The Settling In for the Long Haul

(Continued from last Wednesday, September 25 . . . )

In the beginning of my draconian rule of the seventh-grade classroom in Omaha, five students spent time after school trying to subtract and get to 0.

         For the next two or three weeks, five or more had to stay and work until they’d done the subtraction correctly throughout the entire problem. As I said last week, this process sometimes took two hours.

         As the days passed, fewer and fewer checkmarks went on the chalkboard. Ron held out for two or three weeks and had to stay after school each day. Led by him, Bill and John also had to stay for they followed his example and disrupted class when he did or disrupted it on their own and looked to him for approval. All three always had several  ✔✔✔✔✔✔✔after their names.

         But once Ron decided he’d had enough of this, he settled into brooding silence—like Heathcliff on the moors. He had a good brain and somewhat infrequently would offer an answer in class. His buddies would look at him admiringly and he’d preen. But when I complimented him on something he’d done or said, he seemed appreciative. I wasn’t letting him bully me and I think he developed a grudging respect for me.

Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff

in the 1939 film version of Wuthering Heights.

         The surprising event to me was that no parents called or visited me to object to their son or daughter staying after school. 

          In mid-March a couple did come to the convent one evening to demand that I change their daughter’s grades. Pam had taken her 3^rd quarter report card home that afternoon and her parents insisted I had a grudge against their daughter because she was smarter than I.

         For the first two quarters of the school years Pam had gotten straight As. I’d given her Bs and Cs because she'd done sloppy and incomplete work. She seemed to think that the assignments I gave were too juvenile. She was a ringleader of the girls, but she didn’t get checkmarks. She was too intelligent for that. Her resistance came in the form of inflections and facial expressions when she answered or asked a question.

         Pam’s parents simply couldn’t understand why her grades had gone down, and when I told them about her attitude, they expressed their belief that she was smarter. More attractive. More charming than any of the girls in her classroom. For all that, they thought, she should be given As.

         I assured Pam’s parents that if her work and attitude changed for the last quarter, she’d make better grades. I’d become steely by then and her parents seemed to recognize that the grades would remain as given. They left angry, but Pam began to respond to class questions without disdain and arrogance. She was an attractive girl and she and Ron were a couple.

         Sister Mary Norbert, who’d been at St. Peter and Paul’s Grade School for several years, had taught many of these seventh graders in her fifth-grade class two years before.

         One day she said to me, “You know, Sister Innocence, that lot’s not innocent. They haven’t been since they started carousing. Partying in the fifth grade. They changed then. And not for the good.”

         Seeing my befuddlement, she whispered, “Sex.”

         The next day I looked out upon that sea of fifty-five students and felt sad for them. I could see now why several of the girls seemed too mature for their age. Too knowledgeable. Why they stood on the playground with hips and chest stuck out provocatively. Why they looked at the boys with their mouths open while running the tip of their tongue over their lips.

         I knew that with regard to their sexuality they probably had experienced more than I. Yet that fact wasn’t important. I was there to teach them; they were there to learn.

         From February 15 to the end of the school year, I was perhaps more creative in my teaching than in any of the subsequent years. The students’ passivity and boredom became a challenge. Next week I hope to share with you some of the projects with which I captured their attention.

                                                ( . . . continued next Wednesday, October 9.) 

Photographs from Wikipedia.

         

The First Day of the New Regime

Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington,

in the Pacific NW region of the United States,

before its 1980 eruption.

(Continued from last Thursday, September 19 . . . )

First, thank you for wishing me good health. As you can see, I just needed to go back to bed yesterday. Now I’m hunky-dory!

         Let’s continue this Omaha saga. In my memory, it’s Monday, February 15, 1960. I’ve come into the classroom and announced the method of discipline that would set boundaries for the rest of the school year. I began with the following words: “For four weeks, I’ve given you so much rope you’ve hanged yourselves with it.”

         I remember those words well. They helped me save face but were so untrue. I’ve given them no rope. The truth was I simply didn’t know how to establish classroom discipline in that milieu.

         To teach, I needed quiet punctuated by questions, curiosity, and discussion. Many of these seventh graders also wanted this, so my despotic discipline was unfair to them. But to reach the gang members and a couple of girls who were causing the disturbances, I had to become autocratic.          

         I also knew that the subtraction problems I meant to use for discipline would be wearisome to finish. To begin the process, I’d multiple a three-digit number like 537 by another three-digit number like 241. The answer would be 129,417.

         The students would then subtract 537 from this large number and would keep subtracting 537 until they got to 0. They’d subtract 241 times to do that. A lot of mental work.

         I explained this to the students to give them a sense of the scope of what staying after school meant. Several booed and let me know that no one—Absolutely. No. One.—could keep them after school to do anything.

