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The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I cannot go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree, but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
--Theodore Roethke
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Joy's Updates - Straight from the Horse's Mouth.
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Friday, April 11, 2003
Ms. Kotter
Beginning teachers are always given the dregs of classes and schedules. During my first year of teaching, I was given 8th grade US History - five classes of it. My major is in English, and I'd done my student teaching in that subject, but am also certified in history. This was in North Charleston High School in South Carolina which contained grades 8-12, almost 1400 students - more than the enrollment of my college. I came from a very small town and went to a small branch of UT and had never lived in a city before. Yet here I was ready to face my first students during my first year of marriage while living out of state for the second time in one year.
I was a Navy wife whose husband was stationed on a nuclear submarine that had Polaris missiles on it. We'd been living in Virginia Beach where he was in computer school since he was a fire control technician. That isn't what is sounds like but has to do with operating and maintaining the computers that control the missiles. It's pretty interesting as long as you don't think about having nothing to come back to if the missiles have to be fired. So I had this stress while he was on patrol every other three months. We drove down to Charleston to find an apartment and moved me down there two weeks before he did while he finished school. This was the first time I'd lived alone too.
The school was in a large two-story building that had these words carved over the front door: Education is a possession of which man cannot be robbed. We teachers were required to sign in at the front desk when we got there and sign out when we left. My room was outside in a portable away from all but the other portables out there. Some kind of dusty grit blew in the windows and covered everything. Students were grouped, and I had one class from the top group, three middle groups, and the lowest of the low group. These were called social promotions and were scary. They might have been like a street-wise Deliverance version of the Sweathogs (Vinnie Barbarino, Juan Epstein, Freddie "Boom-Boom" Washington, and Horshack). Yes, I was afraid of them and had to take them to lunch all the way from the inner circle of hell through the building to the cafeteria. A couple of them were 16 and 17 in the 8th grade. One was a surfer; the other had acne scars and wore a black leather jacket with buckles and chains (not like Fonzie). There were two girls in the class, and they were rougher than the boys and threatened to beat up the ones their age. My money was on the girls.
The only thing that saved me that year was that the Blackboard Jungle leather-jacketed guy developed a crush on me. He probably felt sorry for me and wondered what planet I was from because one day he confided in me that his "old lady got locked in the cooler last night." Naive me, thought of frozen food lockers as coolers and asked, "Oh no! How did you get her out?" He shook his head and explained patiently that she'd been thrown in jail. That was worse! I'd never known anyone who had been in jail, much less someone's mother!! Wide-eyed, I gasped, "Your MOTHER was arrested! Oh no, that's awful!" He was probably sorry he brought it up. I'd been so sheltered and have one of those families many people don't believe existed who were the subject of 50's TV shows. I grew up with Donna Reed, Father Knows Best, the Cleavers, etc. This was major culture shock for me! Biker boy started bringing me apples. I thought this was a myth and no one ever took a teacher an apple, but he did. I was afraid to eat them but got hungry one day and thought dying from a poisoned apple couldn't be much worse than teaching that class and ate it. Then I looked forward to eating my daily apple for the rest of the year. He would threaten others who disrupted class. They were afraid of him, too, so it was like having a security guard in the room. I don't necessarily recommend this method but it helped at the time. I wonder what became of him.
The other four classes paled in comparison to the Sweathogs except for the top group. They were very bright and energetic. I had to stay on my toes to keep them interested and involved, or they would get bored and act like 8th graders. When we were studying the formation of the national banks, I had them debate whether it was a good idea or not to put money in banks. They were on teams, researched, and presented their opinions in a formal debate. At least that was the plan. They got angry and started yelling and calling names. A fight would have been the next step if I hadn't intervened and calmed them down. I told them that would be a strange reason to give the principal when he asked what started the fight. How many 8th graders actually come to blows arguing about banks, I asked them. We were able to laugh about it and have a discussion about history after that. I wonder if any of them became bankers or perhaps bank robbers.
2:58:00 PM
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