That Was Not You

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Although I couldn't sustain it beyond a year's time, I have great admiration for the teaching profession. Those who make it their career should be praised, thanked, honored and well-paid because they are essential to one of the most fundamental building blocks of our society - education. I don't see how they do it year-in and year-out, but God love them for it.

For me, one of the major frustrations was seldom seeing the fruits of my labor. Teachers rarely know their impact because they often are not privy to the later outcomes in their students' lives. The incubation period for influence, planted in a time of unrivaled hormonal chaos and impishness, can sometimes stretch years before coming to fruition. For the most part, there's no need to wait by the mailbox for a letter of recognition. It won't be coming.

However, there are moments in teaching (even if you can only count them on one hand) when you know without a shadow of a doubt that you have touched a student and helped transform a life. I had one such experience during my year at Eastside.

There was a girl in one of my American history classes that I will describe, for lack of a better term, as a stereotypical "redneck." Her hair was dyed black and somewhat greasy with bangs so long they covered her eyes. She had a haughty countenance with an expression of a constant sneer, her lips raised on one side very much like Elvis Presley used to do. Although her classwork indicated she was plenty intelligent, she went out of her way to project a disinterest in anything I said or did. I would have pegged her a loner, but she had a posse of friends. Whenever I saw them around campus, they were to themselves, always standoffish and suspect of the normal goings on.

One Friday evening, the Pep Club was holding a "sock hop" to raise money for its various projects. As the faculty adviser, I stayed after school to assist in getting the gym decorated and setting up the sound equipment for the music. Once the time came for the dance to start, Frank Sutherland, the assistant principal, and I took up a post at the front entrance of the school to sell admission tickets. The school policy was to hire a police officer to monitor all night functions and he joined us there.

From somewhere in the dark of parking lot, we could hear a commotion and the officer ventured out to see what was going on. All of a sudden, my student came rushing towards us, her posse not far behind, yelling profanities back over her shoulder at the officer. He broke through the group and caught up with her, grabbing her arm just as she made it to the ticket table. She writhed in his grasp and spit in his face.

"I told you, you're not going into the dance," he yelled at her.

"Why not?" she spewed back. "Am I not good enough?"

She continued to struggle and I was amazed at her strength.

"No, you're drunk," he answered.

I came out from behind the table at this point and tried to intervene. "You're going to have to leave, now," I said. "We can't let you in.....you know that."

At which point, she rattled off a litany of terms towards me that would make a hardened sailor blush. The officer held tight as she tried to lurch at me.

"Come on, little lady. You're going with me," he told her as he pulled her away and towards his car. She continued to scream at me and I stood there horrified at what I was seeing.

Her friends interceded at this point and begged the officer to let her go with them, promising that they would leave and get her home safely. He and Mr. Sutherland discussed the matter and decided it was best to let them do so. The officer escorted the group back out into the parking lot and made sure they kept their bargain. I must admit, the entire episode really shook me. I had never experienced such anger and venom in my life.

The following Monday, she did not report to class and I marked her absent. On Tuesday, I happened to see her in the hall and as I passed by, she literally turned to face the wall and slunk along it until I was well gone. When my class started, she waited until the very last second of the bell before slinking into the room and slouching into her seat. She never looked up the entire hour and bolted out the door as soon as the class ended.

This went on for several days. Finally, on Friday, I asked her to stay after class.....that I wanted to talk to her. As the other students filed out, she sat frozen in her desk, head down with her eyes closed. I approached quietly.

"Listen," I started, "I don't know who that was on Friday night, but it surely wasn't you. The person I know is smarter than that, would never disrespect me like that."

She began to look up, but still couldn't make eye contact with me.

I continued. "And, furthermore, I don't want to see you slinking around the hall anymore, or crawling into my classroom. I want you forgive yourself, because I have surely forgiven you."

I had to take her chin and make her look at me.

"More than anything, though, I want you to understand your potential. You are a very bright person. If you apply yourself, you can do anything you set your mind to. Do you hear me?"

She slowly nodded her head. For the first time, I could see the clarity of the blue eyes that had always been hidden beneath the greasy bangs. They were welling with tears.

"Now, get on out of here. I don't want you to be late for your next class."

A year later, no longer on the faculty at Eastside, I decided on a whim to go to a basketball game and see who of my teacher friends might be there. After buying my ticket, I took a seat in the bleachers and scoured the crowd for familiar faces. There was a tap on my shoulder. When I turned in recognition, I couldn't believe my own eyes. It was her face, but the whole appearance had changed. Gone were the bangs and sneer replaced by a softer short haircut and a pleasant smile. More than that, though, there was a definite aura about her that had not been there before.....a confidence that I had never seen.

"Hey, Miss Kendrick, how are you?"

