I’ve been scanning and organizing old photos.
This is from teaching summer school at Cleveland Heights. The photos look like one of those “White savior” teacher movies where the young White woman is teaching the urban kids that society has given up on. She sees something of value in each and every one, and somehow, ignites a love of learning.
Teaching a bunch of Black kids at an urban school wasn’t like that, but if they make a movie, I want to be played by Gwyneth Paltrow.
It sucked. Not because they were a bunch of Black kids at an urban school who were bad at Algebra. This wasn’t an enrichment class, so you expect the students not to be good at Algebra, that’s why they are in summer school.
Summer school sucked because it was summer, and Cleveland Heights didn’t have air conditioning. Maintenance was working on the roof. If we opened the windows, it smelled like tar and if we closed the windows, we baked. Fortunately, class started at 8 am, so we managed.
There were a couple of urban school incidences that could make it into the movie.
One student was having scheduling issues, and asked if he could bring his son to class. He had to bring his son or he’d have to be absent. In summer school, if a student missed two days, they failed.
I can’t have a baby in class for two hours. He told me his son wasn’t a baby and he would not be disruptive. The kid would sit in back, looking at books. Even back then, I said yes to everything. I didn’t ask Admin, I just said, “Fine, but if he’s a problem, you will have to take him home.”
The kid was fine. He might have been 3 years old, plus or minus a few months.
One student was defiant and disruptive. If I turned toward the chalkboard, he’d throw something. A penny or wad of paper, whatever was handy. I never saw him throw it, but did see the follow-through, where his arm was still moving.
The principal was informative and no help at all. She said, “If students are disruptive when you turn your back on them, then you can’t turn your back on them.” It was my problem to fix. I started teaching with transparencies and an overhead projector.
I also called home. Mom was a fierce Black woman who didn’t believe her son could be misbehaving and that I should learn how to teach. Mom said that she was coming to class to observe. I’ve never had a problem with that.
Mom came to class with an attitude. She sat off to the side, while her son spent the entire 2 hour class with his head down in humiliation.
When class ended, Mom apologized, complemented me on my teaching, and promised that her son would no longer be disruptive.
After that, the kid was a prince, and I could put away the overhead projector.
Summer school still sucked because it either smelled like tar or sweat, but we all had work to do. They knew that I wanted to help them, and I didn’t think they were assholes. That was enough to get us through.
I don’t know what the rule or etiquette is on posting photos of students, but no students are identified by name and this was 1996, so it’s fine.
My 8 am class.
My 10 am class.
