Nonfiction: Shithead

Shithead

Read More: A brief Q&A with Sue Granzella

Turns out – I’m a shithead. Here’s proof:

“I hate my teacher. She’s so ugly, stupid, and fat, and she’s a bitch and a shithead.”

That’s what his note said, although my spelling and punctuation are better than his. Which makes sense. I was fifty-six. He was eight.

Frankie was mad at me, but in a way, he was right. Though I’d never before received written verification, it’s not as if I’d never pondered my failings as a teacher. Take the year that Chung was in my fourth-grade class. He approached me after school one afternoon, ducking his chin and murmuring, “It was still a nice day, even if no one remembered my birthday.”

Chung has had twenty-seven birthdays since that day. I still feel like a shithead.

Another time, a teacher stuck her head into my classroom screaming my name, her face contorted in grief. I leapfrogged a student chair and raced to her. Outside, she wailed into my shoulder the news of a sudden death, while through the closed door I heard the muffled hubbub of thirty-one fourth-graders in charge of themselves. After I’d handed her over to a teacher on break, I yanked open the door, every nerve electrified. My eyes shot around the room, stress-powered lasers burning on kids wandering, math work abandoned.

“You saw she was upset! And you get all WILD?” My heart was hammering, and I was breathing hard. “I thought I could TRUST you!”

Liliana’s soft voice intercepted my fiery gaze. “We didn’t know if we should call the office. We were scared. She was crying so bad.”

Shithead.

Then there was that Friday when my fourth-graders were painting outside. They squatted on the pebbly asphalt, crafting large posters of wildlife as the afternoon sun beat down on their backs.

I waved a 14-inch-long wooden paintbrush in the air. “Listen up! Do NOT leave the brush standing in the cup when you stop. Just rest it on the newspaper.”

Then I sighed with contentment. No one was arguing, the chatter was productive, and everyone was busy. This was teaching.

Anthony approached, his empty Dixie cup streaked with green.

“I knocked over the paint.”

“That’s okay!” I said cheerfully. “Mistakes happen! Just mop it up with newspaper.” Anthony smiled, and grabbed a handful.

Then KhanKham appeared, head down, avoiding my eyes.

“Um…I spilled.”

“What do you think I’ll probably say?” I told myself to smile.

Her forehead crinkled. “Clean it up?”

“Yes!” I said, with barely suppressed sarcasm. I gestured toward the newspapers, and she trotted off.

Then Dominic reported spillage, followed by Tajuana and Lakesha. It was time.

“Put down your paintbrushes!”

They quieted.

“If anyone knocks over the paint again, just clean it yourselves. Don’t tell me.”

Fifteen seconds later, sweet Loon stood before me.

“I spilled my paint.”

Any experienced teacher knows that planning an outdoor painting activity for two o’clock on a hot Friday is a terrible idea. But I was a novice, and worn. The frustration poured from my mouth as the paint had spilled from their cups.

“What do you want ME to do?  LICK it up?!” My arms waved wildly toward the newspaper pile. “Just CLEAN IT!”

Loon’s eyes popped wide.

See? Do you see what I’m saying?

But at least I’m not alone. Most teachers are shitheads. They might not have documentation like mine, but I don’t think it’s possible to do what we do without losing it sometimes. We’re in charge of large groups of people, and must manage squabbles, learning difficulties, tantrums, stomach-aches, fire drills, recess skirmishes, hyperactivity, abandonment issues, and puddles of urine. Kachina was once leading a PE game that stirred up an underground hornet nest. One minute, her thirty-one students were frolicking through a field in the sunshine. The next, they were screaming in the classroom, whacking each other with clipboards and notebooks, beating hornets out of braids and tee-shirts. You just never know.

When teachers are sick, we usually go to work anyway, because it’s harder to write plans for a substitute than to report for duty and stumble through the day. When a student vomits at our feet, we clench our teeth and shepherd other kids away from the wetness and stench, all while pretending it’s not gross. We perform all day, starring in the role of Teacher—unflappable, supportive, endlessly energetic, eternally cheerful. Prepared for anything.

You can understand why sometimes we crack.

With hushed voices and furtive glances—that’s how we admit our failures to each other, those eruptions that make us seek support groups of shame after the kids go home. Behind closed doors, Jenny once confessed that she hadn’t been able to quiet her out-of-control first-graders that morning. A very pregnant teacher was working alongside her, and in desperation, Jenny had shouted to the kids, “YOU’RE HURTING THE BABY!”

So I told her about the time a hummingbird had become trapped in my room. When my efforts to stifle my students’ excited outburst failed, I resorted to bellowing, “DON’T YOU LIKE NATURE?!”

Frazzled teachers should never start sentences with “if”; ultimatums fly from our mouths like birds from a cage. I’ve heard myself proclaim, “If you don’t listen when I’m talking, I will cancel Valentine’s Day!”

Kayla’s kindergarteners once decided that they should all untie their shoes, just for fun. Except no one knew how to tie them back again. After re-fastening her nineteenth pair, Kayla shook out her cramped fingers and shouted, “The next person who unties their shoes is getting them DUCT-TAPED TO THEIR FEET!”

