“Anyone interested in teaching elementary school
should come to a meeting tonight.”
This simple announcement interrupted a 17th Century English Lit class and sounded the kind of chord that might signal a major religious revelation.
I suddenly knew what I wanted to be.
Waves of children came into focus, clear and bright, hungry for knowledge. Parents roared with pride, cheering as kids hurdled obstacles and tossed graduation caps into the air. I wanted to be a teacher.
I knew I would not be fabulously wealthy, but I couldn’t have known then what being a teacher would require of me. A teacher has to be willing to be disarmed.
Waves of children came into focus, clear and bright, hungry for knowledge.
So in 1970, a month or so into the first semester of my rookie year, a mother arrived to enroll her eight-year-old in my class. But she needed to explain a few things first:
“Changing schools is part of starting a new life for us. There’s been a divorce and a new marriage.”
I nodded.
“A new house in a new neighborhood.”
I understood.
“Also, Robbie’s been confused lately about whether she’s more a girl or a boy.”
I listened as a new learning-wrinkle formed in my brain.
“Our therapist feels she is leaning toward masculine, and wants us to change her name from Robin to Robert.”
OK, then. Robert it will be.
I knew I would not be fabulously wealthy, but I couldn’t have known then what being a teacher would require of me. A teacher has to be willing to be disarmed.
Before school the next morning, riotous hooting erupted from a group of my third graders outside the boys’ restroom. Primed to rescue the sensitive newcomer, I was startled instead to see him creep toward me, clad in leopard-skin flannel pajamas.
“Make them stop laughing!” he demanded.
I whisked him around a corner for a private talk.
“Why are you wearing your pajamas to school?”
“I just like the way it feels, like a real leopard.”
“Does your mother know you wore your pajamas to school?”
I was startled instead to see him creep toward me, clad in leopard-skin flannel pajamas.
“Yes, but she said I can change clothes if I want to. I’ve got them here in my bag. I’m going to chase the kids and bite them if they keep laughing at me!”
“Robert… you have to expect kids to laugh when a beast with a boy’s head shows up at school. They get excited and silly when they see someone in a costume.”
“Why don’t they just mind their own business?”
And where was your mother this morning?
“Well, you’re hard to ignore. Your wild pajamas are grabbing everyone’s attention.”
“They are just jealous. I turn into a real leopard when I wear these.”
“You’ll have to be dressed like a human to come into my classroom. I need everyone’s attention on me.”
“Robert… you have to expect kids to laugh when a beast with a boy’s head shows up at school.”
I held the crowd at bay while he did what he had to do.
He soon emerged, a compromise: half human boy (blue jeans) and half wild animal (leopard print shirt.)
I stationed Robert by my desk with some work he could do so I could move around the classroom. He scowled, but I insisted. The other kids needed attention, too.
After a while, heartbroken sobbing and angry fist pounding upset our happy hum. Robert threw up his hands and informed us:
“It’s not easy, you know!” Pound, sob, blubber.
“Going to a psychiatrist once a week!” Pummel, weep, wail.
“At thirty dollars an hour!”
With this, he turned into a puddle.
Our student helper ushered him to the Nurse’s Room, and the rest of us had a heartfelt discussion about ways we could try to make a new friend feel better when he or she is upset.
After I escorted the class to lunch, I stopped by my desk in the classroom. A single green square of paper from one of my own memo pads caught my eye. It bore a short message in childish writing, and it spoke volumes about what my new student was going to be. I kept it folded in my wallet for many years:
“Robin has a cold
If i couhg i need help
Roberts mom.”
At the end of the day, it is often teachers who have learned something new. It is these constant surprise turnabouts, and not the prospect of being fabulously wealthy, that keep most of us on the job. That, and the prospect of bottomless office supplies.