I was scratching my head about what to post (a plan of action that never works as well as actually thinking about it) when I came across an email from PDMI Publishing. They have accepted my novel Snow Babies and are planning to publish it. Hurray! No more thinking for today!
This is an old journal piece I wrote in 2007 when I was a jobless substitute teacher. I found it, read it, and decided it is still relevant to today when I am soon going to have to give up teaching and retire due to ill health. It was written during one of those times when I was made of glass.
After the student at Virginia Tech cracked into pieces and ended thirty-two lives, shattering an entire university community, I began seriously thinking about how breakable human beings can be, and breakable in so many different ways. I can remember times in my own life when I was the boy made of glass. I was cracked and crumbled when I was ten years old because a fifteen-year-old neighbor boy sexually abused me. I was ground into shards again when the Wicked Witch of Creek Valley refused to see any redeeming qualities in my teaching ability, and zeroed me out on an evaluation so badly that no one will ever hire me again for the one thing in life I’ve been trained for and believe that I am good at. (In the Summer of 2007, Garland ISD actually did give me another teaching job… the fools.) The depression from each of those crackings was very nearly fatal.
Don’t despair for me, though. I have always only been made of glass for brief periods of time in my life. The rest of the time I am mostly made of spoof and rubber. Stuff bounces off me, and I learned from my grandfather (the one I always believed was secretly God in human form) how to laugh at everything, especially my troubles. Those of us who know the loving God (no matter what name we are willing to call Him by) are harder to break than most people. That belief, especially that part that galvanizes and changes the very stuff we are made of, helps life’s barbs and darts and plain ol’ rocks to bounce off like we are Superman’s sillier clone with very little harm actually done.
Not all people seem to be like that, however. I have been teaching hard of late (in spite of the Wicked Witch of Creek Valley), doing substitute work in Reading, Science, Special Ed, and even as a test administrator for the Texas state academic exams, the TAKS Tests (the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, though the name is perfect because they are really more like sitting on TACKS while paying your income TAX). In fact, I am a substitute Science teacher as I ink these very words (on paper, you know, because subs are not generally smart enough to be trusted with computers). As a substitute I have encountered more fragile kids in one year than I ever knew existed when I was a regular classroom teacher. There are more breakable people in schools than you can count on Robert Malthus’ abacus.
At the TAKS-celebration teacher-student basketball game, I was called on to sit in a quiet room with two unique specials who couldn’t stand to be around crowds or noise (noise being a constant condition in schools that one can only rarely get away from). The girl, who throws fits if she thinks you are looking at her too much, sat quietly with the computer, looking up Pokemon episodes and repeating dialogue aloud from each in funny voices meant only to entertain herself. The boy, who goes into the fetal curl and weeps, sat at a table with a book on origami, happily folding up an army of alien space cruisers to stuff into his notebooks and leave a trail of wherever he was soon to go. Neither one of them will ever damage anyone but themselves if they get broken by life, yet each is so fragile that mere noise can scatter their flower petals. Hothouse violets with no tolerance for much of anything. I suppose I should feel honored that the school felt confident enough in my abilities at classroom management that I could handle these two delicate blossoms at the same time while everyone else was off having fun of a different kind.
I’ve seen violent and angry broken people too. I once referred a boy to the school counselor because he was fantasizing about blowing people’s heads off with a shotgun in the pages of his class journal assignment. The counselor back then, in a pre-9-11 world, said there was really nothing that could be done about something that was in a boy’s private journal. Three years later that boy went to jail for beating his girlfriend’s youngest daughter almost to death. The child was only two years old. It put a few cracks in my own armor to learn about that, knowing what I thought I knew about that boy. Sometimes we are not Superman and the bullets don’t bounce off.
One of the most dangerous sorts of glass people are the girls made of glass (at least in the opinion of one goofy male teacher that didn’t marry until age 37). At least three times girls fell in love with me during the course of a school year. All three reached a point in their fantasy lives where they believed they required love and sex back from me. I wondered to myself if they had severe vision problems or were just plain crazy, but all three were lovely girls, and smart, a joy to teach… at least until that love bug bit ’em. The first two ended up hating me and becoming discipline problems for the remainder of the year. The third, well… she was just too perfect. She listened to the “you are more like a daughter to me, and I’m marrying someone else” speech and only put her sweet head against my shoulder and said to me with tears in her big, brown eyes, “You are the teacher I am going to miss the most when I’m in High School.” You know, fifteen years later, I still tear up thinking about that one (and not because I married the only woman in the world who is always right about everything and never agrees with me about anything). Those three girls were all breakable people too, and I had the hammer in my hand on those three occasions. They are not the type to hurt others either, but I mourn for them, because they all three grew up into beautiful women and are so much smarter now than they were then.