"I'm great. How are you?"

"I am doing just fine. My grades are good," she replied. She paused for a second. "And.....because of you.....I'm thinking about going to college."

Boys, I will never forget the sense of gratification I felt at that moment. It gave me validation as a teacher, even though I was no longer in the classroom. As you grow, you will have teachers to guide you and help unlock the many mysteries uncovered by knowledge. Who knows? Maybe one day you will decide to wear the mantel of teacher yourself. There is one thing for sure......teachers are indispensible....and when you have one that means something special to you.....for heaven's sake.....let them know!

Monkey Business

Dear Boo and Bubble,

After hearing about some sort of clever shenanigans perpetuated by young people in order to waste time, great granddaddy Schaefer would always say “If we could just harness the interest and ingenuity of youth and funnel it properly, we could solve all the problems of the world.”  Or, as early 20^th Century radical and playwright Floyd Dell put it –

“Children are notoriously curious about everything, everything except... the things people want them to know. It then remains for us to refrain from forcing any kind of knowledge upon them, and they will be curious about everything.”

Teachers are uniquely positioned to experience the tenets espoused in both of these propositions and I was no exception in my brief career at Eastside High School.  On a daily basis, I witnessed enough monkey business to make me salivate at the possibilities of what might be achieved if only the energy were re-directed. 

Everyday during the third period, I oversaw a “study hall,” a term which I choose now to italicize and place in quotation marks because the concept was totally bogus.  For one hour I was charged with keeping the lid on twenty-five or so 15, 16 and 17-year-olds and monitor them as they allegedly “studied” their assignments.  As far as I was concerned, the more proper description was “Lack of Study Hall.”

One particular day, I found myself engrossed in a book and wanted to use the time of third period to pull it out and read.  When the bell rang, the students filed into the classroom and took their seats.  I had arranged the desks in a “U” formation which left an open space in the middle giving me space to walk around while I lectured my American History classes.  As they settled in, I proffered them a proposition.

“Okay, kids,” I said.  “I am really into this book and I want to read it during this class.  So here’s the deal.  I’m going to keep my head down and my nose in the book.  You can do anything you want to do as long as you don’t make a sound.  If I hear anything and have to look up, then it’s all over.  You will have to stop whatever you are doing and I will go around the room to see that you are working on your school work.  Is that clear?  Does everybody understand?”

They were non-plused at first and then a murmur of amusement filtered through the room.  With a quiet chorus of “yes ma’ams” and nods of the heads, we had a deal.  I took my chair, opened the book and was quickly absorbed into its pages.

For the next hour, there was not a peep, not even a cough or a squeak of desk movement.  I never heard the first sound and before I knew it, the bell rang signaling the end of the period.  At which point, all hell broke loose as the students grabbed their book bags and furiously scooted from their desks and vanished out into the hall. 

The fracas made my head jerk up quickly……..to find a five-foot tall pyramid of wadded up notebook paper balls standing in the middle of my classroom.  It was a marvel – and even more marvelous was the idea that somehow, without making even a hint of noise, they had miraculously organized and executed it right under my nose. 

I left it there for the remainder of the day for my other students to see.  Of course, my hope was that they would see it as a model of what could be accomplished when concerted effort, coordination and cooperation were applied to a situation.  I rather suspect, however, they saw it for what it was – monkey business.   

Vanish Into the Darkness

Dear Boo and Bubble,

When I became a faculty member at Eastside High School in 1970, I joined many of my former teachers at my alma mater, Wade Hampton.  My principal, John Durr, taught me English.  His assistant principal, Frank Sutherland, had been a math instructor.  Catherine Austell and Betty Beane Workman came over from the English department.  Mrs. Workman oversaw the publication of our yearbook, The Trevilian.  As you can see, there were many teachers with vastly more experience than I had just coming out of college.  That fact, coupled with the requirement of full integration of the faculty under the Supreme Court ruling, made it very difficult for Mr. Durr to consider me at all for a position in the History Department.

The only way he could justify hiring me was to have me accept some additional responsibility over and above my classroom hours.  He suggested that if I became the Pep Club advisor, he would give me the job.  I had served as president of the Pep Club my senior year at Wade Hampton, so this seemed to fit quite well with my skill set.  I agreed to do it.

The charter of the club stated that the group would support the athletic endeavors of the school.  This included the selection of cheerleaders, coordination of a Booster Club and organization of events for students to increase attendance at games of the various sports.  The athletic department had successfully fielded a football team during the summer, once it became known which existing schools would supply the students for the newly-formed Eastside.  When classes started, I had no time to waste setting up elections to decide cheerleaders and the name of our team name (ultimately decided as the Eagles). 

