Doing What You Love – Loving What

Doing What You Love – Loving What You Do

by Susan Fleming

The beginning was not a noble one, it was born of desperation and a severe need for a job. Plans had been neatly laid out in my brain; those plans were crumbling to dust. Never destined to be a Fine Arts major, I had done a back door major in drama. How was that done? It seems that a Secondary Education major in English, minoring in Speech would do the trick for me. Since I had set my goal on teaching in college, the education courses had to have some significance. A secondary area at the time consisted of grades seven through twelve. It's an important thing that you observe the promise I made myself. I would never teach seventh or eighth grade.

Upon graduation, I began my tromp through the application process. Since my practice teaching had been in a volunteer project in the deep Appalachian mountains, I was seeking employment in these closed communities. Not being hired and being told that they would give me the worst classes if I had the nerve to show up or they wanted me to teach some oddball class that I was not certified to teach had been a brick wall I had not expected. Over the years of being in college and being friends with people in my rural neighborhood, the neighbors informed me, “They're hiring in Murray County.” Bless Daddy, he was so excited he volunteered to drive me to the wilds of North Georgia to “check on” a job. So that you will know, I was not hired for my stellar qualifications of having a degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, these people were desperate. Walking into the tiny Central Office building, I informed the secretary that I wanted an application. From the recesses of the building a male voice hollered, “Can you teach English?” Answering the disembodied voice, in a very unprofessional manner, I hollered back, “Yes.” The second booming question, “Can you teach seventh grade?” Having been taught not to prevaricate, I swallowed deeply and once more hollered back, “Yes.” The voice yelled again, “You're hired! Rachel, give her an application.” Notice, on day one, I had broken my promise to myself. It seems I was going to teach in a junior high school in a rural North Georgia county. Stumbling out to the car I sat stunned beside Daddy. “I got a job,” I muttered. Not at all what I meant to do and not at all a grade I wanted to teach. What the hell had just happened to me? The grand plan was that I would drive from my family home every day to teach in the next state. Only a thirty-minute drive and since I had no money and no car, I had to be flexible. My letter for Pre-Planning was late so I missed the first day and was dressed wrong for the second day. All of the people there got a good laugh about “Our Miss Brooks” being late and not dressed for a day of work. Have your ever prayed that a crack in the floor would open and swallow you? I used up all my prayers that day. I was the new kid on the block and had two strikes against me. It was certainly a day for mixing metaphors. My teaching supplies for the year were a new box of chalk and a new eraser. My companion grade level teacher was a person from the county and the darling, it appeared, of the staff. Her books were carried in, the desks arranged and her room set up. I received some mysterious commands about the empty science room on hall two. She and I were to decide who would teach grammar and who would teach literature. I don't know how I lucked out on this,

but I had the literature section. There was an explosion coming and people were about to discover that “Our Miss Brooks” would take no crap from anyone. At the faculty meeting at the close of the day, the principal asked if anyone had any questions. My hand popped up. “I cannot find my books. Could I have some help?” I was trying to be nice and not whine, but I had wandered the building fruitlessly, searching for books. A smart ass response came from behind me, “I told you they were in the empty science room on hall two.” Having had about all I was going to take, I turned on said smart ass and spoke in an even voice, “I don't even know where hall one is, let alone an empty room on hall two. I'll haul the damned books, I don't need any of your grudging help, I just want my books. Now, if there's some problem with me I don't know about, I want to hear it now.” Turning to face the startled principal, he slowly smiled. “We'll get you your books tomorrow morning.” He looked at the room, “We have a room full of strong young men who'll be glad to help you.” It seems that I was hired without a principal interview and he had been miffed about being overlooked. Then the superintendents office had looked at my transcript and they had determined all of the things I could teach if needed, and they had suggested I might move to the high school at Christmas leaving him short a teacher. There was a seventy percent turnover in the county at that time, a high percentage of very young and inexperienced personnel filling the teaching slots, which created, in rodeo terms, a bucking bronc hard to control. A teacher's first year is a thing to be survived. Many discoveries come fast and furious. The first being that most of what you learned in college is useless. Classes in classroom management, discipline principles, and learning how to speak to a class were not part of the curriculum. Planning lessons, setting goals, all of that had been mostly covered in practice teaching, but how to be adjusted to a different environment was not included. It was little things that made the day a trial and tribulation. Day one began with my homeroom class, keeping them an extended period to “explain” things to them. Things I did not fully understand myself. The secretary called me on the intercom and asked where my absentee sheet was. “I don't know,” I responded expecting information as to where it might be gotten. “Well, you better get it up here or I'll turn you in,” and click it was off and my kids were looking at me like I had been put in my place. Finally, after about three interruptions, some person claiming to be from the office brought me a hand full of absentee sheets. I looked at them blankly and handed her back one. “You're suppose to fill it out,” she grumbled. “OK, but with what information am I to fill it out?” Looking back, I know that everyone was trying to make the day work out, everyone was keyed up and since we were a sea of inexperience, it was like trying to row a boat in stormy seas. Me, having my back up, was not making me a popular character; when I stopped by to let the secretary (whom I discovered could do no wrong) have it for speaking to me in an unprofessional manner, was not the most marvelous beginning to what turned into a thirty year career. These experiences did teach me something that stuck with me for the rest of my career. New teachers were always greeted warmly, time was allotted to answering questions, no question was laughed at, and the little day-to-day business details of running a