So, what is the main idea out of all this mooning, fluff, and drivel? Well, I guess that people are all made out glass sometimes, all delicate and easy to destroy. And you know what? There are too many angry bulls in this China shop we call our lives. Too much gets cracked, wrecked, or broken. If only people could walk through our lives with a bit lighter step… and maybe at least try to be careful!
Now, seven years after writing this piece, I am feeling like I’m made of glass yet again. I am going to miss being a teacher. I am going to miss dealing with Fragile People.
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Honestly, I only saw her from afar at the Wright County Fair in the Summer of 1977. She was perfect. She could skate backwards as well as I could skate forwards. She dipsy-doodled all around the rink, never noticing me watching with my mouth open. Beautiful auburn hair and a smile that could melt butter better than the August Iowa weather… I wasn’t sure how old she was, the main reason I never tried to talk to her. I was already a college sophomore at the age of twenty. I suspected she was a mere high school girl, not yet eighteen. All I felt safe doing was looking and longing, wishing only to adore and draw near. This Paffooney of checkerboard and stripes is not actually her. It is inspired by my niece and some actress from the musical Annie. But it makes me remember. A sweet, sad summer crush that never went anywhere but into a sappy old Paffooney post. Forgive me. I am old. And just maybe I will soon be a dirty, evil old man.
There is a thrill to be had from flying. Spread your arms and rise up on high. The magic carpet lifts us up into the air, and we ride towards destiny. My friend, he is a pyromancer. He can make fire from the air and cast it forward to light up the sky. In the village they see us coming and tremble from dread. but we are not evil, in spite of our blackness. We come to bring light and fire to the people who have survived the darkness of the cold, cold night. So what does it all mean? Meaning is like fire. It warms us when it doesn’t burn us. What is it all for? Pursuing purpose is like flying, winging toward the next sunrise.
I have not been a very good teacher of late. I have been ill, having difficulty breathing and aching in a number of ways. I would stay home, but I lose a full day’s pay for every sick day I must use now. I could end up owing the school money at the end of the month if I miss too much. So, I have posted a Paffooney that portrays in oil paint the proper attitude. As the Baron is dropping to his death (WWI pilots did not have parachutes) he gives the old thumbs up. I know I am going out just like that. The end is coming, but I fear it not. Achtung! It has been a good flight up to now.
So, here’s a picture of Michael Mouse surrounded by friends and admirers of all sorts. I can’t help the surrealism any more than Salvador Dali could, but the point here is that I, like Mr. Mouse, am a Mickey. I am filled with Mickey-ness. I am a part of all of Mickey-dom… but never Mickey-dumb! “Sweet Mickey, warm Mickey, little ball of yucks… Cool Mickey, wry Mickey, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.”
I have found to my chagrin that I have a monkey on my back, a happy monkey, but a monkey never-the-less. This little creature is a serious need for the morning caffeine fix, an addiction to Diet Coke. I discovered the problem as a substitute teacher eight years ago when I was supposed to take on 8th grade English classes at Perry Middle School. I had been there before, and I knew what to expect from these kids. They are vicious little substitute teacher eaters. That is why there are so many bones on the floor of that middle school. Only really tough teachers and subs survive there.
Now, I once had doubts about how tough I am as a disciplinarian. I used to like kids too much to make some of the hardest choices. If you like a kid, it is hard to send him or her to a detention center or alternative school. You hate to set their little feet on a path that we teachers always say leads to prisons, gangs, and poverty. But as a sub, I didn’t get to really know and care about them. You learn to get them before they get you. I enjoyed killing off a few of the worst sub-killers. By becoming a tough, mean sub, I had developed the power to get through the day without real challenges to my authority, personal integrity, family history, and anything else that middle schoolers will try to undercut. That tough demeanor, though, is 90 per cent Coca Cola boost. I am in the habit of buying a Diet Coke in the teacher’s lounge before the start of classes. I have never learned to drink coffee. I can’t drink coffee and come away with the feeling I need to be singing “I believe I can fly…I believe I can touch the sky…” like Dilbert has been doing in the comic strips lately.
