I Loved To Teach

Before I had cast Cheaper by the Dozen I knew that only the few who had come to the first tryout were ever coming. I showed the audition list to several teachers, asking them which ones were leaders. The general consensus was that Jamie had shown leadership potential in eighth grade, but… So I cast Jamie in the most important role—the father. About in the middle of the first act in the first performance, Jamie discovered his character and began to win the audience with a fine performance. Afterwards he told me, “I always thought being in the senior play would be fun, but I never dreamed it would be this much fun.”

I think he had rediscovered the leader in himself. One night at play practice he had just announced, “Cut out the crap. I mean it.” And there was something in his voice and manner that seemed to say, “And if you don’t, I’ll beat the crap out of you.”

When it was time to begin the play in the fall, I went to the head of the English department. She was the senior class sponsor. I had planned to discuss the division of responsibilities. I asked whether I was to turn in the bills to her or to the class treasurer. “There will be no bills!” she snapped, rudely, I thought.

“I don’t understand.”

“How much money did you make on the play last spring?”

“Money was not a consideration. There had not been a play for three years. My instructions were to get one delivered at any cost. But we made a profit of about two hundred dollars.”

“I never directed a play that didn’t make at least three hundred dollars,” she gloated.

“Do you want to direct this play?” I snapped back. And I left her standing there seething at my youthful disrespect. I wanted to form a drama club in order to use the proceeds from the plays on future plays, to build a stock of scenery, props, costumes, etc. The money would be used to develop the talents of kids who cared about drama rather than to subsidize class activities for people who didn’t work on or care about the plays.

I then went to Bob Yoder, our young principal and told him I could not work with Ruby Nay on a senior play.

“Well, Jack, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do,” the daring promoter inside me said. “I’d like to do away with class plays and start a drama club, using kids from all four classes.”

“Well, do it then. I’ll handle any objections.” And he became a staunch supporter.

By the end of my second year at Southwestern High School, they were doing nearly impossible things on the little stage at the end of the gym. The Southwestern High School Drama Club performed The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder, which requires four sets, much of which we had to make flats for. I received a letter of commendation for that play. Those supportive teachers who had rushed backstage with wild enthusiasm after the show told me that no one had ever gotten one before. The quality of the talent and the dedication of these hard-working country kids were inspiring. The speech class that year did the Broadway musical Brigadoon as a class project. They did it well. We were getting large audiences, and the hardest work was over. The attitude which had hit me early on (i.e. “We’re just a little school, and we can’t do those plays. You’re going to have to scale back your thinking.”) was replaced with optimism and an increasingly critical audience that expected perfection.

The Baha’i friend, Bert Harvey, who taught at the Indiana School for the Deaf, was intrigued by the fact that a little school, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, was doing Harvey, and he surprised me by dropping in to a performance.  His contagious laugh rang out throughout the show.  Afterwards, he commented, “Do you have any idea how minimal my expectations were when I walked into that gym with a tarp on the floor and folding chairs?”  He had looked up at the six little lights on a beam where a basketball could reposition them during any gym class and doubted my audacity.  Instead of disappointment, he was treated to one of the biggest thrills that ‘auditorium’ was ever to afford—a stellar cast, every role superbly played by veteran actors from the drama club.

By my fifth year, it was a rare week that went by without someone stopping me in the hallway or dropping by the room or the stage to say, “Do you know what people say about you? They say we are so fortunate to have you here.” (Of course, after twenty years of experience, it would be a rare school corporation that would now take me on.)

After the school board meeting where my tenure was to be discussed, the ag teacher, an old-timer who was a native of that area, stopped by my room to express surprise that I had not been in attendance. He never missed a board meeting. He thought I should know that when my name came up, Mr. Wade had said, “We don’t even have to discuss this one. Mr. Rhoades has far too much talent to remain at this school, but as long as he wants to teach here, we’re gonna hire him.” But facts such as these cannot prevent any begrudging student from convincing others, without having to produce any evidence, that you were fired from that position. And so that was that, except that I was soon to get a phone call that lured me away to a wonderfully inspiring auditorium with catwalks, a lighting console and sound equipment, a thrust stage that was an elevator, a counterweight system, wing space, dressing areas and cushioned theater seats.  Wowee!

But I would surely come to miss the respect and reverence I had nestled into so comfortably in what had come to be for me a hallowed space.

For a farewell, a group of all-star graduates did a summer show, See How They Run, (my farewell gift to that community) in which we used, for the only time ever, I believe,  the stage opening into the band room, supplied with a curtain and all, to achieve an intimacy the gym couldn’t offer.  Later that summer, they closed up that opening permanently.  I am glad we were the somebodies that some folks would remember had used it.  Like the stranger in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ambitious Guest”, many would never know, and many would forget, that it was ever there.

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