Gerard Butler was here!

classroom and school were shared. I never wanted anyone to experience the feeling of going to the parking lot and driving away, never to return, after the first day was completed. The discovery, on my part, that merely having content information for the subject assigned was not even close to the knowledge I needed to be in a classroom was enough to really get my attention. I later discovered, that since I was new, from out of town, I was assigned the grouping of students that were considered at the low end. Many were fifteen years old and just waiting to drop out, get a job at a carpet mill, and forget school forever. Over half of them were not reading on grade level and many far below grade level. Having never had a reading class, I was stunned and did not know what to do for these kids. Had it not been for Mother and her classroom experience, her no nonsense approach to my whining, the first year might have just ended at Christmas. She wisely let me know that what happened in my classroom was my responsibility. She showed me enough that I began to clue in to teaching kids from a book they could not read. I learned from her to let the 'quitters' alone; to simply tell them that they could not interrupt class and they could join when they wanted to join. Most of them grudgingly joined and grinned at their passing grade. I was lucky, we had three quarters and each quarter I got a new group of students. I got three years of first day experience in one. It made a difference and is probably the reason I stayed in the field. That and my principal promised me that he would let me leave at Christmas the next year if it didn't get better. One of the first things Mother pounded into my head was to use the Pygmalion Principle; to treat every kid like they were the brightest penny in the pile and to make them think I was so happy they were with me that I was beside myself with happiness. You see, while I was working on them, they in turn, reflected my behavior. Children do rise to the level of your expectation and they respond to someone they think cares about them. An early adolescent needs this, perhaps more than a preschooler. She helped me to learn the discipline needed was to be simple, clear, and firm. Over the years I always used the rule, “Treat other people the way you want to be treated.” Simple, clear and firmly upheld. Remember that promise I made to myself? Turns out that I fell in love with what would later be termed middle schoolers. I did teach seventh grade but ended up for most of my years in eighth grade. I discovered my old joy of “going to school.” Everyday was an adventure to me, I got to go to school and teach.

My first payday was proof positive I was not in this for the money. Georgia, like many states, offered very low pay for teachers. In Georgia, as in may of the Southern states we were paid a yearly salary that fell below the poverty line. A teacher's kids qualified for free lunches. I worked seven weeks without a pay check; when pay day rolled round I looked at the check; three hundred twenty six dollars and change. I remember thinking, “Is that all there is?” I worked for years with a hand-to-mouth budget. I paid my bills and had about eighty dollars for the rest of the month. In a job I had only planned to keep a year of so, the fourth summer I married and had sunk my roots into the place. I was now referred to as “one of us.” The phrase “Life happens while you are making other plans” certainly holds true for me. While I was planning to return to UT, get a masters in college teaching in speech and drama, I found a place where I was needed. I learned to be a reading teacher, I learned to be a middle school teacher, I learned to be a composition specialist, I learned to teach all levels of kids. I have often said, give me some kids, a piece of ground and a stick to mark on the ground and we'll have school. When my last day was quickly approaching; I wasn't overly emotional about leaving. I managed to move out of my room, telling the teacher who would be taking my place to force me out or I'd never get it done. Jennie was gentle but she pushed and I made it through. Moved some things to the library where I would stay and would leave my key on the desk for her, she had a copy. I walked to the door, looked back at the room that was already starting to be someone else's room and sighed. A million memories swam through my head. That year, I had taught the children of the children I had taught the first year. Voices of the kids I had taught, saying ‘thank you’ and the kids I had taught that year saying ‘goodbye’ whispered in my ears. This time when I left I would not be coming back to school. The smell of kids, crayons and erasers would not be a part of my daily routine. God help me, I loved it, I had loved it even at first when it was so difficult. I had done the job when I could have worked a creel rack in a carpet mill for twice the pay. I had managed to keep a secret, I'd have paid them to let me teach if need be. Teaching is a heartbeat, it's a way of thinking and speaking. Teaching is something you either have in you, you cannot learn to teach. Making sure the door would lock behind me, I closed my door for the last time. My hands went to the wood as I leaned my head against the window looking in at the room. It was the closest I could come to an embrace; I cried like a baby. Perhaps is was the second year that I realized that I had found a secret. I was getting paid doing something I loved to do. Teaching was a love. I loved the kids and told them on a daily basis. I loved the subject matter, I loved to read and tried to teach them to love to read. I read in front of them and had “reading days” in my classroom. We wrote, individually and in groups, we plastered the walls and the library with things they had done. I developed what I called a “Rolodex” brain, constantly flipping trying to find what would work with each group and each child. Lessons I had learned from good and bad teachers followed me. The memories are good. I walked away while I still loved to teach. Teaching is something that I loved, and I loved being a teacher. If someone had looked into a crystal ball at the University of Tennessee on a warm June day in 1974 and told me that I would spend the rest of my life in a rural North Georgia community, married to a part-time farmer and full-time math teacher; if they had mentioned that I would have two children and absorb another into my heart; if they told me I would learn to love and adore eighth graders; I would have rolled on the floor laughing. I might mention here that I would still be laughing. Nothing like that was part of the plan. But the plan was mine; God had another idea in mind.