Part One: To my new FB friends from Mansfield High School. I’m so glad I found you. I think about you all the time. After working my through Mansfield as the county reporter for the Elmira Star Gazette, I was 28 years old when I started at the high school teaching grades 9, 11 and 12.. Did I make mistakes? You bet I did, plenty of them. But I always taught with enthusiasm and vigor. And, of course, humor. I hope you remember all the times we laughed. It was the best job I ever had and wish I could go back in the same time and space and do it now, when I’m 66. But of course, I can’t. We started a high school newspaper, The Mansfield Independent, that won the Keystone Award as the best high school newspaper in Pennsylvania. Our editorials created a firestorm with the more conservative teachers at the school. But Mr. B always backed us. I hope you remember that, too. In 2006 I took a year off my university work and taught a year in a Philadelphia inner city charter school, where most of the students were African American. I taught grades 4 through 8, social studies. The students were difficult to control, much more difficult than you were — but I loved them just the same. They were really good kids. I taught the same way I did at Mansfield — yes, I used notebooks — but smarter, I think. It was a huge challenge for me walking into a culture I was not familiar with, both in terms of the students and the way the school operated. And, I didn’t have the youthful vigor of a 28 year old. These students didn’t know about the stuff you and I take for granted. So, I would tell them “Caucasion stories.” Once, and I think you can relate to this, I told the seventh grade about turkey hunting, which they didn’t know existed. For example, I used a yardstick for a shotgun and explained the turkey calling box and how a turkey hunter would call in a gobbler using the turkey call. Arms shot up with questions: “Will the turkeys attack you? Do they bite? Why hunt them when you can buy one frozen in the store? What if you shoot someone walking through the woods?” Finally, I had to ask them, “Do you want to hear the turkey story or not? Then put your hands down.” They loved the stories, which I used to help control them: “If your behavior is good this week, I’ll tell you a story on Friday.” It usually worked. I found that there were things in my life that I took for granted that these students didn’t know existed. During my turkey story, I sat against the classroom wall with my yardstick, eh, shotgun. And I called in a turkey pretending I had a turkey call, “yelp, yelp, cluck, cluck.” I told them not to move, that the gobbler is getting closer. “What’s the turkey saying?” one student shouted out. I put my finger to my lips,”shhhh, it’s saying, I want to be your girlfriend, come in closer.” The room erupted in laughter and I had to calm them down. Suddenly, I shot the turkey with a loud, “BOOM, BOOM.” Again, the room erupted in laughter, much louder this time. My classroom was down the hall from the principal’s office. In about 20 seconds the principal entered my classroom and instantly the room went silent. The students feared the principal because he would scream at them. They called him ‘the yellin’ man.’ They sat frozen in their seats, fearful he might scream at one of them. Slightly embarrassed, I got up from the floor with the yardstick. “WHAT’S THE MEANING OF ALL THIS NOISE, MR. COSTELLO?” the yellin man shoute. Oh, I explained, I was telling the turkey calling story. “IS THAT IN THE CURRICULUM, MR. COSTELLO?” he said, hands on hips scanning the classroom, waiting for a student to make a mistake. I said, ‘well, no, not really, but it’s in the life curriculum.’ “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” he asked. I told him that ‘sometimes it’s important for the students to learn about other things not in the books or tests.’ The school was big on tests. They even taught the students how to take tests. “I DON’T THINK THAT WILL WORK HERE, MR. COSTELLO,” and he left the room. The kids were sitting there in fear, silent, but with smiles on their faces. But his harassment never stopped me from telling my stories. As you can imagine, he and I were like oil and water, and I had numerous run ins with him. In 2007 I returned to my “safe haven,” at Drexel University, where I’ve been ever since.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 21:48:45 +0000
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