Teacher Man

Friends,

A while back, I wrote a post about how one of my former students was recently arrested for taking part in the torture/murder of a pregnant mentally challenged woman. Well, today came more news from that era of my life.

One the people I was in my elementary education department with, Tad, called me to let me know that one of our classmates was arrested at a high school in Alton, Illinois recently. Settle down, she wasn't sleeping with a student or anything like that.

The former classmate, Jane Kodros, was arrested for a warrant for a derelict vehicle. See, what happened was that Jane was substituting a class, and in her duties began swearing at her students, making "rude comments" and bragged about her warrant. I guess one of the kids finked on her, and she was arrested the next day in between classes. And she faces extra charges. Read the story here.

What makes this interesting is that I remember Jane pretty clearly. I never had much contact with her, but I still know who she is. And that's pretty remarkable because I only really remember her, Tad (I was an usher in his wedding) and two other people. Everybody else, I couldn't pick out of a lineup.

Jane was a non-trad student, about 42 when she was a classmate of mine. She was, and may still be, an alcoholic. She would routinely show up to class stinking of booze, and for an elementary education program, that's a little disturbing. English types, a little booze on the breath isn't a bad thing, but we were studying to work with children, so that's a big no-no in my book. Plus, she was just obnoxious in class in a vague sort of way that every time she opened her mouth, I always thought, "Shut that fucking lady up, Jesus." Also, Jane nearly started a fistfight in my "How to Teach Science" class one day. I don't know all the ins and outs, but I think Jane made some kind of racial slur during a break two one of the two black girls in class, and things got froggy where the teacher had to separate Jane and the other person whose name and face I don't remember. Ugly moment, for sure.

Another fun Jane fact, when I was student teaching, she was assigned to the same school as me. And on the first day, she showed up late and drunk to teach I think third grade. What's amazing to me is that she wasn't booted from the program, just reassigned to a new school.

Anyway, it was interesting to talk to Tad who I haven't seen since I was an usher in his wedding. He was one of the few guys who was in my classes with me, so we bonded. Anyway, he asked me over the course of the conversation whether or not I'd ever go back to teaching elementary students. I dodged the question, but if I were to answer him...There is absolutely not fucking way I'd EVER go back to teaching elementary school. No. Fucking. Way.

First, swearing and making rude comments is how I get through creative writing workshops and apparently they don't go for that in public schools. Second, the more I reflect on my time spent trying to be an elementary school teacher the more I realize how often I was jerked around by the system and how much I fucked up, which must have been fate telling me "Bryan, you should rethink your life." From the way the program was restructured with me mid-program which forced me to graduate a semester late because of the way classes were rearranged, to my very first job interview were I was so nervous that I accidentally called a foreign exchange student I taught "Oriental" instead of "Asian" to the Asian principal who was interviewing me (my parents call Asian people Oriental), or the time I was brought in to interview twice for a job with the St. Louis Charter School only to find out via a rejection letter that I was actually being interviewed for a Spanish teaching position, and not Language Arts, as I was led to believe and to finally getting my own class and it's the worst damn class they could have given me. It's like my entire elementary education pursuit was destined to fail, and I never saw the warning signs, which is ridiculous because I once refused to go on an interview because of such omens.

See, I was invited to go on an interview to a place called Woodlawn, Illinois, just outside Danville, Illinois (home of Gene Hackman). It was a bit of a trek and I didn't know where the school was, so I took Emily and we drove up there to check out this small town. It was a tiny, tiny little burg, and this job was a slam dunk (I was a teacher's aide, and my principal had started his career in Woodlawn and he put in a good word). Anyway we get up in about 3 hours, find the school and on a complete whim, we tool around this gas-station/McDonald's rural town for about 10 minutes. On the way back, in the middle of nowhere, we get stuck in a hellacious traffic jam. The interstate had to be closed, they diverted all traffic to the frontage roads, everything was all fucked up...total drive back home...over 7 hours.

I found out the next day that what caused the holdup was that a man forced another car off the road and into oncoming traffic. The forced off car slammed into a diesel, killing them instantly. The man who did the forcing pulled over and slit his throat. When the police tried to contact the parents of the suicide man, they couldn't because the suicide man was fleeing their house after having beaten them to death with a bat. Here's the kicker, and I mean this seriously, if Emily and I don't spend the 10 minutes tooling around the rural town, there was a decent chance we could have, maybe not been involved in the murder/suicide, but we would have at least seen it go down.

I took that as the universe as saying that I should rethink that decision and I called saying I wouldn't go to the interview. But all the others I blissfully ignored, and just pushed and pushed my way to trying to get that degree and a job teaching elementary school.. Why did I do that?

You know, when I went into teaching, it was because I didn't think an English degree was practical because I didn't see what jobs or future a degree in that had. I wanted to write and I wanted to be an English major, but I fooled myself into thinking that with a teaching job, I'd have plenty of time to write. What was I thinking?

And, you know, I'm torn about all that time I spent in those classes and my efforts to teach in public schools. I don't see it as a waste, but at the same time, I'm here, earning an English degree. So, did all that previous foiled effort lead me here, or was all that effort for naught? I honestly don't know.

viva el mustache