Remembering my own Presidential assignment

[pegkerr]

My earlier post about Delia's letter to the President, and the comments to it, appreciating what she said, abruptly made an old memory of mine surface this morning.

When I was in third grade, I suffered through the experience of being taught by Mrs. Nasitur [sp?]. Children may like and dislike teachers for their own reasons, but even as a young child, I understood that something about Mrs. Nasitur was not quite right, that she was not really suited to be an elementary school teacher. She was pregnant that year, and perhaps that made her moods more difficult to manage, but she had a very hot temper, and periodically would yell at us, I mean scream like a harpie, in a truly alarming way. I distinctly remember her out in the hallway one morning giving a tongue-lashing to the principal of the school. She could also be bitterly sarcastic, making a comment that would blister a student if she didn't like something said.

What I remembered this morning was that she gave us an assignment to write an essay explaining what each of us would do if we were the President of the United States (this was in 1968). I don’t really remember what I wrote in my assignment, but I completed it.

I remember how shocked I was, several days later, when she announced to the class that she had read the essays, but she hadn’t bothered to correct them, because they were "all garbage." She wasn’t going to even bother returning them to us, but had instead thrown them all away. "Just about everyone said that they would end the war in Vietnam," she said witheringly. "The only one worth reading was Patti’s; Patti’s was different."

There are times when a child knows without a shadow of a doubt that an adult is dead wrong. I remember thinking, distinctly, that Mrs. Nasitur was wrong to throw our essays away. They were our words, and we had ownership of them, not her. And just because a child says something that others also have said does not mean that the child should be ignored.

I wondered then, as I wonder now: What was so contemptible about saying that a war should be ended? Was she an ardent conservative, and that was why she didn’t want to read our opinions, our implied criticism of the government in power? Or were we just so callow in other ways that she just couldn’t stand it? Did she think we were just parroting our parents’ opinions and not thinking for ourselves? Or was it something else?

I still wish I could read that essay I wrote way back then.

And I wish she had treated our thoughts with more respect.

Comments

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I think the something else involves her not having the right temperament to be a teacher.

Because-- wow, so not right.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

What is it about third grade teachers? Mine was a horrible screaming wretch too, but she never threw away our papers! Wow. I wonder what happened to your harpy of a teacher after that year -- and I wonder about her child, growing up with such a mother (then I blink and realize that her child and I are contemporaries, and had we been in the same geographic location, we could have been in school together, since I was born in 1968).

[lucidondine.livejournal.com]

I've added you to the Ole community. My apologies for posting here, but it was as good a place as any. Welcome!

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

She sounds like Ms. Trunchbull (from Matilda).

[vass]

She had no right to throw your papers away.

She taught you something about abuse of power that day.

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

You have to share this story- as an editorial, in a parent magazine. What a memory, what a commentary!! It is so multifaceted, which is what I love about your posts on family, there's so much to ponder and take from such a little gem.

Thank you!

[ascian.livejournal.com]

Gods, reminds me of my first grade teacher, Mrs. Smith.

Being a bright young naive aspie, I misunderstood the purpose of school. I thought that the teacher would ask us questions, we'd answer them, and she'd use our knowledge on the subject to evaluate what we needed to learn. Of course, I was wrong. What Mrs. Smith knew is that school is a place where you sit down, shut up, and marvel at how right teachers are all the time.

Mrs. Smith hated what a 'know-it-all' I was, because I dared to answer her questions, and dared further to answer them correctly. The last straw was when she asked the class 'Does anyone know what you call someone who digs up dinosaur bones?' Mine was the only hand up, so she begrudgingly called on me. 'A paleontologist!' 'No,' she cackled, 'it's an archaeologist!' I raised my hand, genuinely concerned at my teacher's ignorance. 'Actually, Mrs. Smith, an archaeologist studies human remains and cultures. Paleontologists study dinosaur bones.' The old wretch actually called a meeting with my parents and, when asked how I'd been 'acting up', was forced to admit that I wouldn't stop answering her questions.

