that the young ladies had to be evacuated first--not because they were the favored gender, but in order to prevent the young gentlemen from standing beneath the stairs to look up their skirts!!
Thus began my initiation into the world of teaching.
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