School Stories, Part V

In 1990, it became clear that I was going to be a divorced lady.  I needed to find a place to live...and shocked when I realized that school would start in two weeks, but I was still only subbing.  I was living in Cloverdale at the time.  There was a gal there whose kids were classmates of my daughter, but she taught in Monrovia.  She alerted me that there was a fourth grade position open.  I applied and got the job.  I can't begin to tell you how happy that made me!  I wasn't too experienced at the elementary level but determined to make the best of it.  Thus, I became one of a four-member teacher team at Hall Elementary School near Monrovia, IN.

I stuck with Hall for four years, based on the class needs each year.  Year 1, I taught 4th grade.  Year 2, I taught 5th grade.  Year 3, I taught 6th grade; then in Year 4, I was back to 5th.  Crazy.  Some of those poor children had me as their teacher three years in a row!

Hall School was an ancient building (1902) complete with a cupola.  In my four-year stint there, I was assigned to three different rooms, the first two years of which were a basement "dungeon" room with low ceilings and real rough-slate blackboards, with the school's oil furnace in a closet just around the corner.  Ugh!  I was brand new to the district and not particularly experienced in primary grade teaching, but I did the best I could.  And here are some of my stories from there:

1.  In the very first few days of school that year, the nurse announced that she would be checking heads for lice because some had been found.  Before my class was scheduled for head check, one young fellow raised his hand and told me that he knew he had head lice, and so did his mother, but she had to send him to school because she didn't have any money until payday to buy the special shampoo.  I was shocked.  And I hurt for him.  Here was a mother who was willing to expose other kids to the bugs, hoping it wouldn't get discovered until she could take care of it, never asking for help.

2.  Had another young man who came to school with the left side of his face red and swollen.  I asked him about it.  He said it was a spider bite.  I sent him to the nurse.  He told her that his mother was going to call a doctor.  No problem.  As the day progressed, his face became more and more swollen and red.  I was alarmed.  I told the nurse that she needed to contact the mother to be SURE that she was actually going to contact a doctor.  (The mother hadn't, but did upon the nurse's urging.)  Turned out that the student had a major sinus infection that had escaped his sinuses and was threatening his brain.  He was prescribed antibiotics and put on immediate bed rest.  I like to think that I made a difference in this case.  The young man moved out of the district not long thereafter.  To this day, I don't know what became of him.

3.  One day, I was teaching in the basement dungeon room when smoke starting coming out of the ceiling vents.  Not a good sign!  I called the office to alert them that I was evacuating the children and to send help.  As I got the kids out, the principal came running down the hall toward us.  Didn't take too long to determine that the furnace had burped.  We were soon returned to the classroom, no harm, no foul.

4.  Had a charming young female student seated toward the front of the class.  She had a small, purse-sized tube of Vaseline that she had procured between her teeth and was flicking with her finger.  I heard a crrrraaaack.  Looked at her to see a big blob of Vaseline all over her lips, with her pointing at her face with the funniest look on her face.  The tube had cracked and given up a tablespoon-sized dose of gooey stuff, but the look on her face, and her reaction was absolutely priceless.  I sent her to the restroom to clean off her face, but I laughed so hard over that deal!!

5.  In those days, I was a non-tenured teacher.  Contractually, I had to be evaluated by the principal twice per year to determine my fitness for tenure down the road.  On one such classroom visit by "Billy Mac" (the principal), I had brought one young troublesome fourth grade Lochinvar to the front of the class, with his desk, so I could keep an eye on him.  (BIG MISTAKE!  Since he was in front of his classmates, he could perform and get their attention.)  Meanwhile, Billy Mac was seated at my desk watching me teach.  In fact, I was sooo attentive to my teaching that I wasn't paying enough attention to Lochinvar, who was (behind my back) pretending to stab me in the rear with a pencil.  He was entertaining the troops!  I was oblivious.

Out of seemingly nowhere, Billy Mac blasted out of his seat, grabbed the kid by the shoulders, and roared, "Young man!"  He yanked that kid out of his seat and marched him down to the office, with the rest of us watching in shock.  It wasn't pretty.  When the trauma wore off, a small voice from the class asked, "Ms. McNary...don't you think that was a bit harsh?"  I will never forget it.

6.  Billy Mac had announced his retirement plans.  I was his last non-tenured teacher, requiring contractual evaluations, but it seemed that every effort he made to come to observe me was thwarted by other expectations.  He was struggling to find an appropriate date to do so.  Finally, I said, "Bill, you know how I teach.  How about you write a fair evaluation?  I'll sign it, and you can be on your way."  He did and I did.  Understand that his write-up wasn't glowing, but it was fair.  Bill retired, and I have loved him ever since.  (Bill died a few months ago.  I will never, ever forget him.)