Ghosts of Teachers Past

I haven't shaved in weeks and have grown a full beard. This beard has some gray hairs scattered throughout. I'm only 35!

ANYWAY... as we all get older, memories of the past, unfortunately, start to fade - at least from conscious thought. Maybe all of those memories still are in our brains somewhere - like a vast file cabinet whose older papers just continue to get shoved backwards and are sitting there somewhere wrinkled and pressed together, but with the right stimulus, could be retrieved and revisited.

I was sitting here wondering if I remember not only who all of my high school teachers were, but even the classes I took each year in high school. I didn't think about this post ahead of time - I am going to try to type this and remember this information while I do it. I better start from 12th grade and work backwards. Some of this is probably inaccurate.

12th grade:
- SSMCIS (Math) - Dr. Decovsky
- AP Computer Science - Mr. Hanna
- AP English - Mrs. Twombly
- Science - AP Chemistry - Mr. Hali
- Study Hall
- Gym (I remember having Mr. Gardner, Mr. Cardell, and...? Don't remember which year was which. And I only remember Mr. Cardell because he did one-handed pushups once which I found impressive for an older guy.)
- Lunch
- No History or Foreign Language
(There is an open slot, I believe...?)


11th grade:
- SSMCIS (Math) - Mrs. Townsend?
- Computer Science - Mrs. Isaacs (I used to drive her insane)
- Science - Honors Physics - Dr. Arzt (I used to drive him insane also)
- Spanish - Ms. Torres (where I first met the Daffinator, who used to bring crosswords to class and demonstratively do them)
- Lunch
- Gym (see above note about teachers)
- English - Mr. Shanken? (this guy went to the same health club as me my senior year - Bally's in Fort Lee. One time I ran into him in the locker room and he was naked. Talk about awkward.)
- History - Mr. Burroughs. (He was a newer teacher.)


10th grade:
- SSMCIS (Math) - Mr. Elliot
- German - Ms. Mayers
- Spanish - Mrs. Taltavull?
- Science - Chemistry - Mr. Czeterko (future Superintendent of Teaneck schools)
- English - A woman named Mrs. Sumner who was older and apparently tripped over her cat and fell down a flight of stairs, causing her to miss a huge chunk of the year
- History - ?
- Gym
- Lunch
- Theater - Mrs. Johnson


9th grade:
- SSMCIS (Math) - Mrs. Delaplain
- German - Mrs. Mayers
- Science - Biology - Mrs. Jones, a red-haired woman?
- Gym
- Lunch
- History - ?
- English - ?
- Theater - Mrs. Walker


Some notes:

- I'd love to get a high school transcript to not only see my grades, but all my teachers to see how well I did on this list. Additionally, I'd love to see my disciplinary file, which was not replete with infractions but did have a couple of major incidents.

- The difference between honors and non-honors courses is striking. I remember being a kid and seeing a noticeable difference in accomplishments, classmates, classroom environment, etc... between my honors/AP subjects (Math, English, Science, Computer Science) and non-honors (foreign languages, social studies). Having taught everything in my 12 years of teaching from general levels (many, many times) to AP Calculus, I see the same differences now, and there doesn't seem to be much a teacher can do about it.

- Did we only have 8 time slots during the day? I thought we had 9. I believe it was 9.

- At age 25, I probably would have been able to recall this all accurately, fully, and with more detail.

- I think Teaneck's teaching staff was older than other towns - Teaneck was probably an attractive district to teach in the early 90s and teachers probably stayed there for a while. I don't remember too many teachers in their 20s, whereas a couple of the districts I've taught in have plenty of younger teachers.

- Interesting to think of these people as human beings, as well as teachers, now that I am one.

- I am interested to share more anecdotes and hear what other people remember about their high school setup. However, since I'm not sure if anybody reads this blog anymore, I won't go into more detail until somebody responds.

Governor Chris Christie and the NJEA

Our governor, Chris Christie, gives a good example of politicans "saying one thing and doing another". Pretty remarkable.

Here is a "open letter" that he wrote when he was campaigning against Jon Corzine, obtained from this website.


I am the proud product of our state’s public education system. In fact, my late mother was a dues-paying member of the NJEA. I know firsthand that one of the main reasons many of our schools rank among the best in America is because of our dedicated teachers and educational professionals who work hard every day to give our children the learning experience they deserve.

Like you, I am fully committed to supporting New Jersey’s kids, teachers and parents to make sure our children receive a first-class education so they can pursue limitless opportunities once they graduate. Our state’s teachers are charged with one of the greatest responsibilities one can have, and they deliver each and every day for our kids.

But lately, there has been some misinformation circulated falsely, by supporters of Governor Corzine, suggesting I would attempt to diminish or take away teachers’ pensions and benefits. Let me be clear - nothing could be further from the truth. The claim that any harm would come to your pension should I be elected Governor is absolutely untrue. It is a 100% lie. Your pension will be protected when I am elected Governor.

Right now, the Trenton-based leaders of the teachers' union are literally spending millions of dollars of your union dues to falsely attack me on television and through slick mailers. This is nothing but an attempt to poison me in your eyes so that you will vote for four more years of Jon Corzine and his failed policies. Just so I am clear, what they are saying about my intentions to hurt pensions or lay off teachers is absolutely, 100% untrue.