         It was then I pulled my trump card.

         When Sister Brendan, the principal, had given me permission to try this tactic, she’d added, “Tell them that if they walk out and don’t complete the problem, they’ll be suspended for three days. And if they do that a second time, they’ll be expelled. That ought to do it.”

         When I played the trump card she’d given me, several boys cursed.

Eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 PDT.

         Hearing the curses from several students, I turned my back on the class—fearful still that someone might throw a knife—and printed their names on the chalkboard with a checkmark after each name.

         Turning back toward them, I said, “That’s for cursing. If you get two more checkmarks today, you’ll stay after school.” They groaned but said no more.

         To begin our new regime, I established a daily subject schedule. We’d pray, say the pledge of allegiance, and begin with religion. Following that, we’d study math, then reading, and so on.

         Before we began each subject that day, I distributed the textbooks for it and directed the students to open them to a section where their knowledge was weak. I’d learned their subject deficiencies from the quizzes I’d given on my first day in that classroom.

         As the day progressed, several boys sat like convulsive volcanoes ready to erupt. Throughout the day, I added checkmarks for anything that was on the list I’d posted that morning.

Mount St. Helens two years after the 1980 eruption.

         As I remember, by the day’s end, four boys—Ron, Bill, John M., and Tommy—and one girl—Jenny—had three or more checkmarks by their names. The five of them stayed after school. And subtracted. And subtracted. And tried to convince me they’d gotten to 0. And subtracted some more. The last student left the classroom nearly two hours after school ended. Fortunately, all five lived close by and could walk safely home.

         And so began the reign of Sister Innocence, tyrant of Mount Saint Scholastica Monastery.

Mount St. Helens, October 2009, 

with a view of the ice-covered crater rim.

(. . . to be continued next Wednesday, October 2)

I Hope to Be Back Tomorrow

(Continued from Thursday, September 19 . . . )

Hello All, on this sun-lit day here in Missouri. I'd planned on posting another story today about teaching in that seventh-grade classroom in Omaha, Nebraska, back in 1960. However, while the story is in my memory, waiting to be told, I'm a little under the weather today and my mind can’t tell a story with any assurance. So I'm going back to bed. 

         If all goes well, I'll post tomorrow. I want to explain why the gang members stayed after school when I said they had to.

            Have a good day. Peace.

                                                (. . . continued tomorrow, September 26.)

The Omaha Denouement—Finally!

(Continued from yesterday, Wednesday, September 18 . . . )

Toward the end of the four weeks between January 18 and February 15, 1960, I began to think that if I became a pal to the seventh graders in our Omaha classroom they’d like me and want to learn.

         I discovered how mistaken that notion was on Friday, February 12, when we had a Valentine’s party. Besides bringing cupcakes, soda pop, and candy, several students also brought radios to the classroom. The party began in early afternoon. What ensued is like a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

Allegory of Gluttony and Lust by Hieronymus Bosch

         First, the students had a contest to see who could throw a cupcake up to the ceiling and make it stay. The contest continued an interminable time with much hooting and raucous laughter. Soda pop fizzed on the floor and against the windows. Girls ran around the room, trying to evade the groping hands of the boys.

         Then, several boys came to the front of the room, threw themselves on the floor, and turned up the volume on their radios. Moving their bodies suggestively, they humped, thrust, moaned. I stood by my desk as they performed their obscene floor dances just a few feet from me. They fixed their eyes on me and smiled with glee at my discomfort.

         That Friday-afternoon party was an ending for me. I knew I couldn’t go back into that classroom on Monday. That evening, my body must have proclaimed my great weariness—I’d lost ten pounds—and my despair and desperation. I say this because of what happened next.

         Sister Nicole, in whose fifth-grade classroom I’d substituted the first two weeks of January, was now home from the hospital. When she asked me how things were going, the whole sorry tale came pouring out.

         “We’ll put a stop to that,” Nicole said.

         “But how?” I could see no happy ending.

         “Here’s how. It’s this or Council Bluffs.” Nicole laid out the following plan: On Monday, I’d go into the classroom and announce a new beginning. I’d read a list of what I’d no longer tolerate:

1.    Interrupting my teaching

2.    Interrupting the responses and questions from others

3.    Jabbing with math compasses

4.    Throwing papers and books

5.    Spitting

6.    Making rude and obscene remarks

7.    Getting up from desks without permission

8.    Visiting other desks without permission

9.    Talking without permission

10. Failing to do homework

11. Sassing

The list must have had at least twenty-five unacceptable behaviors.