And we lie. Yes, we lie. When Courtney discovered that the class fish had died, there was no time to lead her second-graders through the grief process and the democratic naming of a new pet. So she bought another fish. And she told them it was the same one. When they wondered why Felix’s body and fins were so much bigger, Courtney assured them, “He’s so comfortable in our class! That’s why his fins grew!”

Kathy, a kindergarten teacher, was exhausted by her students’ tattling about minuscule issues. So she found a cassette player (broken), set it (unplugged) on a table at the back of the room, and motioned the twenty-eight children over.

“If there’s something you want me to know,” she said, “just tell the whole story to the tape recorder. I’ll listen to everything as soon as you go home.”

Those five-year-olds whispered into the tape recorder every single day.

When people ask what my job is, I know what their face will look like when they hear the answer. It’s always the same.

“Oh! A teacher!” And there it is—eyes bright, stiff courtesy dissolved into smiling pleasure. An approving nod often follows, along with “That’s wonderful!”

I’ve yet to meet a person whose eyes narrow and whose head shakes in disgust when I disclose my chosen profession, and I assume that my colleagues’ experiences parallel mine. In the flesh, everyone loves a teacher. I’m especially amused when a new acquaintance immediately assumes that I must be excellent at my job. I’ve noticed that when someone meets a teacher, the presumption, before knowing anything else, is usually that the teacher is terrific.

Yet if I were to go undercover, posing as an architect and introducing the words “teacher tenure” in conversation, I’m likely to hear a different story.

It was a birthday party. I sank into an overstuffed chair, with pineapple chunks and smoked Gouda on my plate and the crashing blue of the Pacific stretching beyond the open sliding glass door. A tall auburn-haired woman plopped onto the ottoman next to me.

“I hear you’re an elementary teacher!” She patted my arm, the polished glass of her bracelet cool against my skin. “Public school?”

“Yup.”

“I bet you’re wonderful.” Her pink acrylic fingernails clicked against her wineglass. “My fifth-grader goes to a great charter. It’s a California Distinguished School.”

Uh-oh. A charter school conversation. My smile was frozen as she gushed about her son’s educational opportunities.

Palm fronds clapped in the wind outside, as a two-year-old wearing only a diaper staggered past me, shrieking with delight. Then she said the words I couldn’t ignore.

“It’s just not right that teachers in public schools have tenure. Don’t you see lots of bad teachers?”

If my belly were a dishtowel, tightly-gripped hands were wringing it dry. Setting down my plate, I explained that teachers have due process, not tenure, and that all professions have those who excel, and those who don’t. That I knew weak teachers who had, in fact, been fired, and that it can only happen if administrators do their job. That the majority of teachers I’d known in my twenty-seven years of teaching were good, and many were outstanding.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

Behind her, the toddler smeared chocolate frosting on his face. I remembered to breathe.

“A huge number of educators leave within the first five years of teaching because it’s so stressful. The expectations are impossible. We learn to get support from each other.”

“That’s great!” she said.

It didn’t feel great.

Scapegoating teachers is common practice. We’ve been blamed not only for low student achievement, but also for childhood obesity, tooth decay (yes, tooth decay), and increases in violence. News articles shout that we suspend kids both too often and not often enough, and that we employ both too much and too little technology in class. We expect too little of students, but we over-test them. For teachers, trying to accomplish what is demanded of us is often like white-water rafting without paddles or a guide. We huddle together as the raft is catapulted through rapids, down the wild river of ever-changing local, state, and national mandates.

Years ago, we received a directive not to promote students who were still reading below grade level at year’s end. In order to retain a child, there were required conferences, documents, surveys, and parent forms. One May, Juan was still reading below grade level, so I gathered the paperwork I’d collected all year.

My principal, Juan’s mom, and I sat in the principal’s office, with the file on the table between us. The parent consent form rested on top.

“So you think it’s best?” Juan’s mom asked me. We’d discussed it before; she was open to the idea.

“I do. He’s younger than most, and he plays with younger kids. He’s improved so much! I think he’ll do great if he has more time.”

She faced the principal. “What do you think?”

He sucked in a big breath, then turned away from me.

“I have to disagree with the teacher. Juan is tall. He’ll probably do fine in the next grade.”

I clamped my gaping mouth shut. In six months of communication and timelines, my principal had never voiced opposition.

My cheeks burned. I willed his eyes to find mine, but they wouldn’t. The mother signed “no retention,” and I made sure to thank her. Afterward, I filed the pages, my hands trembling with rage.

The next week, we got an email. The principal had been notified that our school retained too many kids, and it couldn’t continue.

No one talks about the “only promote kids if they read at grade level” directive anymore.

Around the year 2000, everyone at my school received a bonus of several hundred dollars, when a (short-lived) state program rewarded employees at schools where students’ test scores hit the growth target. Outraged, I refused the check. A system that used children’s test scores to determine my excellence would denounce me as unfit as soon as my kids’ scores failed to reach the ever-rising goal. Many colleagues agreed; we forwarded our checks to a neighboring school that had been chastised for its low test scores.

