On a Clear Night by Marnie O. Mamminga

Author:Marnie O. Mamminga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Published: 2017-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Learning Curves

I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

Rip Van Winkle Returns to School

It was a long maternity leave. Twenty years, in fact, since I walked out of my third-floor classroom with its view of the river, waved goodbye to my cheerful class of seventh-graders, and at seven months pregnant went home to await the birth of my first child.

Three sons later, at the age of forty-eight, with a résumé that included Cub Scout leader, Sunday school teacher, room mother, and freelance writer, I walked back in.

Hired at the last minute by my former school district as the fifth high school journalism/English instructor they’d been through in five years (they were desperate), I had just ten days to read the Odyssey, acclimate myself to block scheduling, and figure out new high-tech procedures, such as using a Dynacom system. Where to begin?

My instincts ruled. I needed a makeover.

As luck would have it, the beauty counter consultant was a recent high school grad.

“What tips can you give me?” I implored the eighteen-year-old as she swathed my eyelids with plum-berry shadow.

Stepping back to assess my face, she pondered the question with Einstein-like seriousness. “Just remember one thing,” she said as she moved in to adjust her purplish palette. “They don’t want to be there.”

With this nugget of advice, plum-berry-shadowed eyes, and CliffsNotes for the Odyssey stuck in my briefcase, I strode back into the hallways of academia.

Like Rip Van Winkle of yore, I was in for a rude awakening. Things had changed.

First off, simple daily procedures like taking attendance and providing discipline had gone high tech. Back in the 1970s, we wrote absent kids’ names on a piece of scrap paper and stuck it on a nail outside the door. If a kid misbehaved, we simply invited him in for a little chat during after-school detention.

Flash forward to the 1990s. I found myself scrambling to find the required No. 2 pencil to fill in little bubbles for the right day and week on a Scantron sheet next to absent students’ names, and then re-recording absentees in a separate record book.

Misbehavior and truancy resulted in complicated paperwork involving a scaled system of consequences, parent notifications, loss of privileges, and zero hour detentions (i.e., before school). I needed a personal secretary to keep it all straight.

Twenty years ago, Gertrude, the no-nonsense school secretary, shouted announcements into a raspy PA system. The 1990s version showcased student Jay Leno wannabes on each individual classroom’s thirty-inch TV screen, rendering creative readings of the week’s activities. I’m not sure which method is better. Either way, the kids don’t listen. Gossip from their friends is much more newsworthy.

Instruction time was another shocker. I discovered classroom periods had changed from forty-two-minute sprints to ninety-minute marathons. The first had been short and to the point; the second was multi-activity driven. Both had their pros and cons. Despite the differences in instructional time, I found students still struggling with parts of speech.

What had not changed was the bathroom dashes between classes.

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