Well, you can probably see it coming. That morning the Magic Go Juice was sold out. Cheap gol’ dang schools let that happen way too much! Forget the better health care for teachers, the Govenor needs to promise that the Coke machines will never run dry. I had to face the monkies and the monsters with no spiritual armor from the little red can, actually silver can because as a diabetic, I can only drink things that are un-sugarfied. It was a formula for pure disaster that I had faced far too often in the employ of the Wicked Witch of Creek Valley, the principal who changed me from a teacher into a substitute teacher. Oh well, you turn extra mean as you get old. Frowns enhanced by wrinkles are much scarier than any I used to have. I gave the “Killer Eye of Painful Death Lurking” better than any other substitute teacher, thanks to loads of practice, and my Popeye-like squinky eye left over from an old football injury. I made it through the day without my Diet Coke. Does that mean I should give it up? Horrors! I am swilling a Diet Coke right now and trembling at the mere thought. No withdrawal and delerium tremens for this old Coke addict. I have chosen my poison and now will live with it.
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All you people who’ve never set foot in a classroom where someone has announced to the world that you are a teacher, especially a middle school classroom, have absolutely no idea what teaching really is like. Even some of you who are teachers and sincerely believe that you control behavior in a classroom, especially a middle school classroom, are amazingly deluded.
For example, take the pictures we normally look at and think, “Oh yes, that is what a classroom looks like.” A picture like this;
This is, of course, total fiction. These kiddos were bribed to raise their hand for the picture. There is no question in the brain of any teacher anywhere in the world that can make all of these kids raise their hands at once. Even if you say, “Who wants chocolate?” some of the students will not raise their hands because they will think, “I have to do something to earn the chocolate, and if I have to do something, it probably involves thinking, and thinking is the last thing that they can trick me into doing.” Of course, if you ask, “Who thinks I’m the worst teacher you ever had?” then only the kid who expects to get a perfect grade and is not willing to put that at risk will not raise a hand. When you ask a question in a classroom, you are more likely to get no hands raised at all. Teacher supervisors and principals always say that you have to give them enough “think-time”, but whatever that is, it is not something that students actually do.
Another thing that people don’t generally realize is demonstrated in this next picture. But look at it very carefully;
This is total fiction. You can’t teach from technology. First of all, nothing ever works. You have to spend all your class time debugging crashed systems, re-connecting to the internet, and monitoring student’s screens. You can’t teach them anything. The boys will be secretly downloading porn and the girls will all be sneaking One Direction’s songs onto the task bar. Learning only happens on the internet independently of the teacher. It is not something you can either plan or control. Teaching really only happens with a teacher talking and kids being allowed to respond… call the teacher names… reveal how to say bad words in Spanish and other languages… discuss sex and video games… you know, actual learning.
The last reveal for today is a truth concealed in a lie. Administrators always say, “We’re in it for the kids,” which typically means we are doing it for the money and don’t give the administrator a hard time about any difficult or impossible thing they expect us to do in the classroom. But this lie is ironically true. If you are a real teacher, you have to care about individual kids. You have to let them use you and abuse you, talk about themselves, and minimize the amount of time they actually have to listen to you as you ultimately solve their impossible, life-threatening problems.
So, there you have it… secrets learned from thirty-one years of teaching revealed for free. But believe me, I do have a book in mind.
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Life is like Moose Bowling,
Because…
In order to knock over all the pins,
And win…
You have to learn HOW TO THROW A MOOSE!
My homage to “the Ghost Who Walks” was carefully chosen. I scanned my Phantom comics from Charleton looking for the right pose. I found an image of him punching toward the viewer. I thought, “Why don’t I put that view on horseback and have him riding toward me and punching.” Why did I think that? Who knows? As an artist, I’m kinda erratic and crazy that way. I guess that’s why I claim to be a surrealist. I do believe all comic book artists have to be surrealists to do their job. That’s true whether they do super heroes, ducks who hoard money in vaults and wear spats, pigs who wear a coat and a tie but no pants, or alien monsters hungry for the nearly naked flesh of Dale Arden. Uh… maybe I’m revealing way too much about my thought processes here… So here’s step one, the pen and ink.
Then I had to give it some colored pencil treatments. Black and white with crosshatching is cool, but it is also like bare bones, without life and energy. So I used the powers I have over cheap Roseart pencils and madly scribbled in colors carefully balanced to show just how truly chaotic my perceptions of action and adventure really are.
Now, I know the Phantom’s horse is either black or pure white, depending on which version or generation of the Ghost Who Walks is being depicted, but I did a yellow horse. I know… I know… I did pansy colors when I really should’ve gone fire red or all bloody crimson. I’m completely violating continuity. But I never completely do what I intend to do. If I don’t screw it up at least a little bit, then it really isn’t me. Besides, what else is there to yell at myself about and twist words around to make it sound like I’m being all comedically gifted and funny?
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Catch a Falling Star 