Four months after the bonus, we left a staff meeting dejected, having learned that our students’ most recent scores hadn’t reached the new state target. We were now on the state’s list of “bad” schools. Along with my demoralized colleagues, I slunk into the office, reached into my mailbox, and pulled out a slick, colored pamphlet.

I read, shaking my head. The quarterly newsletter was belatedly congratulating schools for the awards won the previous spring. Our school was on the list.

Carlos was a tiny eight-year-old with big ears, a shaved head, and a voracious appetite for reading. His mind whirred like a weed-whacker, and he devoured advanced-level books, even though English wasn’t his first language. An impulsive child, the only time Carlos stopped talking or fidgeting was when he was reading.

One morning, I spied Carlos passing a note to a girl. I sneaked up from behind and stuck out my hand.

Back at my desk, I read their exchange:

“Carlos. Look.”

“Shut up.”

“I drew this picture.”

“Shut up.”

“Do you like it?”

“SHUT UP AND LET ME FUCKING READ!”

It was the greatest note I’d ever read.

Months later, on Day One of the state test, I urged the kids to do their best. I explained that the test was for teaching me, not judging them. I didn’t mention its real purpose – to judge me.

I recited the scripted instructions. Gripping their #2 pencils and scantrons, they got to work.

Carlos had a separate desk during testing; his jabbering and gyrating would distract others. I patrolled the room in mandated silence, trying to exude serenity. Eight minutes into the test, I froze.

Carlos’s booklet was closed, his pencil down. He was reading a book about reptiles.

I whispered, “Carlos? You have to do the test.”

Without taking his eyes off his book, he whispered, “I did.”

His scantron was bubbled in. He had finished the seventy-five-minute test in eight minutes.

“But you have to read the questions.”

“I did,” he hissed, and kept reading his book.

I felt a thud inside me. Carlos would bomb the reading test, because all he wanted to do was read something interesting.

The state measures our worth as teachers based on kids like Carlos.

My professional reputation is in Carlos’s hands.

We’re all doomed.

Except Carlos. His teachers have taught him well.

We’re commanded to increase time spent providing tailored instruction to small groups, while growing numbers of students are packed into our classes. We must carve out extra time to enact restorative justice when conflicts arise. We must teach our classes to master keyboarding, and to just say no to drugs. While performing the above duties, some legislators think I should be packing heat. As I enforce zero tolerance for violence.

And when our raft smashes into boulders, the knee-jerk response is that it’s all our fault. Even though teachers keep asking for paddles, and the time to learn to use them.

But you know what the ironic truth is? Do you know which people can best accept us teachers with all our flaws and limitations?

It’s the students. The ones we’re supposedly there to help, the ones who most deserve greatness. The longer I teach, the more failures there are, moments that make me cringe when I remember. But in these twilight years of my teaching career, I’m starting to believe that those very failures might be the most valuable gifts I can give my students.

Why?

Because I make sure the kids know I’m a shithead. I tell them almost every day. Not in those words, of course, because then there’d be a story about me in the newspaper, and I’d become one of the “terrible teachers who can’t ever be fired.”

But the kids know my truth. Here’s proof:

“Even when you get mad…” (ouch) “you apologize to us.”

It was a love note I received at the end of last school year, on top of another that read: “You are sunshine to me.” A note from the previous week read: “You always try your best.”

The benefit of screwing up so often over the years is that I get a ridiculous amount of practice in admitting when I’m wrong. I’m like a gymnast doing backflips on the balance beam, over and over. I want to get it right. When I bark at a child, I remember being young, and observing adults who hollered and hit without confessing in the quiet aftermath that they wished they hadn’t. In my marriage, when I need to examine my behaviors and apologize, my husband reassures me that I’m still loved. He forgives me much more easily than I ever forgive myself.

So if I can model that to children—that no one is perfect, that we can always try to be better, that forgiveness is healing—then bring it on! I can embrace the shithead in me. If I can demonstrate to malleable children—those who will inherit this planet—that they are no less worthy of kindness just because they are young, then at least my shitheadedness has served a purpose.

A few weeks before school ended, Ryan approached me at a side table, where I was conducting a required, one-on-one reading test with a child. Focusing on one child while still keeping the others busy stressed me out. More than that, assessing the entire class one-on-one takes fourteen hours, and I was anxious about carving out enough chunks of time this late in the year. So many hours were already earmarked for standardized testing. We’d be gone twice for field trips. Plus I’d miss two whole days for mandatory training in the latest program adopted by my district. Where would I find the time?

Ryan’s eyes darted nervously; he must have seen the “not-now cow” around my neck, the stuffed-animal signal to the class not to disturb me unless it was an emergency.

I ignored him.

He stood firm, his small hand clutching scribbled data for his bar graph. He wasn’t going away.

So I closed my eyes, sighing mightily. With a long-suffering tone, I asked, “Are you bleeding or sick?”

His big eyes grew larger. “No…?” […]

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“Shithead” was originally published in the The Tishman Review.

Read More: A brief Q&A with Sue Granzella