owp05

"To My Students...

My Position

"Position Paper"

POSITION PAPER...my, my what IS my position?

Brooke...Our New Addition!

She came into our lives in November on one cool Saturday afternoon. She was a bouncing baby girl weighing in at a hefty 6 lbs.  When Ivan scooped down to pick her up away from her other five brothers, his face became relaxed and satisfied .  I knew right away that she was ours forever, or at least for the next fourteen or fifteen years.

"Day at the Blackboard"

I will never forget the day when I lost most of my faith in authority figures and assuredly lost my pride, I thought for the rest of  my life.  I was a fourth grader struggling in Miss Titenger's math class. For the most part, I respected and liked most of my teachers; however, this math teacher is the first one I confronted whereby I had to go deep, real deep in my soul and try to accept her for who she was.

It was obvious that she played "favorites", and if one watched her actions, one could easily determine that she favored boys over the girls.  She always called on the boys who had their hands raised in class, and when we would file out of the class, she would lovingly place her hand on their backs or shoulders as they left our room. When I was exiting class, I actually cringed at the thought of what she would do with her hand as I approached the door; it would not have surprised me if she pushed me out of the class with  the brutish mannerisms she seemed to have towards all of  the girls. The one good thing about her was that because of her horrendous-smelling breath, I always knew when she was approaching me.

It happened that one frigid day in Chicago when we lined up and walked into class and sat down in our assigned seats...me, first row, first seat (alphabetical order by last name...mine Anderson), I was cursed for all eternity to sit in that seat in pretty much all of my classes, we heard her say, " Take out last night's homework."

I was frozen with fear. My dad was out of town on a business trip, and he usually helped me with my math homework, and last night we had fractions, and I was so confused with it that I even asked Mom to help me, and she quickly declined by saying, " No not me; I never understood fractions!"

So there I was, fodder for her, the "Teacher From the Black Lagoon" to swoop down and humiliate me  in front of the entire class. A girl has to do what a girl has to do in order to be "cool'  and that included being smart in front of the class- even though it was MATH CLASS!

Miss Titinger's raspy voice said, "Deborah, go to  the board and complete the first two problems for us-now!"  I rose knowing full well that she knew I had no idea how to solve these problems because yesterday in class, I had my hand raised the entire time to ask questions, and she ignored me.  My arm hurt so much from all of that raising that I thought they may have to amputate it for lack of circulation!

I took the piece of chalk from the board's holder and began the process that would let me be known  for eternity as the "dumb girl who does not even know fractions" and scribbled the two problems on the board for the "world" to see. Miss Titenger, in all her sanctamonious splendor, remarked, "Class do you see what I see? So many mistakes..tsk, tsk. Who wants to go up there and correct problem one?"

Lewis Goldstein, all one- hundred- pounds-dripping-wet Mr. Albert Einstein, walked up to the board and remarked, "Clearly, she had no idea what she was doing." He then erased my answer and wrote the correct one.  He turned and said, "Now this is the correct answer," just waiting for Miss Titenger to ooze all of her mushy compliments upon his already over-inflated ego. I cannot remember, nor do I care who corrected my second problem, but the one thing I did know was that even if I have to fake being sick to my mom in order to get out of not going to her math class again unprepared without Dad around, I would just big one big fat liar in order to stay at home under my covers in bed, blessing the powers-to-be that I never... ever be humiliated by her...Miss Titenger... again!

This story is dedicated for all of you out there who hated math and will always hate math due to a teacher like Miss Titenger.  Who knows, maybe you did have her for a math teacher?  Parkside Elementary, Chicago Illinois...?!

It was obvious that she played "favorites", and if one watched her actions, one could easily determine that she favored boys over the girls.  She always called on the boys who had their hands raised in class, and when we would file out of the class, she would lovingly place her hand on their backs or shoulders as they left our room. When I was exiting class, I actually cringed at the thought of what she would do with her hand as I approached the door; it would not have surprised me if she pushed me out of the class with  the brutish mannerisms she seemed to have towards all of  the girls. The one good thing about her was that because of her horrendous-smelling breath, I always knew when she was approaching me.

It happened that one frigid day in Chicago when we lined up and walked into class and sat down in our assigned seats...me, first row, first seat (alphabetical order by last name...mine Anderson), I was cursed for all eternity to sit in that seat in pretty much all of my classes, we heard her say, " Take out last night's homework."

I was frozen with fear. My dad was out of town on a business trip, and he usually helped me with my math homework, and last night we had fractions, and I was so confused with it that I even asked Mom to help me, and she quickly declined by saying, " No not me; I never understood fractions!"

So there I was, fodder for her, the "Teacher From the Black Lagoon" to swoop down and humiliate me  in front of the entire class. A girl has to do what a girl has to do in order to be "cool'  and that included being smart in front of the class- even though it was MATH CLASS!

Miss Titinger's raspy voice said, "Deborah, go to  the board and complete the first two problems for us-now!"  I rose knowing full well that she knew I had no idea how to solve these problems because yesterday in class, I had my hand raised the entire time to ask questions, and she ignored me.  My arm hurt so much from all of that raising that I thought they may have to amputate it for lack of circulation!

I took the piece of chalk from the board's holder and began the process that would let me be known  for eternity as the "dumb girl who does not even know fractions" and scribbled the two problems on the board for the "world" to see. Miss Titenger, in all her sanctamonious splendor, remarked, "Class do you see what I see? So many mistakes..tsk, tsk. Who wants to go up there and correct problem one?"

