I Loved To Teach

Today’s blog will require a bit of study. I suggest you give it a glancing once-over to see if it’s something you might use. Just the other day (2010), I got a note from a former student who wrote, “And I still remember my prepositions the way you taught them.”  I worked several hours just on the scanning and am not pleased with the results, but we will be away from this computer until next Tuesday, and I want this out there before that.  Have a nice, interesting weekend.

Below is the list of prepositions in (almost) alphabetical order, grouped into sections:

A’s
aboard about above
across after against
along among
at

B’s
before behind
below beneath
beside besides
beyond but by

CDDEFF
concerning down during
except for from

I’s
in inside into

EXTRAS—LN
like near past since

O’s
of off on out outside over

P,S (above)

T’s
to toward through

U’s
under until up upon

W’s
with within without

(In the process of scanning, the word BY didn’t show up on left margin.)

C-D-D-E-F-F

These prepositions are CONCERNING, DOWN, DURING and EXCEPT, FOR. FROM.

At this point, I tell a story: There are two imaginary students in the class—DAWN DURRING and FRED FRUMM. Now I’m going to send Fred Frumm out of the room while I tell a story about our wonderful Dawn Durring. “Bzzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzzz—got it? Isn’t that wonderful? Now you know the story concerning down during.”

In fact, everyone knows the story CONCERNING DOWN DURING EXCEPT FRED FRUMM—ER…FOR FROM—YES, THAT’S IT (ALTOGETHER IN RHYTHM NOW,) SAY

“CONCERNING DOWN DURING EXCEPT FOR FROM” AGAIN (and I say it in a rhythm with finger snaps on every third beat:

            snap                          snap                  snap             snap
CON-CERN-ING, DOWN, DUR-ING, EX-CEPT. FOR, FROM

Again, but jazzier! Snap those fingers. Don’t be so uptight. Just do it!

Concerning down during (beat) except for from—3 more times (and as I say these, I bounce and move around and look up the rows as if to say, “DO THIS!”

CONCERNING DOWN DURING, EXCEPT FOR FROM (“Louder”)

CONCERNING DOWN DURING, EXCEPT FOR FROM (“Again”)

CONCERNING DOWN DURING, EXCEPT FOR FROM

GOOD! Oh you are getting it! Good! Good! ( You get the idea.)

Now it’s time to review the whole list up through ‘F’. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ groups are on the board with arrows. I point to each ‘A’ word, and I move to the lectern for the ‘B’s.

Aboard, about, above (pause) across, after, against (smoking cigarette gesture and finger ‘L’ and ‘M’ in a rhythm) ALONG, AMONG (BIG CIRCLE) AROUND (AND POKE AT THEM) AT.

Oh, that was good. Do it even better now: (Pointing at the board)

Aboard about above (pause) across after against

Along among (no cigarette, just hand ‘L’ and ‘M’) around AT!

(At the lectern now) before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, (“YoYo”)

beyond, but, by.

CONCERNING DOWN DURING, EXCEPT FOR FROM

CONCERNING DOWN DURING, EXCEPT FOR FROM

Now I take out torn pieces of paper and pass them out—NO LOOKING AT THE BOARD!

REALLY TRY TO SEE IF YOU KNOW THESE 25 PREPOSITIONS.

If they can do it without looking, they’ll be a bit amazed and proud. If they can’t, perhaps they’ll get into the swing of it for the rest of the 48 on the list. EXPLAIN THAT THEY WILL BE TESTED WITHOUT THE AIDS THEY NO LONGER WILL NEED FOR A BRIEF PART OF TWO CLASSES RUNNING UNTIL THEY CAN ALL DO IT—THE A’S WILL HELP THEIR GRADES!

Now for the rest—almost alphabetically I’s, LNPS, O’s, T’s, U’s, and W’d

These aids will help: I put the waste basket and a paper wad near the door (and light switch), (optional) a large arrow by the waste basket, and sticky notes around the clock like this: (If the clock is too high, on the wall, just draw one on the board and write the words on the board beside and around it.

And I move to the clock saying, “Now the four U’s at the clock, starting at the bottom”—UNDER UNTIL UP and UPON

(And clapping my hands and shrugging as if to say, and of course) WITH WITHIN and WITHOUT. “We’re done. That’s WASTEBASKET, LIGHTS, DOOR, ARROW, CLOCK and the W’s”

And we go through them once more before turning over the slip of paper and writing the final 23 prepositions. This takes a good part of the period. Just leave it for them to memorize the 48 prepositions in any manner they chose for a test tomorrow.

The day after, give a paper numbered to 48, review them once through my way, asking for a volunteer to lead them through it (if you like). Those who learned my way should get all 48. You will know the stubborn ones who hated the exercise because they can’t get all 48. My former studen

And I move to the clock saying, “Now look at  the four U’s at the clock, starting at the bottom”—UNDER UNTIL UP and UPON

(And clapping my hands and shrugging as if to say, and of course) WITH WITHIN and WITHOUT. “We’re done. That’s WASTEBASKET, LIGHTS, DOOR, ARROW, CLOCK and the W’s”

And we go through them once more before turning over the slip of paper and writing the final 23 prepositions. This takes a good part of the period. Just leave it for them to memorize the 48 prepositions in any manner they chose for a test tomorrow.

