"I Have a Line of Parents at My Door"

But the end was finally near for me. The more that I tried to be a good teacher, the worse that the whole thing became. I was very nervous, confronting two very intelligent and manipulative honors students who knew how to blame the teacher, game the administrator, and defame anyone who gave them a hard time. 

The parents were abusive in this one case. I cannot believe that I was expected to put up with such folly. Still, at that point in my life, I was spending more time just trying to do a good job, not get anyone mad, do the best that I can. The pressure was beyond incredible. No one in credential school had ever told me that schools were the site of conflicting demands, curriculum expectations, flustered leadership that would spend more time looking over its own shoulders instead of administering instruction in the best interests of the students.

The last parent conference that I had to take on — Mom and Dad with the daughter who could cry at the drop of a hat — and the assistant principal who did not know what was going on. She was trying to make sense of the insanity that had come to define the whole program that I was slogging through.  As a French teacher, I was trying to bring students up to speed through every chapter, but I had no time to make sure that students had acquired and understood what they have learned. The 4 x 4 block left no room, no time for me to reteach, to reinstruct, to recreate students so that I could be sure that they understood what I had taught them. A horrible situation for a language teacher like myself.

So, I faced off with the two boorish parents, and their obnoxious daughter crying away, then putting on a straight face, claiming that I was a Nazi, a fascist, or another empty racial epithet. The parents were fuming about discrimination, too. The assistant principal, who has moved from her office in charge of human resources to the counselor's office to replace the other assistant principal who had quit, had barely gotten settled, and already she was trying to keep up with this mess.

After one abusive comment after another, I had had enough of that crappy parent conference. I stormed out, refusing to spend one mire minute getting eaten alive.

Another parent came in the room with her son. He and the other student, the Ms. Cry-on-the-Spot, had planned a perverse final project about a students who comes out of the closet. I had offered the students the opportunity to create their own skit using their French vocabulary, but I was appalled to find myself having to dispute with students who wanted to use a fun final project to make political points about a volatile issue that had nothing to do with French. Such subject matter as a person revealing personal behavior has no place in a classroom, and I had refused to permit students to put forward so inappropriate a topic. The whole thing was an offense to me, that students would scream civil rights violations over a project. I look back on the whole affair, and I am disgusted that I had believed that I had to put up with such stupidity.

The mother in the second conference went on and on about how she had to work  during the day and that she did not have time to attend parent conferences. I reminded her and the assistant principal trying to make sense of the whole mess that I was not the one who had planned these confrontations. I made the most of the time that I was there. The student, Mr. Come-Out, had letters from other students that he did not mean anything inappropriate by what he had meant to do.

"I think this thing is a big misunderstanding, and Mr. S. thinks that we are out to get him."

The suspicion which he raised was spot-on, actually. They felt entitled to press me about issues as to what was appropriate and what had no place in a classroom. I was astounded at the lack of respect that I was enduring. The assistant principal was helpless, too, and had no idea what to do — she was in over her head, to say the least.

The mother and Mr. Come-Out left the room, then the principal rushed into the room. After firmly shaking my hand, he asked me "How are you today, Mr. S?"

I told him that I was OK, bearing in mind that two excessive and unacceptable parent conferences had just taken place, but then he just erupted.

Slamming a book on the table,  he shouted, "Well, I am not!" He then continued to yell at me:

"I have a line of parents at my door complaining about you! You have quiet a reputation on this campus! I hear stories about how you treat the students. . ."

I do not minimize this one truth — I was extremely strict and overwhelmed, pushing students to the brink. I felt pressured, and I know that the students felt the pressure in turn. It was just awful for them, I am sure. So insecure was I, so pressed to impress that I was in charge. I look back on those days and cringe, I cannot believe how shaky and shaken I was. Whatever I had learned as a student teacher, I could not shake the fear demons, I found myself completely unable to overcome the upset and anxiety which had so gripped me. At that point, I had fallen into the internal infernal maelstrom of trying to calm down, and of course that only makes you more nervous.

The principal lambasted me for the next five minutes about how he had tried to make the most of the dwindling enrollment in my classes, how he had tried to adjust to issues that he thought had nothing to do with me. Yet the facts were indisputable: I was really mean, and really green, and I was about to leave the scene.

"Mr. S., do you look forward to waking up in the morning?"

I barely mentioned yes, still trembling over the tongue-lashing which I had endured.

"Well, you better think long and hard about it, because tomorrow you will be meeting with me, and your union rep will be there." Then he stormed out.

I could not believe what was happening. I had tried so hard to do the best job that I could, and it all fell flat. I was thoroughly excoriated by the principal for some things that I had done, but also for other things which I did not do — like assigning detentions or taking away students' senior activities.

I stumbled out of the counselor's office, shaken to the core, with no idea as to what I was going to do. It certainly looked as if my time at the school was about to be over. I recalled the comeuppance I had endured after my first attempt at student teaching. The show-down which I had just survived reminded me of what I had faced two years before. In fact, that is exactly what went through my mind as the principal was bearing down on me for all the stress that he had been going through, taking on the full assignment, missing one assistant principal on maternity leave while another principal had quit after the third quarter. He was short-staffed, short-sighted, and short of breath, and I understand now why he was so short with me then, not that such angry behavior was ever justified.

I had so much growing up to do in those days, and the people who were supposed to help me did anything but. I could not believe how incompetent and uninformed the "mentors" in my life had been in those days. I could not believe that I had moved along with such insanity in those days. I was so desperate for security and direction in those days. I was so afraid to fail, I had been told so many times that I would never amount to anything, that I was a loser.

But the lie was that I was not a loser, but a man trying to win a game that no one can ever win. I was trying to make it in a public school where the well-being of the students is not the priority, where the tyranny of test scores has replaced the learning and the bearing of the students, young men and women who are looking for something more for their lives.

Those students needed parents, and at that point in my life, I was still a lost child looking for a real parent to rear me. I was waiting for a parent at the door who would take care of me.