Quitting

25.

Meanwhile, my teaching career was becoming increasingly frustrating. I had been rehired part time, working with 2 year olds at John McLaren Children’s Center, up the hill from my house. I was able to augment my position by substituting in the afternoon, in the same classroom. So, I was working for 4 hours in the morning, making a decent hourly wage. Then, after a 3 hour break, I’d return, working with the same children but making about 2/3 the hourly wage. With a split shift, I’d start working at 7 AM and get off at 6 PM, a long day. And the pay differential made me feel positively schizophrenic: what was I supposed to do, work 2/3 as hard in the afternoon?

I was able to teach the children how to spell their names, which was considered “developmentally inappropriate,” but I figured if they could learn it, why not? I did it by making up a song for each child. Tyrone’s song might go: T-Y-R-O-N-E, T-Y-R-O-N-E, T-Y-R-O-N-E, T-Y-R-O-N-E, T-Y-R-O-N-E, BOOM! The children seemed to like each having his/her own song. I had them hold sentence strips with their names printed on them. I think it may have helped them learn their letters.

I started looking around for other teaching jobs, and in January of 1984 I got a job teaching science to 1st through 6th graders at Markham Elementary School in East Oakland, near Eastmont Mall, a perpetually failing shopping center. Most of the classes had 30 students, all of them black. Being a prep teacher was a lot like being a substitute, but I could handle it – at first. I appreciated the uptick in status represented by moving from “child care” to elementary teaching – I just felt more respected. I liked teaching science because it’s the one elementary subject that tends to be “hands on.” I had the students plant beans, mix vinegar and baking soda, and experiment with magnets. I also included a literacy component, reading science fiction to the classes.

One of my favorite lessons involved debunking astrology. I would buy the latest astrology magazine from the drug store and go around the class asking for birthdays. For each zodiac sign, I’d read the description of the person – only I’d mix them up, so for Aries I’d read Leo, for Cancer, Pieces, and so forth. The students were all like yes! That’s it! That’s him/her to a tee! Some of them were quite angry when at the end of class I revealed that I had switched around the zodiac signs.

The job was difficult, but it was gratifying to me that it seemed I had finally, finally gotten a handle on the classroom control thing that had so compromised my career as and elementary teacher. It was helpful that I traveled from classroom to classroom, and frequently the teacher remained in the room while I taught.

I was hired as a long-term substitute, but I pressured the principal, who got me classified probationary.

That summer I had a full 3 months off – which was fun. We spent a lot of time at Deer Creek. I took a class on teaching science from the Lawrence Livermore Radiation Lab, which included a lot of propaganda about how radiation was a part of everyday life, how Coleman lantern wicks would inspire a Geiger counter to clickity-click, but also gave me a lot of ideas for teaching the next year.

The following year, 1984-85, I had my own science room at Markham, which at first seemed to make things easier, but I missed the students’ regular teachers not being in the room. The crowd control piece was trying. The stress was taking its toll. By January, it was as if I just ran out of gas. I couldn’t go to work any more. I couldn’t face the constant testing of the 150 hostile students every single day. Perhaps only a dozen were hostile. But I missed the far more rational curriculum and structure of preschool.

So, I quit. I told the principal that I’d gotten a job teaching creative writing at the community college level – I even gave the college a name: Canada College in San Mateo, and thus was able to leave with the blessing of my colleagues. I had only taken a leave from my San Francisco job and had little trouble foreshortening my leave and returning to my part time job teaching preschool. This was an enormously liberating move. The relief I got from quitting this job inspired me toward my next big move, which turned out not to be quite so simple.