The day after, give a paper numbered to 48, review them once through my way, asking for a volunteer to lead them through it (if you like). Those who learned my way should get all 48. You will know the stubborn ones who hated the exercise because they can’t get all 48. My former students tell me that even 25 years later, they can always recognize a preposition.

My daughter Tammy was not in my class, but her class was learning prepositions near the same time, and they learned them by wrote. She recalls someone trying to say them at lunch and if they paused after one, my students would rattle off the group—of I’s say, or O’s, etc. They all were fascinated. She urged me to share this with my blog, so now I have.

The same year that I started at Greenfield-Central, 1979-80, I had dropped in at Eastern Hancock during the summer, as one of the Southwestern teachers told me he had run into the band director from Eastern on the golf course, and they had spoken of me.  There was the implication that I could return to Eastern anytime.  What the new (to me) superintendent of five years told me was that my position didn’t exist any more.  I had worked rather tirelessly on the introduction of “phase-elective” English curriculum, and the weight of that program fell heavily on my shoulders.  I taught poetry (6 week courses), folklore, drama, speech, Roberts’ Rules of Order, and all English 9 classes.  We found that students relinquished study halls to take several English department offerings.  The superintendent said, “So you’re Jack Rhoades.  I’m glad to meet you.  Do you realize that in five year of curriculum meetings with parents and teachers, there has never been a meeting where your name did not come up.”  I was hoping that meant they spoke well of me!

*         *         *

I once grew tired of hearing two teachers in the teachers’ lounge complain about their “remedial” English classes. These classes were peopled with students with special problems and difficulties, but they were limited to fifteen students in size. They carried a stigma. When I offered to teach them, I was honest. I felt like these students deserved to have a teacher who could love them. I also felt that anyone with my load of night work should have a few classes that would require little overtime grading.

I was successful with these kids whose names appeared on the absence list under detention so often that I knew some of them made it a point to be tossed out of some class nearly every day. I tried to learn where all these students were coming from. I decided, after a long setting-in period of time, to have an informal day when we went to the “Cougar Meeting Room” so we would be in a room with tables and windows to look out while we talked and in which we could have refreshments. One student said to me, “Mr. Rhoades, why are you doing this? Don’t you know teachers hate us?” The sad part is that I did know it—first hand.

When some members of that class did reach graduation, Eli Lily, our Partner in Education, had a special day for the leaders. They wanted the leaders of every group of any description. One of these boys was there. Mr. Albano relayed the message that when the boy was asked what he attributed his success in school to when so many of his friends had “fallen through the cracks,” he said, “Teachers like Mr. Rhoades.“ Now, I know that no system of rewards that any educational body might set up would include a teacher whose students rapidly forgot most of the subject matter he presented unless he somehow tied it to practicalities such as getting along with others, respecting yourself, and living with manners; who taught primarily by getting along with all of them, showing respect for their differences, and being mannerly with them.

I had asked that class that day, because some of them had abilities they wouldn’t use, “What grade were you in when you started to cheat on things.” I didn’t use any kind of test or quiz that they could cheat on because they did it so skillfully and outrageously, and I found it demeaning for them and me and felt it tested me more on my ability to catch them than it tested any of them on anything.

If caught red-handed, they had learned, they said, to become loud and angry. “Are you calling me a cheater?” they would shout. They made it bad enough that few teachers bothered to catch them more than once. They told me that the cheating had started in first grade. “Why?” I asked. “I know you could do the work.”

“Why not?” was their retort. They had played their teachers like a musical instrument and had come to enjoy the tune.

I had them sit in groups of three or four during a period of time when we concentrated on writing every day.  I think students are only willing to share things with a teacher if they think he/she likes them, but they are not hesitant to share with each other in a group of their cronies.  The goal was for each of them to identify five mistakes that they made most often and stop making them.  They had to read and sign each other’s work, and I allowed them to go to the “machines” for refreshments.  I had gotten permission through guidance where they said, “If you are getting anything out of these kids, you are the only teacher who is.  Go for it.”  Mr. Cline hated the intrusion in the cafeteria where he held a study hall that period and went to the office to try to put a stop to it.  Dean of Students, Don Jackson said, “I just wish you could be a mouse and sit in the room when they talk about you.”  They were in his office whenever they got kicked out of class, and he referred to them as “his rummies.”  They loved that guy in a special way.  He once had said of my classes, “You’re doing something right.  I never see them (meaning they didn’t want to miss my classes, I think).”

After two or three years, the department chair felt they were not getting the essentials under my tutelage, so they were taken from me and given to her.  After one year there were no more classes of remedial English.

