1 post tagged “waiter”

First day of school foversouls on flickr[1]

“Look harder.”

Gee…did I just hear you say that again? You’re an English teacher. Surely you must know that one can’t look “harder” at written words on a page.

One can look “longer,” delve more deeply into the meaning of those words, if one can read them, that is, but one can’t look “harder.”

Yet, at least once a week, with distaste and fury layered through your voice, you say it to one of your first-year (seventh grade) pupils.

A girl today, I see.

A twelve-year old girl, whose life is already a misery. On the edge of puberty, her breasts feel sore all the time and, much to her constant mortification, one is growing faster than the other. No matter what blouse she wears to school, this is noticeable.  The boys in her class often point to her chest, whispering and laughing behind her back. She hears them and wants to die.  She feels she has nothing to balance this physical “anomaly” because to her mind, the other girls in her class are so pretty and sophisticated compared to her. The other girls in her class know how to flirt, while she just gets tongue-tied.  And while the other girls in her class still maintain that smooth, soft complexion of their baby years, her face is already always breaking out.

Apart from her uneven breasts and pimples, her feelings of social ineptitude, she’s “stupid,” she’s been told.

By her older brother, when she can’t read the ingredients on their box of breakfast cereal, or when, in a rush of shyness, she’s struck mute when his friends come over to visit. “Don’t pay any attention to my sister. She’s stupid,” is his way of explaining her silence to them.

Her mother agrees. Oh, not that her mother actually says the word out loud, she just looks at her daughter pityingly when shown her marks. “Well, honey,” mother sighs, “I guess not everybody can be good at school.”

But, this young girl is not “stupid.” She has dyslexia.

When you, her teacher, place this before her:

“…after he was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared…”

This is what she sees:

“…after he saw ushereb otni this worlp of  worros and rtoudle, by the barisp  noeqrus, ti remaineb a rettam of consiberadle boubt whether eht chilp  pluow survive ot dear yna name ta all; in which esac  ti si  tahwemos more than bropaple  taht these  sriomem woulp reven have addearep…”

Yet, all throughout her seven years of schooling so far, not one person in her life has noticed. Her brother, being a child, couldn’t notice. Her mother, not having had much education herself, might not notice. But you - her teacher? Why didn’t you notice?

I know why. You really didn’t want to be a teacher, did you? You wanted to be…hmmm…let me guess…a writer? ...An actor, maybe?

And because the agents didn’t knock down your door in their enthusiasm, because the studios didn’t shower you with movie contracts, you “fell back” on teaching, didn’t you? Someone, some career counsellor somewhere, or even another teacher perhaps, advised you, “You can use your M.A degree. You just need to take a few education courses. It has great benefits and you get your summers off,” didn’t they?

And you thought about it. You thought that the salary wasn’t too bad, especially for the amount of effort you were planning to put into it. Better than being a waiter, anyway.  You also realised that the teaching day, ending at 3 p.m., would give you just enough time to play at your real interests. And on a subconscious level, you knew that if you didn’t succeed at them then, you could always blame it on the fact that you, “had no time, you had to teach.” 

Then the years went by, faster than you could have believed. You never got that publishing contract and Johnny Depp got all your good roles. So your disgust with Johnny, with Random House and with yourself, grew.

Eventually that disgust manifested itself into an abiding revulsion for your pupils. In particular, this little girl in front of you now, who is flushed through with agonized humiliation because, on top of everything else she thinks she should be and isn’t, she can’t read Charles Dickens and she knows you loathe her for it.

In your loathing, you'll go one step further. You will make sure all her classmates detest her for it, too:

“I can’t believe this. Are you just going to sit there? Read it. We’re all waiting for you to say something.”

I understand you believe you should be able to express what you feel, at the very least. At least, here - in a classroom full of twelve-year-olds, you are in charge. You can say whatever you want and no one can stop you, because you have tenure, another job perk of your insufferable ‘career.’ So the worst that can happen is that you’ll get a lecture from the headmaster if any one of your pupils, or their parents has the temerity to complain. Which they hardly ever do. 

Last week, it was a boy. You really outdid yourself there. You managed to make him cry. In a room full of other boys his age, he cried, because of you.

And now his life at school is effectively over. He’d already been having trouble. He’s the smallest male in his class and he can’t hit, pitch, kick or dunk a ball. However, he was managing to get through with his wry sense of humour and his ability to run pretty damn fast. Now he’ll never fit in, thanks to your public, verbal flogging.

There’s good news, though. For you, anyway. You know how you so wanted to make a social impact with your literary and/or theatrical endeavours? You have. Your words and your performances will never be forgotten. You are immortalised in the minds of your pupils.

This little girl today, for instance. She’ll will always remember and be affected by you. The first time she meets someone who calls her “friend,” she’ll be so surprised and grateful, that she’ll probably be misused.  Her first job promotion, she’ll feel a clenching in her stomach, as she wonders if she’s really capable of handling it.  When a man tells her he loves her, there’ll always be doubt whispering in her mind, that he can’t possible mean it. And if she becomes a mother, she’ll worry far more than most, that she’s making a mess of it.

As for that boy, if he has a supportive family, he’ll make it through the next five years of school, though they’ll be hell for him. The girls will always roll their eyes when they see him coming and sidle away. He might come to hate women because of it and himself, too. And if he doesn’t have a loving family, he might decide life is not worth it and take himself out, along with some of his classmates and teachers, probably. Possibly you. 

All because you and so many others like you, couldn’t respect yourself, or your pupils or the job you were hired to do. It’s a job you’ll always despise, yet one from which no one will ever be able to pull you away. And every day you’re in it, you make my job harder for me.

Haven’t you figured out who I am?

Well, maybe you should look harder, too. 

I’m the English teacher across the hall. And I hear you every day.

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credits -  excerpt from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, photo from 'foversouls' on Flickr- "First Day of School"