Motion Masquerade

For this week’s Truthful Tuesday, PCGuyIV asks, If you do have any poignant good memories related to school, what are they? And, while I could answer this question in many different ways, I have decided to focus my response on the educators who had a lasting impact on my life — the ones who live in radiant, dancing color in my memory.

The One Who Knew How to Motivate

I was a clown in elementary school. Sad and lonely kids often are. I learned early that if I could make people laugh it was easier to get noticed at a new school. Also, if people are giggling with you it’s harder for them to snicker at you. Being a jokester was a gift that came in handy at home too, when my brothers needed a boost. It could, however, be somewhat disruptive in a classroom. I was pretty crafty when it came to not getting caught — I did goofy facial impressions behind the backs of my instructors and quickly settled back into looking like an attentive student when they turned to face us, or drew comic strips and passed them stealthily along to my classmates — and I got used to feeling like I was smarter than my teachers. Until, that was, I met Mr. Ing.

Mr. Ing was my fifth grade teacher and a native to the island of Oahu in Hawaii (we were stationed there at the time), but his mother was from Japan. He was a giant of a man. He stood over six feet tall and was so big that I wouldn’t have dared to guess how much he weighed. He wore loud Hawaiian shirts that were as large as a throw blanket, khaki cargo shorts, fancy sandals that strapped half-way up his calves, and kept his long, jet-black hair tied up in an elaborate bun on the top of his head with brightly-colored ribbons that matched his outfits. I had never seen anyone like him.

He was quiet-spoken and laughed easily. He taught at the elementary school on Hickam Air Force Base, so he was used to new kids and military brats and all the shenanigans that came along with them. He didn’t believe in punishment (which was a foreign concept to most of us), but in positive reinforcement. He had a laminated chart that he kept at the front of the classroom which he attached Velcro stars to for good behavior (or removed for the opposite); and, if the class managed to fill it up by the end of the week, we got a reward.

It didn’t take long for my classmates to realize that laughter during lessons was costing them stars; and, since they couldn’t help but laugh when I cut out bunny ears, held them to my head, and did a Roger Rabbit impression, they eventually turned me in. As a result, Mr. Ing asked me to stay after class to speak with him.

Instead of chastising me, though, he told me that outside of school he was a real-life Sumo wrestler and that if we got all of our classroom stars we’d be able to see a video of his most recent match. He also shared that he too used to be a class-clown, and that it was okay to perform during free-time and on the playground. He asked if I would keep his Sumo secret and try to behave during lessons, and I promised I would.

The following week the classroom earned all of its stars, and Mr. Ing brought in his wife’s famous macadamia-nut cookies (this was back before schools were policing homemade baked goods) and a video of his most recent Sumo match. Twenty fifth-graders sat on the rug and cheered for their teacher, stomping his feet and wresting in a mawashi, while stuffing their faces with Mrs. Ing’s delicious treats. He didn’t win the match that time, but we didn’t care. To us he was a winner. He promised that we could watch a new video each week that we earned our stars; and I never clowned in class again.

I will also never forget Mr. Ing nor the lesson he taught me about the power of positive reinforcement. (It’s one that I’ve used to the advantage of myself and my students as a tutor and a paraeducator.) At the end of my fifth grade year I gave him some very expensive ribbons to match his mawashi — ones that I bought with my own allowance money. Oh! And he won more Sumo matches than he lost! 😉

The One Who Didn’t Follow The Rules

When I got Mr. Seeba for Seventh-Grade History, my heart sank. Everybody knew that if there was anyone you didn’t want to get as an instructor it was Mr. Seeba. He had a reputation for being a horrible hard-ass. People said he was mean as a snake, assigned mountains of homework — even on weekends, and hated children in general. I asked Ma if she would help me change my schedule; but, when she asked why and I explained all of this she said, “Just give it a shot. Chances are it won’t be as bad as all that.” Yeah, right, I thought, feeling defeated.

I was the only one of my friends who had been assigned to his class, and when I told Chris about it he said, “You are so screwed. I heard there was a kid who killed himself a few years ago because that guy was so mean!” And then I felt defeated and scared senseless (because when you’re twelve-years-old you’re stupid enough to believe shit like that).

The first day of class Mr. Seeba assigned seats (Who in the hell assigns seats in the seventh grade?!) and he put me front and center. He passed out our textbooks and gave us a syllabus — we’d never seen a syllabus before — and then launched into a class-length lecture about responsibility and being a good student. He told us to read the syllabus for homework and to sign the last page — acknowledging we’d read all five pages — before the next day’s class. I went straight home and told my mother I needed out. She read the syllabus and told me I didn’t.

I stomped down the hallway into my bedroom, slammed the door, and threw the syllabus onto my desk in frustrated anger. This was so unfair! I slumped down on the bed and did nothing for the next half hour. Then, I picked up the stupid syllabus, signed the last page, and stuffed it in my backpack without ever reading a single word.

The next day, Mr. Seeba collected our signed affidavits and then gave us a quiz on the syllabus! Having not read the stupid thing I was forced to guess the answers and found out the following day that I’d failed. It was the first time I’d ever received a failing grade on anything and I was shocked. Shocked and angry at Mr. Seeba. (Irrational, I know, but I was twelve. Give me a break.) So after the bell rang, I confronted him. I told him that it was unreasonable for him to have expected us to have read five pages of nonsense on the first day of school and that I felt I deserved a second chance.