I read an article in the paper recently explaining that teacher rewards should not be tied to student achievement, and I would like to comment on that. I have for years listened to Eli Lily employees planning to spend their large bonus checks. In Kentucky, I listened to a husband and wife, both of whom worked for Toyota. Each got a $5,000 bonus per year. Tell me what a teacher might have to do to get a $100 bonus. There is no such thing. Might not some rewards be discretionary for the recognition of a project that involved many students and was very successful. My friends who work at a factory can get their children “on” when they reach an age. What might my children just inherit from my employer? Not even a job as a janitor is available to them. Those jobs go to the children of other custodial help.

Gail Noland, the G-C chorus teacher, who was one of my partners in music-drama productions, received a $1,000 community award as distinguished teacher and a TV good teacher award. I believe she spent it all setting up a program utilizing the music department at Butler University in Indianapolis to benefit her students, even though it made more ongoing work for her.

My friends who receive hourly wages get time and a half for overtime, sometimes double pay. For overtime labor done after the school day ended, my lifetime wage averages about ten cents an hour. Maybe less. And I gave up vacation after vacation to get the scenery work done ahead of time.  When I created a yearbook at Carthage, the trustee promised I’d be paid for that job the next year.  Sure enough, my contract included $25 for yearbook.  The reward I got was paid out in love.

*         *         *

Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God’s holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven’s kindly light, the Holy Spirit’s eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God’s revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next, Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.                                                            –from Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

*         *         *

I always had my students join hands in a circle before each performance (the make-up kids and parents who were there, too) and I gave a few brief introductory remarks. I thanked them. I told them (without noting that these were concepts from the Bahá’í writings) that unity was the strongest force in the universe and that love was the force that holds the atoms together. “We don’t really know much about love in our world except that nearly everyone on the planet is semi-starved of this vital food and every soul leaps with joy when it confronts him. “If we do this performance in a way that displays our unity and affection for each other and the degree to which we love what we are doing, if we reach out with love to those out there who came just for us, they won’t know what it is, but they will feel that they have encountered a powerful force. That alone will make this play a memorable event in their lives.”

Then they got a chance to talk—officers and leads, if they wanted to; then anyone who had a thought to share did so. I could fill pages with what I feel are wonderful stories that have become obvious during the circle. And on the few occasions when I felt I couldn’t interrupt, and we had to hold the curtain briefly, we had built an audience that would know that whatever was going on “back there” was significant, important enough to warrant a slight delay, and that the play, once it began would be abundantly worth waiting for.

Vince and Marla were with Margaret and me on their first date when we went to the outdoor Starlight Theater on the Butler University campus in Indianapolis to see Yul Brynner in The King and I. It was almost ten-thirty before that awesome performer finally conceded that the rain was not going to stop. We were all four so wet that we would gladly have stayed to watch the show in the rain. Marla, having just broken up with a boyfriend, had gone reluctantly and only agreed, she said, because we would be there also. We got rain checks to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which thereby became their second date. It was not their last, nor was it the last show we saw together or the last time we got wet.

We met them as college students on birthdays and occasional special anniversaries; eventually they married. At the tent show in Hagerstown, Indiana, we saw Carousel performed by a summer troupe from Ball State. We all knew the lines and lyrics from curtain to curtain.  Vincent had been cast as Billy Bigelow and Marla as Julie Jordan, It rained, and the tent leaked. We did, however, get to see the entire show albeit we were all wet and the thunder was so loud they had to stop and wait twice.

Another time I received some complimentary tickets for Indiana Repertory Theater. We went to a fancy restaurant called the Brown Derby in Indy and had to change tables because it started raining and the roof leaked right over our table. We really didn’t “double date” enough to merit this much watering.

Eventually they ended up at Evansville University where Marla was one of the ten students chosen for consideration as the outstanding graduate. Vince, having served as President of the Purple Pride organization, received that honor. Here are some poems I wrote for them and about them during their high school days.

MARLA’S FAREWELL

My child, my child!
From whence will come my day’s delight
When you are gone?
Is there another smile
That can replace the look
I could anticipate
Whene’er we met?
And where you go–
How long before there will be those
Whose steps will lighten,
Whose pain seem less
Because this is a day
When you are near?

MESSAGE FOR A MEMORY BOOK

BOY
Nearly man
Thinking, dreaming, striving,
Brim full of kindness–
YOU

MAN
Not parent
Pushing for perfections,
Guiding, listening, loving you–
ME

FRIENDS
Two persons
Interacting with joy,
Respecting each other’s short-comings–
US

SEPARATION
Inevitable consequence,\\
Constructing meaningful lifetimes,
Retaining shared concerns
APART

AN ANSWERED PRAYER

"O God," I prayed, "make this year better than last!
Send me just one who wants to learn,
One with a capacity to accept love."
And He sent Vincent!
"God," I entreated, "give me one I can call protégé and friend,
And, though he may surpass me with his gifts,
Make him humble and sincere.
And, if it be possible, let him have radiance."
And God gave me Vince.

