On teaching, authority and overhead projectors.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my formative memories, school, and teachers lately. I’m on a journey to become a teacher myself, and I can’t help but think back to what set me on this annoying, impossible, frustrating, but right path.

This past Halloween, I was reminded of Mrs. Stoddart, a middle-school teacher who inadvertently played out one of my greatest fears.

But aside from memories of that nightmare, I’ve also been thinking of Mrs. Stoddart herself.

Mrs. Stoddart was a tiny old math teacher, but she surely packed an acerbic punch. Mrs. Stoddart was the type of teacher you simply didn’t mess with, despite her little old lady stature. She could silence a classroom with a mere look – a piercing gaze magnified by thick, outdated glasses and severe, angry eyebrows.

Mrs. Stoddart ruled over her 8^th grade pre-algebra class with an iron, yet arthritic, fist. A tightly coiled bun of grey hair atop her head served as her crown, her wooden teacher’s pointer with the rubber tip as her scepter. One might have mistaken Mrs. Stoddart for an evangelist at her pulpit as she proselytized about algebra perched atop the towering stool that eternally stood next to the overhead projector on its raised cart.

I can’t remember Mrs. Stoddart not sitting on that stool, effecting the fancy that the overhead projector had grown out the side of her torso. Man, Mrs. Stoddart loved that damned projector! But, the thing only served to add to the severity of her appearance. For starters, because of her reliance on it, Mrs. Stoddart’s hands were perpetually discolored by smears of wet-erase marker. She would inadvertently rub the side of her palm over the blues, greens and reds she used to ink out hieroglyphic math. Those colored inks would all melt together to form a seemingly permanent veneer of ugly brown, giving her hand the appearance of a deformed, leathery claw.

The projector also had an altering effect on Mrs. Stoddart’s countenance. Mrs. Stoddart was forever hunched over the flat glass of the projector on which she would scribble her tutelage. Through this pane, a bright light from within projected upward, through magnifying glass and mirror and onto a screen. This rising beam of light radiated onto her unfashionable glasses, with the upper frames of these glasses obstructing the beam’s progress. This resulted in a dark shadow permanently cast onto Mrs. Stoddart’s face on top of her eyebrows. A large “V” of shadow appeared, starting at the bridge of her nose, angling upward toward her temples and resembling cartoonishly dark, furious, owl-like eyebrows.   

All of these projector-related enhancements were simply too much for me to handle. I was in such a constant state of heightened fear of The Stoddart during those classes that I was unable to process or retain any knowledge regarding algebra. Perhaps this explains why I am useless at math to this day.  

And yet, I find myself wondering today if I could hold such sway if I were ever granted my own (English) classroom.

Do I have the wits about me and presence to silence a room with one glance? Would the students know that Mrs. M.’s room was an empire in which you simply couldn’t act up? Would they be fearful or respectful of me, or would they rule the place?

Would students come to my class to learn, or merely to check off some minutes in the day? How much and what would the students learn? And can you actually teach English Language Arts? Aside from syntax, spelling and vocab, do I have what it takes to teach 30 or so kids at a time to become more critical thinkers? Effective communicators? Appreciative readers? Can my enthusiasm help instill a sense of life-long learning in students, or would I just come off as an excited nut? Can I lift some of the dread that accompanies the task of writing for many students? Could I make just one student actually enjoy writing?

I am full of doubts and fears. I have a plan though: In this age of whiteboards, “Smart”Boards and “Smart”Panels, the overhead projector remains a revenant of the past. But kids aren't intimidated by a stupid giant tablet, are they? A tablet that, by the way, won't even produce fearsome eyebrows for me or elevate me to royalty!  

I believe that old-school overhead projectors could still hold some sort of power or sway over today's students; an Ark of the Covenant needed for a well-behaved and engaged classroom. If you look at it too deeply, your face will melt, a la that Indiana Jones movie.  

So, I shall procure a wooden pointer, a tall metal stool and a coveted overhead projector*. I won’t climb down from that stool for anything. I shall “lord mightily over my little empire” and create, as best I can, interested and intelligent citizens!

"Give me your tired, your poor, your screen-addled minds!

Your huddled masses yearning to learn and blossom!

The wretched refuse of a technological youth.

Send these eye-rolling disinterested to me,

I lift my wet-erase marker beside the golden projector!"

Yes, in the age of ephemeral trinkets, authority shall be transferred to me through a teacher’s tools of old.  

* I was obsessed with overhead projectors back in school, and remain obsessed to this day. I even tried to make my own back projector when I was about 13 or so.