Mr. Seeba looked up at me from behind his glasses, rubbed his bald head, and said, “Not everyone failed, which means that other students did read it. That would suggest that it wasn’t an unreasonable request. You’re in this class because you’re considered an accelerated student. Either take responsibility for that or explain to the office that you’re not as bright or motivated as they think you are.”

I had nothing to say in response to that — in fact, I felt kind of stupid and embarrassed — and Mr. Seeba went back to the papers on his desk.

After that, I read the syllabus and every other assignment Mr. Seeba gave me. I also didn’t dare not pay attention in his class and took very careful notes… and I started to notice something.

Mr. Seeba’s lectures were often in contrast to what was written in our textbooks; so, I started asking questions about the differences and the conflicts. He explained that our textbooks were chosen by the school district’s administration, not by historians, and that history textbooks were often written from only one perspective — one that was written for a politically motivated reason. Sometimes, he’d get so wrapped up in his explanations that he’d forget himself and say things like “assholes” and “right-wing conservative lunatics,” which always made me laugh. In spite of myself, I started liking Mr. Seeba. Research papers, essay exams, and all.

Occasionally, I’d stay after class to hear more of what he had to say on a particular subject; and Mr. Seeba started recommending books for me to read — “if I so chose to” — on my own time. Titles in the library that told stories about the periods we were reading about from different perspectives, and I was particularly fascinated by the voices of Native American and African American authors.

Mr. Seeba was thrilled that I was taking the initiative to read more about history on my own time and we spent hours after class talking to one another about the additional readings. In fact, those precious moments between my school day and my athletic practices are some of my fondest memories of Junior High.

At the end of the year I was one of the few students who passed Mr. Seeba’s course with an A+, and he was by far one of my favorite teachers. I recently looked him up online and found out that his son now teaches History in the same school district. I hope (and imagine) he’s just as inspirational as his father once was.

Mr. Seeba taught me that it’s okay to march to the beat of your own drum, to break the rules once in a while, and that if you set the bar a little higher — and let your students know that you believe they can reach it — chances are it’ll be met. These are all lessons that I employ in my own teaching style.

The One Who Wasn’t Going to Let Me Fail

By my Senior Year of High School, I had totally given up on myself. I was doing the bare-minimum to get by and I ditched class more than I attended it. Once a straight-A student, I literally graduated by the skin-of-my-teeth; and mostly, because I had an AP English teacher that refused to let me fail.

God knows why, but Mrs. Holland took a special interest in me. She saw potential in the few writing assignments I did turn in and said she noticed that I was always reading when she saw me “fucking around on campus.” (It’s true, I always had a book in my hand.) When things got really bad the second-half of my Senior Year, and I virtually stopped attending classes, she tracked me down and offered me a deal: If I agreed to sit down and have conversations with her over a list of books she’d created especially for me, and to write a couple of papers about the authors I found most interesting, then she would mark me as “present” in her class — even if I didn’t attend — and I could pass the course. So, I begrudgingly agreed.

The list she gave me was a smorgasbord of authors I’d either never heard of, or never read; and, quite a few of the titles had been banned by the school board. The note she’d attached to it read: Obviously, we won’t be discussing this with the administration. (Give the lady credit, she knew how to pique the interest of a kid gone rogue.) So, I immediately went out and bought the first three:

1. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
3. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

I read them all within a span of two weeks and then bought I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou and Weather Reports: New and Selected Poems by Quincy Troupe — which I read in another week.

Over the span of half a semester, I read and discussed more than twenty books with Mrs. Holland, and wrote detailed papers on Toni Morrison, Amy Tan, Wally Lamb and Quincy Troupe. She also took me to an intimate speaking event with Morrison and Troupe. I had a chance to meet them both; and, Ms. Morrison even read a short story I had written and told me that I had what it took to be writer. It was — and remains — one of the best evenings of my entire life.

That auspicious deal that Mrs. Holland made with me is the reason that I graduated from High School. It is also how I found my passion for the literature that I study now at university — and the reason for my dual-undergraduate focus in English and Creative Writing. She believed in me at a time when I didn’t believe in myself, and she noticed my love for something — books — that she could harness and use for good.

It might have taken me another thirty years to get to where I am now, but I credit Mrs. Holland for setting me on the path that led me here. She is the kind of teacher that I aspire to be… and last semester, I was that kind of teacher for two of my students. I couldn’t have been, I don’t think, if I’d never met her.

The Ones I Haven’t Mentioned By Name

I’d like to thank all of my teachers. Sure, they don’t all stick like the three I’ve mentioned here; but every one of them touched my life in ways I can’t begin to imagine or explain. I wish I’d known how tough a job it was when I was a student. I would’ve been a better one, if I had.

Try as you might, it’s not one of those gigs that you don’t take home with you. You get attached to your students — even the ones that you consider a royal pain in the ass — and you’re constantly thinking of ways you might better help them as a teacher.

The hours are long. The pay sucks. People have no idea how much of yourself you put into it; and everybody thinks you could be doing a better job. Most of the time, it feels like a thankless career; but it isn’t.

There’s at least one moment, every day, where I see a spark in one of my students — a moment where they’re putting just one more piece of the puzzle into place for themselves — and for me, that’s everything. That’s why I do it.

To every educator out there: Thank you for all that you do.

“The Ones Who Got Me Here” by Cole Swindell