When I had come to know him–
When I had grown to love him,
When I had felt a union of spirit
And watched him grow from boy to man,
I prayed again.

"O God, I thank You for this year
And for success through efforts blended
Make me more grateful for these days
Than sad that they have ended.
Turn my gaze ahead!
"And if there be, in Thy great plan, such generosity,
Grant me the joy of one next year
Who, though he cannot take his place,
Will ease the pain I feel
Because he’s gone."

from a note to accompany Vincent’s graduation gift,
May, 1977

*        *        *

Before I leave off writing about Vince and Marla, I should touch upon speech class. Marla Lain was a cheerleader, the salutatorian and just a really lovely person.  We were giving a set of demonstration speeches, and I always encouraged preparing food because it relaxed them as a group early in the toughest part of the semester. A very sweet, quiet girl brought an instant Jello pudding recipe and explained that a good dessert need not be complicated. She passed out plastic spoons and sent the bowl up the aisle with instructions that each person only dip in once.

The entire first row passed the bowl without anyone taking a taste. So did the second row.  I was embarrassed for the girl. Vince sat in front of Marla in the middle of the third row, and before it got to them, I knew they would partake of the pudding. When the bowl reached Vince, still untouched, he picked up his spoon, the bowl, and turned around in his seat so that he and Marla sampled at the same time. Instantly people asked if it was good, and both attested to its fine flavor. Then people from the first two rows got up and put their spoons into the pudding, and what looked to me like a miserable experience for the young lady became almost triumphant. How much I appreciated and admired their kind leadership every day.

An assistant basketball coach at Southwestern had played for Indiana University and a bit of pro ball. I once asked him if he had ever coached a kid who was more talented than he was himself. “Never!” was his instantaneous reply. “Never!”

And I felt genuinely sorry for him. I could see in every interested student a potential that went beyond my own talents, and whenever a child’s near perfection became challenging, my spirit soared with gratefulness. I did something with Vince that I was never to do again. It was a very difficult task to add to my busy schedule—and to his. I cast us together in a short British comedy with three characters—he and I and a nosy female boarding house matron who appeared on and off. Box and Cox, a one-act done on Broadway in the thirties, was one I had taken on in college, when I was Cox. Now, heavier, I was Box, and Vince took on the role of Cox. The introduction said the play should last thirty minutes, but even after all lines were memorized (I knew all of his; he knew all of mine.  We got off a few times in rehearsal and ran a couple pages before we realized we had switched roles ), we barely got through it in a fifty-five minute period. It was a matter of honing our timing. On performance night we were clocked at exactly thirty minutes—really rapid-fire stuff. I felt it was the best way I could sharpen his comic timing and stage presence. I believe it endeared me to that school’s growing audience to witness that performance side of me so intimately.

Losing him to college was like severing an umbilical cord. I think I never dared let a student become that important to me again, although many became very vital to my life and happiness. The young lady, ironically named Carol Cox, also turned in a superior performance and took on a nearly-impossibly-challenging role the next year with amazing success. A girl of large proportions, she was convincing and hilarious in the difficult romantic role (over 600 lines) of Cornelia Otis Skinner in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, a play I had appeared in while in high school under Mr. James Lewis Casaday, whose life was full at the time with training the talents of Sidney Pollack. Her comic timing was a thing of beauty as was Debbie Culver’s, who played Emily (also over 600 lines).

*        *        *

This play had been my first success as a director, at Carthage when Bonnie Howard and Barbara Wilson wowed that small-town crowd. For months I had heard over and over about Bayard Baker (just a name to me, but a legend to Carthage). I was told he was the finest teacher that ever taught there, now (in 1959) an elderly gentleman in the community, and he had directed the plays. Martha Trowbridge, wife of Town Marshall Hugh Trowbridge and the custodian of the community center where all plays were done, loved to tell me that I was not doing things right. “When I was in school, we had Bayard Baker, and he put a row of chairs backstage and lined us up. We did not talk unless we were onstage and it was our turn.”

I, on the other hand, had encouraged Margaret to bake pizzas and bring them to us during practice. I had even allowed a few students to leave to go down to Peavey’s Drug Store (actually, his name was Mr. Ledbetter—I believe the nickname came from some television program) a block away. Soon others brought cookies, etc. And play practice was FUN! At the first performance there was a buzz among the kids. “Bayard Baker is here.” “Did you know that Bayard Baker is out there?”

And so I thought I would finally meet the man who had become a legend. But after the show, which was, as Emily in Our Town said, “…like silk off a spool”, he left without speaking to me. I asked Bonnie what he had said to her. He told her that he had never had that much talent to work with. (I took that as a personal compliment, no matter how it was intended.) I felt a little exonerated. At Southport, Mrs. Copsey, the department chair who had visited my classroom every day listened in on the intercom (students would point at the speaker when it clicked on)  and who clearly despised me.  I used her classroom last period, and once I forgot to erase her chalkboard.  (She never erased anything to make room for my use,)  She told me I was NOT a gentleman!  My intense desire was to prove myself with that play after seeing a very mediocre senior play was rendered unconscious when the elderly Mrs. Copsey, not willing to shadow me in the evenings had canceled the junior play, saying, “That young young man could never pull it off.”

