Four other brief memories concerning that teacher, who was retained at that school more than one year only because he had a license to teach many things. I believe him to have been a once-brilliant man who had “lost it” while he was away at war— perhaps he had been too delicate emotionally for the weight of those kinds of memories. He was sitting at the large central table in the office grading papers one day. He would stare at the paper (no marks, just a grade), then write “A” and proceed to the next paper, pause, stare, and write “B” before proceeding to the next paper, upon which he placed the letter “C.” Then he would start over. No “D’s” or “F’s”. I wasn’t watching as closely as the secretary, who noticed that he had given a “C” to a senior who was in competition with his cousin Cathy for valedictorian honors. “I see David Ruby got a ‘C’ on your test,” she commented.
“He did? Oh.” Pause… shuffle papers… change grade to “A.” It was a system that worked for him.
Another time when a student’s mother had passed away after a long illness, we were discussing funeral arrangements in the office. This man said, “I don’t think I know who Sheila DeWitt is.”
I, who had walked past his basement room once, said, “Sure you do. She’s in your world history class. She sits in the fourth seat in the middle row.”
“Oh, does she?” Blank stare. End of discussion.
* * *
The third occasion was in the far distant art room which had belched up an awful stench that had seeped into the entire facility—two buildings joined by a hall above and a tunnel below—until it reached the office. The principal scurried down to investigate. “We think it’s the mill,” the teacher stated. (Carthage featured a large paper mill that sometimes was odiferous.
“Oh, for crying out loud, it’s not the mill! Any idiot would know it’s not the mill,” the principal grunted as he stormed in, found the stink bomb in the waste basket and held it up accusingly. This accusation was directed at the teacher as much as the students who had lit it and placed it there.
He shrugged. “We thought it was the mill,” was his only explanation.
I remember that I emceed the Carthage Talent Show both years I was there, and one of the jokes (Clara Jo Henley and I were dressed as clowns) went like this:
CLARA JO: Smell this perfume. Wow! Evening in Paris–$25 an ounce.
MR. RHOADES: That’s nothing. Smell this perfume. (Opening a gallon jug) Wild Night in Carthage—25 cents a gallon. (There was some truth to that—hence, the big laugh.)
Well, he believed that noxious odor was “the mill…”
* * *
His students put off a test for a week once by unscrewing a fuse to leave the classroom in darkness. The cloakroom light stayed on. When, after six day of trying, he made them crowd into the cloakroom and sit on the floor to take the test, suddenly the lights miraculously came on in the main classroom. This teacher’s contract was renewed. He was a fixture in that place for as many years as I was—two. It only seemed like a much longer period of time.
Addendum
A beloved former student who became a wonderful teacher/coach was very upset at having lost his first position over some ridiculous personality thing at just such a small school. I consoled him by saying, "Don’t be too angry. I know it hurts now, but they just did you a great favor. Now you will move, and anywhere you go from here will be a step up. He took a giant leap upward within just a few days.
Using the Board
I am sure that if a teacher did today what I did when I faced that study hall, he would be hauled into court. I might have ended my teaching days right then. However, either the parents backed me up, or more likely, the boy I paddled never told them about it. When I told his sister (a student whose sparkle and humor I remember with a great deal of pleasure) at a class reunion, she was shocked by this story. I began my first study hall period by standing on that small stage at the front and staring them down one by one, row by row. However, one medium-sized sophomore boy with a hard countenance and a mischievous look in his eyes continued to try me as if he placed me in a category with the teacher they drove out the day before. A warning was not effective; so I, paddle in hand, took him across the hall into Mrs. Lord’s empty English/Latin classroom to "do the deed."
Like many of the boys, he wore very tightly tapered jeans so that he needed little zippers at the ankles in order to get them on and off. College classes and life experiences had not prepared me for this moment. It never occurred to me that I should take a witness along as we learned to do in later years. "Grab your ankles," I commanded. He grabbed. I don’t know how hard I hit him, not, I’m sure, as hard as any of the paddling I was later to witness, but the tight jeans worked much like a drumhead, and the noise filled the small school building through the open door.
After three whacks he stood up and snarled, "That’s enough!"
"I’ll be the judge of that!" I said sternly, and I proceeded to give him, in spite of several more protests, the full ten blows I had always imagined would be administered to me if I were ever troublesome in school.