“The next thing you’ll do on Monday,” Sister Nicole said, “is to explain the punishment system.” What we devised is this:

·      Every time a student did something on the list, I’d put a check by his or her name on the chalkboard. At the end of the day, anyone who had three checks had to stay after school.

·     I’d give that student a subtraction problem by multiplying a three-digit number by another three-digit number. The student would then take the paper to his desk and begin. He’d subtract the second number—the subtrahend—from the first number—the minuend. He’d keep subtracting until the difference was zero. He’d stay after school until the problem was completed to my satisfaction.

         “But how will I know he hasn’t cheated to get out of detention early?” I asked.

         “When he shows you his work. Check it by multiplying your second number by 10, 20, 30, 40 . . . and so on. Look for the resultant numbers among the subtrahends. Just look for numbers that end with zero. Most students start to fudge and make up numbers until they get to a final answer of zero. You can show them where their subtracting went askew and set them to working the problem again.”

         “This’ll work?”

         “Once the students discover just how long all that subtracting takes it will.”

         I worked a problem and saw what Nicole meant. Then I went to Sister Brendan to get permission to keep the students after school for as long as it took for them to do the subtraction correctly. I also needed permission to miss Vespers, the lengthy chanted psalms the nuns prayed together after school ended.

         Monday came. I announced the new beginning. Within a week life had settled to what became the norm for the rest of the school year. In the next posting I’ll describe the atmosphere in which the students and I lived until the end of May. Cold. Chilly. Bleak.

                                       ( . . . continued next Wednesday, September 25.)

Bosch painting from Wikipedia.

Police Enter the Classroom

(Continued from last Wednesday, September 18 . . . )

Cartoon courtesy of Fishducky.

Each weekday between January 18 and February 15, 1960, I entered a seventh-grade Omaha classroom. After the students and I said morning prayers and recited the pledge of allegiance, I’d try to teach. Many of them talked, shouted, sang, cursed, yelled across the room. Others, however, maybe as many as two-thirds of the fifty-five, leaned forward at their desks, attempting to hear my voice over the din.

         At least once a week, a policeman visited me after school, asking questions about the students in my classroom, several of whom were members of the gang terrorizing that area of Omaha. Ron, the gang’s leader, gave me a hard time each day. I’d first met him as he banged a fellow classmate’s head against the playground ice.

         “They can bruise every part of your body and not break a bone,” the policeman confided. “Every kid in this neighborhood’s frightened. No one’ll rat on ‘em. You gotta be careful, Sister. They’ll turn on ya. Right here in this classroom.”

         I thanked him for his advice but I’d learned on the third day in that classroom that I had to face the students at all times. On that day—Wednesday January 20—I was facing the chalkboard, my right hand raised and to the side as I wrote some tidbit of knowledge. I heard a zing and then a thud.

         A quivering knife embedded itself about an inch from my little finger. My hand started trembling.

         The room was ominously silent as I turned and looked at that sea of faces. Some bore horror; others, triumph; still others, scorn.

         Given that the knife had zinged right past my hand, I thought it must have come from a boy in the row behind me. But no one looked guilty. Everyone just seemed interested in what I’d do.

         My hand still trembling, I pulled out the knife. Carried it with me to the door. Left the room. Crossed the hall to Sister Brendan’s room. Knocked.

         When she came to the door, I handed her the knife and explained what had happened. “Have all the students empty their pockets and purses on their desks. Then confiscate any weapons,” she said. “I want you to stand by your classroom door each morning from now on. Have the students empty out their pockets and handbags before coming into the room. Give any weapons to me.”

         I did this for the rest of the school year.

         During those early weeks, I had one proof-positive experience of what the policeman had tried to explain to me. After school one day, James stayed to ask what he needed to study to get into college. Not knowing the Nebraska colleges, I offered to talk with the other nuns that evening and get some information for him.

         The next day, I noticed that he moved gingerly in his desk as if in pain. When the other students filed out at the end of the day, I said, “James, you’re moving like you’re hurt. Has something happened?”

         He stood silent as if not sure what to say. Slowly he drew up his T-shirt. Dark bruises covered his entire chest and back. Deep purple bruises on top of bruises. Despair filled his dark eyes.

         “Who did this to you?”

         “The guys. In the gang.”

         “Why?”

         “They thought I was snitching on them when I stayed after school. Yesterday. So they ganged up on me.”

         “Will you tell this to the police?”

         He shook his head vehemently. “That’d land me in the hospital. Ron won’t be so easy on me next time.”

         And that was that. I was powerless to help him.

                                    (. . . continued tomorrow, Thursday September 19.)

NOTE: I don’t want to hold you in suspense any longer as to how and why things changed in that Omaha classroom. So tomorrow—Thursday—I’ll tell that story.