Our Hearts not only required handling teenagers, it also required period costumes (the roaring twenties), building some scenery flats, and changing scenes. In thirty-six years of being in charge of a building at night, often with no other adult in the building, I can only remember three incidents that required the attention of an administrator, the worst being when someone who had been pushed bumped into the trophy case with the state champion football trophy in it and broke the glass.  Not the way I wanted to be linked with the school’s highest moment.

*        *        *

In his junior English class I had noticed that Vincent, whose computer-sharp mind raced faster than his pen, sometimes wrote sentences that defied grammatical examination. So I dragged that class through every grammatical construction in the English language and made them diagram them. Is it bad to be so challenged by a student that you “bone up” every night to be worthy of him in the classroom? Soon his writing took on a new discipline. I tested over everything we had studied on the final, and I gave them the option of diagramming a single “sentence” instead of taking the exam. It filled the chalkboard at the front of the room. On Vince’s final there was not one error. No one chose to diagram. In speech class that afternoon, I gave him two pieces of paper taped together and asked him to do me a favor—diagram the sentence on the board. He filled both pages with gerund phrases, nominative absolutes, adjective, adverb, noun clauses and more on frames and lines. Of course, it was done flawlessly. His writing skills became worthy of a man of many perfections aided with this knowledge.

Many students simply refused to allow their minds to dwell on parts of speech and grammatical constructions, and I suspect teachers don’t dwell on them these days.  At Greenfield-Central, I developed a simplified system that didn’t require rewriting the words.  Students still balked, but I will, much later, explain that system, along with some of the classroom “fun” I created to teach, for example, the long list of prepositions.

Vincent Mathews was a challenge both in the English classroom and onstage. He required absolute perfection of himself. When he was Capt. Von Trapp in that school’s production of The Sound of Music, he told me that he had reserved five hours on Sunday to go over his lines. “Vince,” I said, flabbergasted, “You have known all of your lines for three full weeks.”

“I know, Mr. Rhoades, but Marla and I went to Footlight Musicals in Indianapolis on Friday and to Indy Civic Theater’s show on Saturday, and in both shows actors for whom the programs showed many credits backtracked repeatedly on their lines. I am not going to do that.”

And Vincent’s whole person changed as he studied that role. His carriage was military and commanding. Even in class he sat on the edge of his seat with his rigid back never touching the seat, exactly as I had once seen a cadet sit on our living room furniture when he came to visit.

After the show the principal offered this assurance: “Vincent Mathew’s is a professional!”

“No,” I said, “but he’s very good for a high school kid.”

“You’re wrong, Jack. At Ball State University my wife and I attended every professional show that came to Emans Auditorium for four years. The difference between an amateur and a professional is that when a professional is onstage, you know there is no way he is gonna make a mistake.”

“By that definition Vincent is certainly a pro,” I acknowledged.

“You’re dern right.”

*        *        *

When former students reminisce, I hope they will remember how often I said, “Touch him” or “Touch her.” We are rearing a generation of people who only know how to touch in a sexual manner or in violence. My desire for my kids was to have an open avenue to show kindness and express personal affection that is full of respect. It is appalling to ask a group to write or speak about someone they admire and have so many say, “I don’t admire anyone.” Say what?? I also think the sure mark of an amateur onstage is avoiding the touch or cringing to the touch.

To add poignancy to an emotional moment in my first production of Brigadoon at Lapel, I asked Tommy to use his index finger to brush a tear gently from Fiona’s eye (when there wasn’t a tear.) It became a tender moment, indeed in performance there was a tear and he wiped it away with two fingers as he sang “I’ll be yours from this day on.” Margaret leaned over and said, “You told him to do that, didn’t you?”

One night a photographer from the Shelbyville, Indiana, paper came to get a picture for a story. Vincent and Mary Pence were through posing and we went right into their love scene. I always warned actors in advance when it was time to begin the kissing so that when it came time to kiss for the first time, there would be no hesitation, although it would be fine to underplay it. “If you just do it tonight, we will go right on, and there will be no opportunity for harassment.”

But this was not the first time, and I was polishing the technique I wanted them to use. I used my hands to represent the two heads as they came together, parted, turned, came together again and held as the lights faded and she gently laid her head upon his chest and gazed into his eyes. They did it well the first time, but I made a few suggestions and called out, “Let’s try that again. Quiet, please.” And immediately they performed the operation even better than the first time. “Okay,” I said. “I think that’s really good. Now do it once more for the lighting cues, then we’ll go back to the lead-in and finish the scene.” And without hesitation (because they both had a fine-tuned sense of moving an audience and knew how good this had to be to convince), they did that love scene perfectly. The photographer watched all this without moving to leave. As they went back to set the scene, he moved to my side and just said, “You do know this is incredible, don’t you?”