In the office the principal quizzed me, "John, was that you using the board upstairs?"
"Yes," I replied, sort of casually, "I suppose it was inevitable with that large, unruly study hall. Why?… Could you hear it clear down here?"
"How many students did you paddle, John?" (Why did principals always call me John, though everyone else called me Jack?)
"Uh… just one."
"Good grief! (This principal was also a minister, but I think that in general people’s language was considerably cleaner in 1959 than it is today.) How many times did you swat that poor boy—I hope it was a boy?"
Believe me, this ‘poor boy’ had really pushed me to the limit in front a study hall that had already run out one teacher.
“Uh…ten times, I guess. I thought…"
"Ten!” astonished, unbelieving… “John…"
"Well, he wouldn’t stop arguing with me to stop. I’ve never paddled or seen anyone paddled before, and I really didn’t think I ever would. …Uhm… How many is usual?"
"Three, John, just three. Never—let me repeat that—never more than three."
However, my reputation was so firmly established by this act that I was rarely even gently nudged by a student, much less tested, even though my classroom disposition was very gentle. I always claimed to be a ‘gentleman’ and a ‘gentle man’ (and my swinging arm was pretty weak, too).
* * *
I was never to have that boy in the English classroom, but I believe my ability to inspire him would have been severely impaired. I personally believe that spanking is not a very effective way to change a child’s mindset. Margaret sometimes used the technique very gently on her first-graders when the naughty chair proved ineffectual. I sometimes found that eight to ten years later when they got to my classes, what those who had been paddled remembered best about Mrs. Rhoades’ class was that they had received a punishment they felt they had not deserved.
I eventually found that the most effective thing for me was to send the child out into the hall to contemplate for about five minutes while I continued class as if he or she did not exist, then I would join him for a talk, one on one, not in a scolding manner, but in a disarming way, looking him straight in the eyes and asking him, not in so many words, “Who are you?” and “What do you intend to become?” and “What do you hope to gain from me and the class I am trying to teach?” I would admit that he is really a likable person and give him the opportunity to admit that he doesn’t really hate me. Then I’d explain the positive expectations I had for him and the potential I saw there. Does he feel there is an acceptable penalty for the kind of infraction he is guilty of? What would that be? Does he realize that he enjoys the friendship of the other members of the class? It’s a kind of popularity in itself.
In this conversation there is no anger, no bitterness, no lack of control, but you are the adult; he is the child; you have more wisdom than he has given you credit for. If you can think of a suitable one, send him on an errand to show you trust him; and ask as you start into the room so the class can hear. It will allow him to reenter the room in a helpful, non-distracting manner void of defiance after you have resumed your lesson.
Of course he will ask friends later if you talked about him while he was gone, and as you will not have, the next such discussion will be easier and even more successful. That’s about it. It was gentle; it was friendly. It was just. Be just—teens have strong feelings about injustices against them. And don’t be selfish. Put student interests ahead of your own. That was usually enough, though such measures were not needed in most of my classes and only in very rare situations administered to a girl, in which case it was equally effective.
Addendum
I once had a very outspoken girl in English class. I reminded her daily about her flamboyant socializing and her attempts to derail the assigned work I had in mind. I believe Hillaire was barely passing my class. I stood in front of that class when I received a memo containing the news of the death of a toddler who had been hanging onto life for several months. His brother was in my play. Everyone in the cast would be devastated, I knew, and the play was to open on Friday night. It stunned me, and I lost emotional control in front of the class. I stepped into the hall to sob and regain control. In seconds that “inconsiderate” girl was there with comforting arms around me, consoling me in a very personal, caring way, discerning in a very adult manner what was the source of my grief and helping me regain control. As she took hold of my shoulders, she pleaded, “Mr. Rhoades, what’s the matter?” Then we cried together and I consoled her in turn. She slipped back into her seat and waited for me to reenter the classroom and continue as the teacher, and left it for me to explain to her classmates this tragedy that would affect some of them as well.
I saw her with completely different eyes after that. I realize that it was a moment that changed our impersonal, indifferent relationship. She began to behave as a student should, and she did well in my class because it had become important to her that I not think ill of her. Does that tell you anything about teenagers? About teaching?