Oy. There have been others, following almost identical playbooks. It's a real tragedy that these people get to take inexpert whacks at the minds of children, eh? If I can ever find it within myself, I think I'll become a teacher just to tip the ratio a bit more in favour of the cool sort of teacher who thinks children are just people who haven't been around as long.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Wow, that sounds like my high school physics teacher. I was part of the baby boom, and they didn't have enough qualified teachers. The woman who taught my physics class was right out of college. It was a new, experimental program in both sense- we were supposed to do experiments and derive the principles of physics for ourselves. The wave tanks were great fun. The problem was, the teacher knew NO physics and very little about science or scientific experiments. Somehow, she managed to derive that light travels *faster* in a denser medium. I, and a few other kids who knew what we were doing, tried to correct her, but she wouldn't listen. When she flunked us on a quiz, we took the whole matter to the principal. He agreed we should not have flunked the test, and it was cancelled from our records, but she remained, teaching her version of physics for the rest of the year.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lindsay_/]

This has absolutely nothing to do with the above post but in my psychology class we're doing a chapter on perception and sensation and we discussed taste. Apparently our taste buds regenerate just like any other cells but in children they regenerate about every FOUR days whereas in adults it's about every thirty. The first thing I thought when I heard this was about your girls and the eating habits that frustrate you. Perhaps you already knew this but I thought it was really interesting that sometimes when kids say they like something and then don't the next week, they might not just be being fickle.

[rutemple.livejournal.com]

She should have been hauled up before the principal and school board for that one, and gently laid off. I suppose most of the kids were too shocked to say anything to their folks, and most parents didn't step in and complain about that sort of thing? I recall parents being pretty distant from the day to day horrors of school back when (I was 8 in 1968, and in the Mounds View School District in Shoreview. that would have been fourth grade at Island Lake Elementary, with Mrs. Dutton, who was pretty good. My third grade was kind of horrific.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Something like that rankles the childish soul, which believes so very earnestly in justice. Ever fantasize about looking her up and asking what was going on with that, back in the day when she told you your opinions were garbage? She's not that old at this point....

[phoenixw.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, welcome to the incompletely defined deliverable.

"I want you to write something. I will give you only very general guidelines. But you are expected to read my mind, and if you write something that falls outside of my mentally-identified but un-shared criteria, I will grade you harshly. Because you should have known."

Then of course there's the "one right way to do anything" approach to teaching, which I thoroughly despise. But if they give you clear guidelines, then they're at least being honest.

incompletely defined deliverable

[aquila1nz.livejournal.com]

Happened here last year - a teacher asked a class to write an essay on 'How does your body betray you?' and then was shocked when a 15 year old boy wrote about getting an erection. They actually suspended him. Talk about a lack of imagination on the teacher's part, to say nothing of stupid standards for what is acceptable for writing in senior level English classes.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

That's terrifying - that moment of realizing that you /know/ that an adult in power is simply wrong, and that there's something very wrong in the whole set-up. And third grade is really young to have to have that knowledge settle into your stomach.

I had a teacher in high school who was working her way toward a nervous breakdown in the time I had with her. My junior year I had her for one class, and my senior year, two classes a day, every day. (The next year, she had her nervous breakdown and was away entirely...after that, she came back but in other capacities, I believe.)

She was not harsh or punitive, she was terrifyingly insecure. I can remember a day when she spent at least half the class period strenuously denying that any of her grading was unfair, which would have been a little awkward but not too bad except...none of us had ever said it was. It wasn't. She graded easily, for the most part. But she couldn't be reassured, she didn't listen, or if she listened, she didn't hear.