*        *        *

Vincent–I loved that brilliant kid whose life and mind were so important in defining me and what I was myself capable of doing. He was the best I had encountered, and I would be sure to recognize that drive whenever I encountered it thereafter. I was certain he had the capacity to surpass the finest actors of the century. At Depauw University, where he majored in drama his freshman year, he was the only member of the freshman class with a 4.0 at the end of the year, and he was the first student ever to get an “A” in acting from that difficult professor who gave him “B’s” at first because he believed no one was good enough for an “A”.

After his first appearance on the college scene, the director (same guy) took me aside to tell me that Vince was the best-prepared student actor he had ever encountered. They frightened him, I believe, when they asked him why he didn’t go to New York right then. “You will find work,” they said. Vincent was the consummate scholar, and he changed his major, changed colleges and stayed in school. I firmly believe that if a person CAN do anything other than theater, he should. When he told me he had decided to study medicine, I told him that I believed that to be the most praiseworthy of all professions.

Vincent had told me once as we worked on scenery that he had visited Depauw and found everyone studying all weekend. “Every other person I met was a valedictorian. I’m not going there.” He then told me that he had sent a deposit to nearby Franklin College.

I told him I had not felt it was my place to influence his decisions, but I had hoped he would not go there because Rick Culver was there and was partying too much to make good grades. I knew they spent a lot of time together on weekends. Vince assured me he was the designated driver and was not a “bad influence” (ha) on Rick as a certain substitute teacher had said. I asked Vince if he had ever heard of positive peer pressure. “Rick should be getting straight “A’s” over there.”

Imagine my surprise near the end of our second semester when Rick Culver came through the doors at the far end of the gym and hollered, “Hey, Mr. Rhoades, I have something I want you to see.” What he showed me that day was his final grade card with those straight “A’s” I had suggested.

Imagine even more how I must have felt about fifteen years later when I saw that Judge Richard Culver, now living in Greenfield, was passing my door. Then he backed up and blinked his eyes as he looked at my newly set-up little-theater classroom. I could hear him thinking, “Wow, wouldn’t Mr. Rhoades have loved a classroom like this!” Then he discovered me standing at the lectern in front of my class. He came in and shook my hand. Then he put his arm around my shoulder—he was as tall as I was short—and addressed the class: “Kids, I am Judge Culver. Some of you have come before me. (Heads nodded) I wouldn’t normally just walk in and interrupt a class in this way, but this man is the greatest teacher I ever had. I would not be a judge today if it weren’t for him. In fact, I’d probably be in jail. (Another ha!) And just like that, he was gone. I was so taken aback that I just went back and sat at my desk to discretely dab at my eyes.

(As I sit here at my desk/coffee table, I notice a book, Croatoan, by Richard D. Culver.  It was sent to me by my son John, who still lives in Greenfield.  It is inscribed to him, so I imagine he expects me to return it when I have finished reading it.  I should mention that I didn’t teach him to write, I taught him in speech class, and I taught him to act—he did some fine stuff for us—but it was probably Ruby Nay who taught him to write well.)

I wish I knew how to put this all together in a foolproof system. I know I was far from the ideal teacher. Sometimes my anger and immaturity amazed me. But I have never been afraid to let a classroom or a student see my anger or my tears, which lets them know I am being honest with them and that I do not pretend to be superhuman or above making mistakes.

O CHILDREN OF MEN!

Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust?
That no one should exalt himself over the other.
Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created.
Since We have created you all from the same substance
it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet,
eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land,
that from your inmostbeing, by your deeds and actions,
the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest…
from The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh

My daughter Lori, in the days before I became ensconced at Greenfield-Central, brought home a paper written for Academic English 10 which had only one correction—“sentence fragment.” There was no sentence fragment. I wrote in the margin “Nominative absolute” and told her to show the paper to her teacher. His comment, after “Oh, it’s not, is it?” was that he had not deducted anything from her grade for that and left the grade a “B+”. I was probably foolish to let her English teacher know that her father was a grammarian. On her next paper there were no errors or helpful comments, only the explanation, “I’m sorry, I just can’t give you an “A” on this.” Am I wrong, or is there an educational weakness in that statement that would discourage a student and not give any hint of ways to improve?

*        *        *

(I’m not sure why this comes next—it’s random thought, and memories that delight me come randomly.)

At Greenfield-Central, Charlie Pasco (now deceased), owner of Pasco’s Funeral Home, approached me after a play. His statement, “I want to thank you on behalf of the Greenfield community for giving us this strong, solid program to be proud of. I don’t think you realize that after a couple of years in which athletic teams failed to rise to prominence, people have begun to notice and feel pride about the successes you have given them.” (Words to that effect.)

“Mr. Pasco, I can’t take the credit for this program. A lot of … “

He interrupted me, “Are you the producer-director of this play or not?”

“Well, yes, I am, but…”

“Then you’re the man I need to say this to.”