As I’ve explained before, this was the first student body ever assembled for Eastside and reflected a diversity never before seen in the public schools.  It was a blessing in many ways to be in a brand new school with no established traditions.  There were no outsiders.  But the situation did present its own challenges.  Those of us in any leadership capacity need to establish fair ways for any election process to reflect the makeup of the body.  For me, this was particularly true in establishing a cheerleading corps as they would become one of the most visible symbols to the broader community of how things were going at the school. 

The applications came in just as I expected – an equal number of white and black students.  We held open tryouts in front of the entire student body so everyone could display their talents.  On the ballot, however, I divided the candidates by race.  Students were instructed to vote for four of each, regardless of class year.  The top eight vote-getters would be the regular squad.  The next four would vie for two alternate spots in a run-off with no restrictions on voting.  My methodology might not pass muster today, but my underlying goal was to eliminate cliques and encourage the students to get to know one another.  For the time, the process worked fine and Eastside’s first cheerleaders were chosen without any consternation.  The only loose end to tie up was that of the alternates. 

As all of the football games would be that year, the first one was away.  In the tradition of my experience with high school football, I secured a Greyhound bus to take students to the game for a nominal fee.  That’s what we did all the time at Wade Hampton.  The bus filled up quickly, mostly with white students, but there were three black boys who also bought tickets.  In what I thought was a stroke of genius, I decided to use the occasion to let the four girls vying for alternate cheerleader to ride for free and lead cheers on the bus going down to the game.  They would then temporarily join the regular squad at the game and have another chance to audition.

We were all to meet at 5:00 PM in Eastside’s parking lot and head out.  Since school didn’t let out until 3:30, I just decided to stay and grade papers rather than go home and come back. In a show of typical chivalry, Great Granddaddy Schaefer asked if he could ride along.  He was concerned that the bus would return after 11:00 and he didn’t want me driving by myself that late at night.  I was delighted to have his company……and it was quite providential that we would share the experience of that night together.

Among the four girls vying for alternate cheerleader was a Sophomore who had come from Lincoln High School, one of two all-black high schools in the county up until that year.  I don’t remember her name, but I will never forget that about ten miles into the trip, she began shouting cheers traditionally used at Lincoln.  At first, the white students just observed.  By the time the bus arrived, however, the entire load loudly joined in – stomping and clapping to a raucous beat so much that I thought the wheels would rock off the axles.  Granddaddy and I were right in there with them.

The ride home, however, proved to be a little more somber.  The Eagles lost the game quite badly.  No cheering, just quiet murmuring.

When the bus returned to the parking log, students disembarked and headed towards the cars filled with waiting parents.  As they filtered out, the lot emptied and the bus pulled away, Granddaddy and I stood there alone with the cheerleader and the three black boys.

“Miss Kendrick, is the office open?” she asked.  “We need to call our parents.”

I found myself in a very awkward assumptive situation – I assumed because white students took buses to football games all the time, it must be universally true.  Come to find out, this was the first time these kids had ever even heard of such a thing.  I had foregone the conclusion that they would know to tell their parents to come to the parking lot to meet them.

Since this all happened before the cell phone was even a concept, I had to tell her “no.”

Thank heavens, Granddaddy was there. 

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll take you boys home.  Beth, you take her.  Does that work for everybody?”

Realizing that this solution was the only option, they nodded their heads.

Granddaddy and the boys piled into his car - she and I into my little two-door Mustang and off we went.  The night was steamy and before long my windshield began to fog up.  I turned on the defroster and the wipers so I could see where we were going.  It was pitch dark.

“Miss Kendrick,” she said, “I am so sorry.”

“For what?” I asked.  “You didn’t know how this works.  I’m the one who should be saying I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not that.  It’s about the cheering.  I just couldn’t help myself.  I didn’t mean to just take over. But that’s what we do at Lincoln.”

“Are you kidding me?”  I replied in shock.  “It was wonderful!  You had everybody so fired up by the time we got to the game, it was amazing.”

We rode along is silence for a while, only broken by her directions on where to go.  Finally she told me to stop, that she could get out and walk the rest of the way.  I couldn’t see any distinguishing markers, but I figured she knew her own neighborhood.

As she opened her door to get out, I stopped her and said, “Listen, the greatest thing about Eastside is that it is brand new and you students from Lincoln will bring your best traditions to the mix and all the other students will do so as well.  It’s not my school, their school or yours…..it’s our school.  So don’t you worry.  Be yourself.  You made a real contribution tonight.”

She thanked me, shut the door and vanished into the darkness.  I turned around and started making my way back.  I honestly would have hated to see in daylight where I was. 

As it turned out, she was elected as one of the alternate cheerleaders and I felt a little sense of pride at possibly having helped that to occur.