One time I had a question, and I raised my hand and she came over, and I began, "mz[Jones]--" and didn't get any further because she cut me off and said, forcefully, "MRS. [Jones]!" and loomed over me threateningly. I was silent for a long moment, and then said carefully, "I'm sorry. I didn't think 'Ms.' was an insult." She deflated, receded. She said uncertainly, "Oh. I thought you just called me, '[Jones].'" I couldn't figure out how she could possibly have expected disprespect like that in the classroom, since neither I not anyone in the class had ever given her any.

It was scary. It wasn't scary because she had power - though in another case, like your teacher, that would have been part of it - it was scary because she was not right and we'd - I'd, anyhow - never had the occasion to need to perceive that about a teacher before. We all had teachers we hated, teachers we loved, teachers we made fun of - but even with the ones we couldn't stand the lines of authority and status were clear, the /rules/ (the world-rules of how you expect life to be, not the rules of the classroom) weren't broken. She scared us...or me...because she broke the rules. She was unstable, unpredictable, not like a teacher.

I look back on my childhood, and I can identify other similar cases; there were things my sixth grade teacher did that she should not have done, and, hell, my parents stand out as a sterling example of adults in power who are not right. But I didn't recognize those at the time. There's something important and yet coldly frightening, the first time you understand that what ought to be true is not true.

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

I had a fifth grade teacher that made it her solemn duty to take away and rip up books I had bought with my own money and brought to school with me to read at lunch time and recesses.

Yes, I was a bit shy back then, and yes, perhaps she was trying to make me interact with other students (who teased me mercilessly for actually liking to read).

But I thought teachers considered children reading on their own a good thing...?

The first time it happened, I thought she simply didn't approve of the particular book I was reading (The Witch of Blackbird Pond), and brought something else the next day (a Paddington Bear book, if I recall).

When she did it again, I knew it was the books in general and not any particular book that she disliked. I never brought books to school again.

Some people just shouldn't be teachers. They don't have the temperament or the patience for it, I guess.

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a nun I had in grade school.

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

I don't know about third grade teachers per se: Mine probably saved my life.

What was so contemptible about saying that a war should be ended?

Perhaps that this particular war should be ended? She might've remembered what happened to the Cambodians, and not wanted to betray the South Vietnamese people. More likely, though, she didn't care for disagreement. There's a certain temperament among those with small but, ah, absolute authority, that takes contradiction with narrowed eye and clenched teeth: Insolence! How dare you!.

Do you suppose that the professions that offer these opportunities in little tin-god-hood attract that temperament or that they corrupt the susceptible?

(Re Delia's cute letter: There's an excellent opportunity to teach separation of powers and the roles of Federal and State governments)

[dustybinx.livejournal.com]

Oops...dipping my shovel in to it again ;)

First, she was wrong, dead wrong to criticize the students. She should never have been allowed to stay in that profession with that contemptible attitude.


Was she an ardent conservative, and that was why she didn’t want to read our opinions, our implied criticism of the government in power?

Rather than an ardent conservative, couldn't she have just been a disagreeable, nasty person? Maybe it was the thing of differing with the all-powerful government instead of the conservative currently in office? I'm conservative and, obviously (!) I'm not nasty ;)

At any rate, that woman had a massive character...uhm...maladjustment.

[elfundeb.livejournal.com]

What is it about third grade teachers? Mine was the worst experience of my entire academic career. Another teacher came close, but I was in high school by then and only had to suffer an hour a day.

At least your third grade teacher read your essays. Mine punished perceived misbehavior by refusing to teach the subject anymore. When the class became a little overexuberant during our first lesson on cursive penmanship, she told us to put away our books and did not allow us to open them again for six months, long after the other classes in our grade were using cursive every day. I don't even recall the transgression that caused her to decide not to teach multiplication. I so envied my friends in other classes that were actually learning things.

Instead, she twiddled her thumbs. Literally. And she read books to the class, expecting us to sit up straight and stare at her all the while. I am not an audio learner, and the book-reading was sheer torture. To this day the words "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" dredge up horrific memories of that class.

I loved fourth grade, though, once the teacher figured out I really wasn't the village idiot, just the village ignoramus.