A one-line item in last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Work of Art mentioned my plan to return to teaching in the fall. If students sign up in sufficient numbers, if we have clement weather and a stiff tail wind, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be co- teaching a journalism course at Highlands to help revive the moribund college newspaper, La Mecha.<\/p>\n
Tom McDonald, Optic publisher, will be the co-teacher and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t yet know that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have almost the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s share” of the duties. (Remember, lions don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t share, so technically McDonald would be doing all of the work. So that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have almost the lion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s share.)<\/p>\n
Rachael Ball, virtually a one-person newspaper crew, did an admirable job of putting out La Mecha this school year, under some taxing conditions. As editor, she worked hard but often lacked reliable help. McDonald and I hope to restore La Mecha, which hit the skids around the year 2000, when the journalism program got deep-sixed after my retirement.
\n<\/p>\n
Last Sunday, someone who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d read Work of Art assumed I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been an elementary school teacher in an earlier life. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d forgotten, but I did teach fourth-grade reading to a group of Zuni Indians, who attended a mission school. Even though that was during my first year of teaching, 40 years ago, I remember meeting with countless parents concerned about their child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grades. I remember many of the parents but few of the kids.<\/p>\n
Why didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t college \u00e2\u20ac\u0153methods” courses ever mention parental meddling, which plagues teachers universally? Even in those days, parents believed in rescuing their children from strict-grading teachers. I believe that era, the middle 1960s, marked the transition from mere parental involvement in schools to meddling and threatening.<\/p>\n
This week I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a number of conversations with adults who recalled school experiences in which anyone who acted up got a double punishment, once at school, later at home. Most emphasize there was none of that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My poor angel would never have done what that mean teacher accused him\/her of.”<\/p>\n
My friend Vince Distasio, who attended a boys parochial school in Manhattan, told of the time a few boys got involved in a no-punches- thrown shoving match in the gym, and the head of the school phoned the parents of each boy, ordering them to report immediately to pick up their expelled sons. The headmaster didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask whether it was convenient for the parents to go to the school that instant, nor did he merely allege there was misbehavior. He expelled them, and that was final.<\/p>\n
Sixth grade at Immaculate Conception School in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc40s was particularly harrowing. We were crowded in the downstairs classroom and needed to share a seat. The desks were the slide-through variety, more like an open restaurant booth than a desk. One day, our homeroom teacher, Sister Mary Tempus Gravitas, stormed toward my desk with the kind of mien that promised a facial rearrangement. None of us kids ever knew the cause of the punishment but some of us surmised my seatmate had made a face at the teacher.<\/p>\n
That became a weekly event, and though we felt sorry for the double reverse Robert regularly received, we were like gawkers who hate to see auto accidents but nevertheless become rubbernecks for an excuse to wince.<\/p>\n
Toward the end of the school year, when we saw the teacher racing toward us, we surmised Robert was going to get it again. But this time she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d come down my side of the aisle. Naturally, I guessed she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d reach across me to get to Robert.<\/p>\n
But not this time. She gave me the double slap. So stunned was I that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t react, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cry, never needed to tell my parents. My siblings, none of whom saw the punishment, took care of the public service announcement, in graphic detail, adding editorial comments as to how I \u00e2\u20ac\u0153probably deserved it.”<\/p>\n
Why would the good sister slap an equally good sixth-grader who never gave anyone any trouble? Might she have actually walked down the wrong aisle and, covering her error, chosen me rather than reaching across to Robert? Was the punishment actually meant for Robert, with the understanding that I was expected to pass it on?<\/p>\n
It seems the wrong many may have suffered is being redressed these many years later by helicopter parents of every stripe who assume teachers are secret sadists waiting in darkened hallways to speak unfairly and harshly to angels who walk the earth.<\/p>\n
Strange that all this comes about just when No Child Left Behind has raised the bar once again. The more that is expected, the more the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dccopter parent objects.<\/p>\n
Last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column, on the grade change at Rio Grande High School, precipitated by politically powerful parents of a flunking male senior, gave my opinion on how easy teaching really is. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dealing with parents that complicates things. A student who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d cut 17 classes had no inkling he was on the verge of flunking English. The change of grade from an F to a D allowed him to walk the graduation line.<\/p>\n
Amid the uproar, Albuquerque Public School Board President Paula Maes insisted parents have the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153right to get in teachers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 faces.” What she failed to mention, but should have, is that if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re politically connected, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153right” becomes more justified.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A one-line item in last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Work of Art mentioned my plan to return to teaching in the fall. If students sign up in sufficient numbers, if we have clement weather and a stiff tail wind, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be co- teaching a journalism course at Highlands to help revive the moribund college newspaper, La Mecha. Tom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}