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Woody and the Wrestler

As we approach Thanksgiving in a year often offering more grief than joy, we can still all find things to be thankful for; one for me was the opportunity to play in the CCS band, especially when it was under the direction of Harwood Strobeck. Adult friends called Mr. Strobeck Woody, but kids didn’t, unless they wanted to make a normally easy going man mad, something I saw once during a drum lesson, and no, this time I wasn’t the one who crossed the line, but did witness the consequences.

I wonder how many people realize how difficult and time consuming it is to be a high school band director. In terms of required skills and effort, I can’t think of a more challenging position in any school situation. Instruction across the huge musical spectrum is a daunting task alone, and interacting with teenagers prone to all sorts of nonsense without alienating them creates a most trying job along an often emotional high wire. And believe me, Mr. Strobeck had more than a handful of volatile teen musicians to keep in line as he taught skills that went far beyond music. Continue reading “Woody and the Wrestler”

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Pedagogical Purgatory

The room’s vague perimeter swirled in mists of gray and green enclosing countless classroom desks that apparently survived WWII, but just barely. Not seeing any other interesting distinctions, I traced a finger over names carved along with other messages into the deeply scarred desktop before me. Some inscriptions were clear, brazen, and creatively vulgar, others only faint etchings, small cries for attention. “I donated my brain to science” and “There is no gravity-school sucks” competed with many more, racing up, down, over each other, sometimes shrinking as they reached the edges, or just stopping abruptly for reasons I didn’t know.

After a while, I grew increasingly pensive reading epitaphs and instead earnestly scanned the room again. Above to my right, covered in dust and hovering without visible support, a clock floated over a small speaker. The round white and black clock clicked softly but failed to advance, except for the moving secondhand that didn’t advance the minute and hour hands. I took it to be a taunting decoy circling around for some unknown advantage.

I stood up then but almost fell when challenged. Continue reading “Pedagogical Purgatory”

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White on Black: RIP James Charles

Just this past month America lost a great man who wasn’t famous nationally although I know locally he was well known and highly respected. I share his memory now with a wider audience because he epitomized what great leadership is all about. I think, especially during these troubling times, it’s important to know we do indeed have people who can lead us to better ways. James Charles, who died May 20 after a long career serving others, was one of them.

Mr. Charles was my principal for two years during one of the most difficult times of my life and enormously influential in shaping my vision of the world around me. Mr. Charles didn’t just teach me about how a school should be directed and improved, he taught me how to be a better man, and did so mostly by example. Continue reading “White on Black: RIP James Charles”

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April Fools in the Face of Danger

Just read another excellent column by Theresa Vargas who writes for the Washington Post. She reflected on the virus fear that surrounds us all, its actual and potential impact on her family, and the fact that she has yet to write a will. I know Theresa well because I was blessed to have her as a student, and not at all surprised she was more concerned for others today, a selflessness I much appreciated when she was an effervescent teenager out to save the world. As far as her heart goes, she obviously hasn’t changed a bit, and has grown into an adult worthy of emulation. Even during dark times like this I know America has a bright future because we have people like Theresa in it who will see us through to the other side.

The biggest problem I had with Theresa when we spent much time together in the 90s was remembering she was still an adolescent and not a colleague. She was far from the only student who provided this difficulty. Through chance and just good fortune, I found myself surrounded by a group of teenagers at Highlands High School who were so bright, introspective and caring I’d often forget myself and speak unguardedly as I would to an adult. I did this because these young people were so often far superior in every way from many of us (me, for one) and able to understand and reason on levels I still find amazing. Continue reading “April Fools in the Face of Danger”

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Economics and Morality on the Bayou

By the end of my second teaching year, I’d gone from being the biggest boob on campus to one most popular with students and peers. I found my rapid rise in status enjoyable, but illusory as far as being a skilled teacher went, and I was absolutely clueless about this, and many other things as well. Much of my popularity stemmed from my use of a token economy.

Great teacher or not, one of the biggest relationship changes brought about by my first classroom success was with supervisors. After my first principal retired, Assistant Principal Danny Smith became principal and asked me if I’d be interested in developing a token program for school-wide application. Flattered and excited, I went to work almost immediately. Continue reading “Economics and Morality on the Bayou”

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Right by the Throat Education

Maybe my misjudgment is off, but in reviewing physical contact with teachers, no action I experienced as a student was uncalled for, and all amounted to what a former Louisiana principal often said when disciplining a wayward student. “When you’re dumb, you pay” he’d explain before passing sentence, an axiom I find almost universal, except in politics.