But wait! This chapter is about discipline. At Southwestern where the paddle was sometimes the measure of a teacher’s effectiveness, I was once asked into the principal’s office to witness a spanking by the male guidance director. The child was told to empty out his hip pockets and grab his ankles. He complied. Because he was a small boy and the swing of the paddle was swift, he was lifted off the floor and his head hit the wall. He was already crying hard, yet this was repeated twice before he was dismissed, sobbing and alternately rubbing the top of his head and the spot I am sure the paddle left bruised. I was livid, but all I said was, “Don’t EVER ask me to be a witness again.”

I had received very high evaluation marks my first, difficult year, but on the second-year’s evaluation there was a comment indicating that I needed to use the paddle more frequently. (I hadn’t used it at all.) When, in my third year I used the paddle on one occasion, my evaluation improved. That was the year I heard a young female teacher being told by an older female teacher that the very best method of gaining control was intimidation by humiliation, “Figure out what that student is most sensitive about and hit him with your best shot.” I stood to leave to get away from the discussion and remarked at the door, “My advice would be that a teacher NEVER humiliate a student.”

The next day working on scenery after school, Mike Yonts, the eventual valedictorian of the senior class, said that the older teacher had told his English class, “Anyone who says ‘Don’t humiliate the students’ just doesn’t know anything about teaching.” As this teacher got her pick of the best classes and students, I would guess that using this method of discipline had been considered successful for her.

*        *        *

During scenery time when he and I were the only ones to show up, Mike sometimes allowed me to read his theme for the week that he had written for his senior English class. He would say, “All I have to do to get an ‘A’ on a theme is follow her three-step formula, but that gets boring, so this week I got creative. It won’t get an ‘A’, but my grades are high enough that I can afford it. He was right. Although remarkably clever and well-written, it didn’t get an ‘A’. The only mark on it was beside a sentence that started “Back then…” because, although it had just happened (a car accident after an away basketball game—we all had heard about it) he wanted to make it timeless and had set it in the past. She hadn’t recognized this convention, although it was very deliberate, and wrote, “This doesn’t make sense.”

Sometime later in the semester she wanted to enter some of her students’ themes in a contest at Ball State University. She asked Mike to submit his B+ theme about the car wreck. When he brought it in, she looked at the sentence she had written in the margin and crossed it out. (Because now, the event was “back then.”) As Mike’s theme won a monetary award, she was to take him by car to accept it. He wondered what he should say if she asked him questions about me. I suggested he should just say, “We never talk.” We laughed a bit at that.

Afterwards I asked him what she had to say about his award-winning essay, written, I remembered, at risk because it varied from her “pattern.” His reply was, “Oh, she took credit for it.” (It’s a danger we teachers face, have all been guilty of and should avoid at all costs.) I believe our program at Greenfield was as successful as it was because I gave ownership to the students and parents who shared the labor.

Mike also shared a story he had written in the style of James Thurber—I thought that was a great assignment. He chose to isolate events and, with digressions, relate them out of order. It was a Thurber-like touch and very effective, I thought—obviously intentional and delightfully humorous. Her critique claimed that the paper was seriously flawed and would be strengthened by using chronological order in telling the events.

In the English/drama/speech classroom, the shelves around three sides of the room are deemed absolutely essential. A dictionary must be on the desk or within easy reach, and many books (yes, real books) of great poetry, short stories, humor, and novels should be available for student use. The poetry of Robert Frost, in his complete works, is introduced with an invitation, in “The Pasture,” to join him on his own turf, saying, “I sha’n’t be gone long,—You come too.”

Now you might pretend that this writer is a poet, inviting you to go on a little stroll because he means for you to share the intimate moments of what he feels makes teaching high school students in America the happiest profession.

POETRY MUSE

Sense suffocating loneliness, gloom,
Silent as the violin on the wall of our fireside room,
Strung, but out-of-tune,
Out-of-reach, untouched, a boon,
Yearning, like the bow,
Neatly slanted a few inches below.

Feel the tremors within it moaning,
“Take me down! I will not consent to being ornamental,
An embellishment, a turn, a grace note merely–NO!
Tighten a turn or two the horsehair bow,
And render into tune each string;
Rosin generously and let me sing!

“Caress cold ebony of my chin piece–bright,
Black curves reflecting a bold fire’s light.
Grip me closely, pressed against your shoulder.
Release soft melodies which soon grow bolder
As resonance fills the chambers of my chest
And the music of the muses swells your breast.

“O, stir my strings with nimble, tremulous touch.
Vibrate into life silent pages with passion such
As only prayer and poetry can proffer–
Pain and happiness your fleeting memory must offer.
Place your cares like logs upon the fire across the room
And warble sacred mem’ries from your journey to the tomb.”

Replace the bow with care upon the wall when done–
In the probable event another such a one
Stops here for warmth with sagging soul so coldly grand.
Loosen its strings and leave the rosin close at hand,
And, just as you might close your fondest book,
Hang the fiddle quickly back upon the hook.
It is not soundless, though muted now like a melancholy word
Upon an unturned page, awaiting reader, lonely, and unheard.

