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classroom with a mere look – a piercing gaze magnified by thick, outdated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 8th 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.
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