Lewis Goldstein, all one- hundred- pounds-dripping-wet Mr. Albert Einstein, walked up to the board and remarked, "Clearly, she had no idea what she was doing." He then erased my answer and wrote the correct one.  He turned and said, "Now this is the correct answer," just waiting for Miss Titenger to ooze all of her mushy compliments upon his already over-inflated ego. I cannot remember, nor do I care who corrected my second problem, but the one thing I did know was that even if I have to fake being sick to my mom in order to get out of not going to her math class again unprepared without Dad around, I would just big one big fat liar in order to stay at home under my covers in bed, blessing the powers-to-be that I never... ever be humiliated by her...Miss Titenger... again!

This story is dedicated for all of you out there who hated math and will always hate math due to a teacher like Miss Titenger.  Who knows, maybe you did have her for a math teacher?  Parkside Elementary, Chicago Illinois...?!

"Chicago - My Kind of Town"

Sylvia Plath, one of my hero-worship-of-all-time writers told her friend and literary agent, "My new book is a pot boiler!"  One has to admire that kind of angst!" This book was her critically acclaimed novel, "The Bell Jar" which she developed a protagonist, Esther Greenwood as her alter ego. Esther was  a recent college graduate from an- all girls Ivy League college who is about to embark on an assistantship as an editorial "gopher" for a third level editor at a fancy New York city magazine.  The title refers to a glass jar that because of its twists in its design within its glass pattern, the perceptions of what people see can be false, or perhaps be the antithesis of its reality. In other words, what we see is not necessarily what we get.

She had lots of demons residing in her talented, yet tortured soul. However, I see so many of herreflections in my writer's soul as well. She left us with many soul-searching writings both in a novel as well as in verse. I only hope that I, in my writings, may do the same .

Her experiences in writing and living in a big urban city like New York made her remark:

                  "I went to public schools, genuinely public...everyone went."

That was me born and raised in Chicago. I, the only child of a an overbearing Jewish Mom and a quiet unassuming Scandinavian Dad spirited away many fond memories of growing up in "Chi".

My school life consisted of attending only two buildings from the ages of five to twelve years of age. Chicago had schools dotted throughout twenty square miles of various neighborhoods that would then known as" your neighborhood school " where everyone walked to school together. I do not think there were any car pools back then, and if anyone was driven to school by a Mom or Dad, it was because something bad happened and therefore,  Dad or Mom were called to see the principal.

I remember my mom hanging out of our four story apartment building, (from the fourth floor) hanging, it seemed, by her ankles, screaming at me to, "Do not forget to eat your tunafish sandwich; it will spoil if you don't eat it all!"  I should have been embarassed by that, one would think, but all the tough city moms screamed out of the windows either to call us in for dinner, or to call us in for God knows what? It is amazing when I think of it today, that there were not any casualties from their acrobatics from the window sills!

One of our neihgbors, believe it or not, was my dad's good friend, who also happened to become one of the world's famous athletes.  He rented an apartment from my dad, and he attended family meals whenever my mom made brisket or pot roast. I remember him talking in a very low voice and winking at me from time to time. He was handsome with cafe au lait colored skin and deep brown eyes that crinkled when he smiled. He was known to my family as Cassius Clay...also later known as Muhammed Ali!  The great thing about my Chicago neighborhood  was that it was typical to have all sorts of people who looked different from each other at any one given occasion. There was a melting pot of blacks, (African-Americans), whites, (Caucasians), Asian, Christain, Jewish, Muslim, whatever, and no one made a big deal of our differences; we just lived all together.

I enjoyed going to Temple on Friday nights, then ate Shabbat dinner, and on Sundays attended the community church where my dad sang in the Men's Choir, and I sang in the Youth Choir.

I do not remember any of us spending much time watching television. Immediately after we walked home from school, we dove into the refrigerators and grabbed our snacks, and ran back outside to play. Our games consisted of jumping "double-dutch" which was simply two ropes turning and twisting together as we somehow miraculously jumped in the small center of the two ropes! How I did that I could never repeat today!  We all had metal skates that you had to have a key to tighten to fit the size of your feet. I hung my key around my neck on a piece of jump rope. Bike riding was a must on my block. Because I was so small, my mom insisted that I keep my training wheels on my bike!  I was so embarassed.  However, one of my friends gave me a "leg-up" to let me ride her bike; I was so excited. The ride began well, yet ended up painful. The bike twisted out of my control, and I went falling and scraping my legs and arms so badly that any merchurachrome ( the save-all med of choice back then) made me look like a tiger with stripes for at least one full week. However, I prevailed and I got my mom convinced to allow Dad to take off those baby training wheels.

Ms. Roach...how can I describe the person who was the reason that I became a teacher? Physically, she was stoical.  She was tall, at least five feet ten inches, and in those days, that was tall for anyone.  She wore beautiful tweed suits and had her champagne hair twisted in a chignon.  She wore real silk stockings with open-toed high heels. No other teacher ever wore clothes like that in our public school buildings!  She was, in fact, from Great Britain, and her voice demonstrated that lilting British accent. Back in those days, teachers sat us in alphabetical order, so because my last name was Anderson, I seemed to always land in the first seat, first row.  Now Ms. Roach always called me, "Bonnie"!  Even though I tried to correct her and told her that my name is Deborah, she did not care. She remarked that I looked like a Bonnie!

Believe it or not, years later, my husband and I were walking with our new baby son in his pram down the street on Lake Shore Drive.  I saw Ms. Roach from at least a block and a half down from where we were walking. I thought to myself, could that be her? I was correct.  All of us eventually met on that street twenty-seven years ago, and I said, "Ms Roach. Do you remember me?"
She quipped, "Why, yes. You are Bonnie!"  I hugged her and told her that I too was a teacher just because of her positive influence that she had on me nineteen years ago.  I thought I saw what looked like a tear hug the corner of her eyelid, and all I knew from that moment on was that it was destiny for us to meet like that, and she realized how much she meant to me.