I must warn the pragmatist who would scour these pages looking for meaning that my life has been transcendental in nature. I have lived amid muck and not felt a part of it, have loved the “muckers” without judging their particular stirrings. Students who have sat in my classroom endured an almost subconscious attempt to create together a cushion of surreal air to walk on above the trials of outside life—to make and share a place worth believing in. I can’t explain this—don’t want to, even; but it is tucked neatly in these pages which are told randomly from my memory because they are in some way memorable to me and tell of “that place.”

Not all students felt present in this “Twilight Zone.” They brought in books to read secretly in order to escape it, wrote notes to a lover or a cohort in the muck whom they could not brush off their feet at the door. They applied makeup for the “image”, unaware that the very act set them apart as non-participants in the journey. Some tried to make the journey all about themselves, and still the magic continued to happen all around them while they were unaware.

One such non-participant from whom I had been unable to pry one gram of effort and into whom I was unable to pump any discernible grain of knowledge and who would not take one sip of the cup of caring approached me, accompanied by his cohort in crimes, in the hall the following year to ask why I had “failed him”—although we both knew he did not deserve to pass. His parting shot gave me a glimmer of hope: “You know you liked us!”

Another girl, years after I taught her in a seventh-grade class that was out-of control when I arrived upon the scene, said haughtily, “I didn’t learn one thing in that class!” And it was obvious that for her life held no magic. I spoke to her pragmatic superiority when I asked, “Oh, you didn’t? I thought I gave you a spelling test every week.”

“Well, duh.”

“Didn’t I test you over every single story in your literature book?”

“Well, yes; I guess so.”

“Autobiography? Didn’t you write one? Journal—didn’t you keep one? Did you learn to recognize third person plural, present perfect passive tense, for example?”

“I hated that stuff.”

“But you passed it as I remember. Just what was it that you didn’t learn?”

. . . But, you see, she was in a different place than I was in that room, breathing air from another source of escapism, keeping a library book under her grammar text or lit book and reading in snatches about another place where she would rather have been. I’m sure she wouldn’t be one of those who sometimes say to my children in the town where I no longer live, “Your father was the best teacher I ever had.”

Once, my speech class was delivering researched speeches-to-convince on some very demanding subjects. After each I had exhausted myself to pull them into the reality of their subject as it existed within the confines of their daily lives, however sheltered that might be. One boy raised his hand and said, “Mr. Rhoades, why do you insist on talking between speeches? It’s so boring! I wish you’d just let us give our speeches without boring us to death.”

What had happened in that moment to me personally was that he had stripped the wires of my nervous system of their insulation and left me quivering from the shock. In a stunned manner, pale and perhaps shaking, I said, “How dare you say that to me? Don’t you realize how much trust it involved just now for me to bring my awareness of an abhorrent matter to your attention on such a personal level?” And, in spite of myself, my head went down on my desk at the back of the room in complete disillusionment.

The next day he came to me and begged, “Will you tell these people to just leave me alone! They won’t stop bugging me about what I said yesterday. I can’t help it if I think it’s boring.”

And I let them know in cloaked language that we were often at the mercy of those who chose to stay outside of the transformations I knew were taking place. Individuals who had seemed to have nothing in common, perhaps believed they disliked each other, and felt disassociated with each other were becoming a group of friendly faces, pulling for each other, working on projects together and looking forward to this hour each day. What they pressed upon us was allowable because it came from need and not from malice. It was not fair that we press upon them our displeasure because they were outside a window, looking another way.

A most commonplace conversation was with students from the previous semester who stopped by my room to say, “Mr. Rhoades, I miss your class. We all do. There’s something missing in every day.” I think that doesn’t last long as the new elements of magic begin to play in other classrooms.

Once, after the Rural Electric Membership Corporation (REMC) held its annual convention, its president, Fred Powers, whom I had taught at another school, stopped me outside the building. Fred was with Eli Lilly. The gist of what he said was that he felt speech had been his most important course in high school. “I don’t know how you did it, but we all got so we could stand up in front of people and not be nervous. I work with brilliant men with doctor’s degrees who can’t project an idea without projecting to a greater extent their own discomfiture. I’m so glad I don’t have that problem.

Mrs. Mary Parido, as head of the English department at Greenfield-Central once said, in voting to reject a course offering I had proposed, that she did not believe any course in her department should be fun. I was appalled. As luck would have it, the newspaper the next day carried an article in which an interviewer asked then-President George W. Bush what courses at Yale had been most beneficial to him. He named two—one was speech. He said that, first of all, it was fun. Secondly, it was valuable because he used it every day of his life. I highlighted “It was fun” and placed it in Mary’s mailbox unsigned. She never commented.

I can’t guess what anyone can read into my scattered memories. Know that I tailored with a fabric that might not be as enduring as it was beautiful. Be aware that I exposed students with many levels of brilliance to a kind of “pure air” because I believe with all my heart that purity is the greatest force of attraction between the souls and hearts of men.