While watching a shaky cell phone video on a TV news program, one supposedly showing a teacher’s inappropriate physical action I thought perfectly justified under the circumstances, it occurred to me that I’d been grabbed by the throat three different times by three different CCS teachers. Each one had more than ample justification. I don’t know if this is a record, but I’ll establish a baseline anyway just for future reference and welcome comparisons. Most seriously now and much more important, all of the following incidents imparted critically important lessons quickly and permanently for free, a real bargain any way I look at it today. Continue reading “Right by the Throat Education”

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How I Became a Millionaire Teacher

I spent several weeks at the beginning of summer vacation reading old education textbooks as I sat along the Intracoastal Waterway in Dulac. This water highway hugs the Gulf of Mexico coastline and connects to many inland water routes. I perched at the end of a shell road on a small cliff obviously cut by water erosion, but just how unknown to me until the first big offshore supply boat roared by. These big commercial boats have enormous multiple engines powering huge propellers. The wake generated by such force creates an enormous wave I didn’t appreciate until one knocked me right out of an old aluminum lawn chair.  I had my nose buried in a text book, a fishing pole in the other hand, and didn’t see the wave coming. Never made that mistake again. I also desperately wanted to avoid even worse mistakes I’d made as a classroom buffoon.

While my self-study program worked well and led to good scores on the National Teacher Exam (NTE) I was required to pass to keep my job, I was absolutely certain waving my NTE scores at kids like Marvin would be even less effective than the futile efforts I’d made previously. Marvin repeatedly tumbled my world far more than any wave did, and I sought a means of survival far more complicated than stepping back a few feet. As for which force scared me more, I’d give a big nod to Marvin and crew. Continue reading “How I Became a Millionaire Teacher”

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Jimmy Haynes and the Great Shotput Massacre

I first met Jimmy Haynes when he came down the school hallway on battered crutches in January, 1980. Jimmy wore a broad smile punctuated by a couple of bad teeth and navigated minus one real leg. Since he was never too careful attaching his prostheses, his right foot commonly angled 45 degrees opposite of his left one.

“Jimmy Haaaaynes,” he drawled in Mississippi English. “Welcome to Grand Caillou School. If you need any hep, come see me.”

I thought Jimmy would be more in place standing next to a rusty pickup filled with chickens, and while I verbally welcomed his offer, I decided silently on the spot not to take him up on it. But he also wanted a favor. Jimmy needed someone to officiate the intramural program he organized and directed, a program refereed by my predecessor. “Ahhed do it myself, but I don’t git aroun’ so fast,” he explained, gesturing to his false leg, as if I hadn’t noticed. “Beeen like thet since I was born,” he added. Saying no to a cripple I found unwise for a guy in my position, so I reluctantly accepted the new duty. I soon found out which one of us was really crippled. Continue reading “Jimmy Haynes and the Great Shotput Massacre”

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Drowning in the Classroom

“Rodney Verdin! Get your carcass to the office. Your soul may belong to God but your body belongs to Mr. Hebert. Get your chew down here boy!”

Principal’s announcement at Grand Caillou School. Winter 1980

Had kind and most skilled veteran teachers not come to my rescue, I would have quit teaching in a matter of weeks. Two years later in the classroom across from mine, three different teachers did quit in the same number of weeks, one right after the other. A fourth was hired but never showed up, most likely getting the same sort of warnings Mary gave me.  The fifth, a Nichols State football lineman built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, finally stuck and we became friends.

I’m not even sure if Emma Trosclair, my first savior, was a college graduate. The racist system bigots called “separate but equal” where she began her teaching career was anything but equal and didn’t require a four-year degree for teacher certification. When forced to integrate its schools, Louisiana granted black teachers already certified in the segregated system the same credentials white teachers had, but then tried to limit people of color to “work with their own kind” as much as possible. As you might imagine, Grand Caillou school had a high percentage of minority teachers, many of them exceptional. Continue reading “Drowning in the Classroom”

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Teacher’s First Day

I made my first visit to Grand Caillou School on a cold, rainy January afternoon in 1980. In spite of the winter weather, I parked my oil dripping red and primer gray VW Beetle across the street, as far back as possible in the shell-covered parking lot to avoid being connected to the wreck. From the front, or bayou side as the kids called it, the school looked fairly presentable: two brick structures for classes and another serving as a combination cafeteria/auditorium. I wasn’t assigned to any of these, though, and was directed to what was called “the back building.”

Grand Caillou itself seemed totally alien, a small fishing community just “up to bayou” as the Cajuns say above Dulac, the last outpost in Louisiana salt marshes before opening up to the Gulf of Mexico. The bayou in front of the school would have been attractive had its banks not been profusely littered by discarded junk. Broken refrigerators, half-sunken boats, old tires and even wrecked cars mingled with egrets, floating vegetation and more than an occasional alligator. In many ways I felt as if I’d just landed on Mars.    Continue reading “Teacher’s First Day”