Here are the facts:
I will be a strong ally for teachers in the classroom. When elected, I will make education funding a top priority and I believe we must ensure those dollars reach our children and the classroom, not the educational bureaucracy. In these tough economic times, we must ensure that the proper resources get to you, the teachers in the classroom. Despite what is said by my opponents, I would accept federal education stimulus dollars to help fund our children's educations. Education is a priority and this money is critical to ensuring we are able to continue giving our children the education they deserve. We must also make sure that education dollars are always a priority and come from stable sources. Too often these grants or stimulus dollars are accepted for programs with no plan on how to pay for them after the money runs dry. It is time for a new era of responsibility in Trenton, and I will work to secure a steady source of funding for all education programs.
I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. In fact, in order to ensure your retirement savings are safe, I believe we must prioritize the protection of pension fund dollars and investigate the cause of Jon Corzine's large investment losses to our pension system. Currently there is a $34 billion deficit in the State's pension fund, which threatens the retirement and lifeline of so many teachers. We must do better for our teachers, future teachers and retirees. As Governor, I will work to close unfunded liabilities and make sure our state lives up to its promises, unlike Jon Corzine. I will not raid your pension fund to cover budgetary shortfalls like previous governors of both parties have done. One of the changes I will bring to Trenton is responsible management, investment, and oversight of state pension dollars.
I will not end collective bargaining and will safeguard protections for ALL public employees, including teachers. Collective bargaining is an important safeguard for public employees and is a part of a long American tradition of self government. We must make sure that the voice of every worker is represented in contract negotiations. I will demand open, honest, and fair deliberations.
It’s true that times are tough. But the truth is that Jon Corzine has handed the NJEA and every student a ticking time bomb in this year's budget. He has funded the new school aid formula with $1 billion in one-shot revenue that will disappear next year. Every school budget and academic, athletic, and extra-curricular program for our kids is at risk because of the Governor’s reckless, short-sighted policy. Governor Corzine has refused to make the tough decisions required to make sure we make education funding a priority for recurring revenue and to avoid the ticking time bomb.

We may disagree on some issues, but I know we agree on what’s most important – delivering the best education we can for our kids. Giving New Jersey's children a quality education is critical to their future and I know we wouldn't be able to do that without the dedication and tireless commitment of teachers like you. I appreciate you allowing me to clear up some of the misinformation being circulated about my plans to support our state's teachers.

Thank you for your service, and best wishes on a great school year.

Two Incidents from School Today

Can't make this stuff up...

1) Overheard as class is wrapping up...

Girl 1: "See, this is why you're failing. Mr. [Frazier] taught all period and you didn't pay attention at all. You did other stuff!"
Girl 2: "I'm not failing, I'm underachieving!"

Awesome, awesome line. Self-aware, true, and funny. Perhaps a pre-planned line, not entirely ad-libbed, but the first time I'd heard it.

2) After school ended, I'm walking down a long empty hallway in my school and see a container of lip balm. I absent-mindedly kick it halfway down the hallway. A female student I've never talked to before rounds the corner at the opposite end of the hallway, sees the lip balm careening down the hall towards me, walks up to me, and loudly and angrily says:

Her: "Why are you kicking my lip balm down the hallway?"
Me: "Is that your lip balm?"
Her: "Yes, and I don't know why you're kicking it."
Me: "Are you serious?"
Her: "Yeah!"

I reach down to pick it up but before handing it to her, annoyed that I am being talked to in such an angry tone by an irrational teenager, I reply in ...

Me: "Ok. I suppose I just assumed that because it was laying in the hallway in the middle of nowhere with nobody around, that it must be garbage. I apologize. Next time, I'll wait to see if a student I've never seen before comes out of nowhere to claim a lip balm that was laying in an dirty empty hallway before I kick it."

I walked away. She turns to a friend and mumbles something (probably rude) under her breath. I smile smugly to myself.

This incident was so bizarre - not that the incident itself was weird, but that it happened - just surreal.

"He's Cheating Himself"

Here is another story from the now defunct Great Stories website. I don't know if this translates into everyday life, but in 9 years of teaching I've never laughed this hard, so if that counts for anything...

The time I laughed the hardest while teaching occurred about 6 years ago.

I had been teaching for about 3 or 4 years. Every year that I'd taught, I had a couple of lower level, "inclusion" Geometry classes that I co-taught with a special education teacher, Mike. I was at the point in my budding career as a teacher where I was finally reconciling the fact that I would be no Jaime Escalante, that I wouldn't get to teach Calculus all day and open young minds with it. (Now, five years later, I do teach Calculus, but I digress.)

Anyway, co-teaching with Mike had started to loosen me up a little bit. It wasn't that he didn't take his job "seriously". It was more that he'd been doing it for a few years and he saw the job for what it was. Mike was always the guy to start up a fantasy football league among the guys in the department, always striving hard to figure out the best prank to play among the other teachers. He related well to the kids he was there for as well.

So Mike and I had started to develop a rhythm with our teaching. We co-taught the same course together for a couple of years straight, and two sections per year. We would switch off explaining things, and Mike seemed to have a way to simplify concepts for the kids who were real low academically, that I couldn't seem to simplify things enough for. With one of us explaining while the other circulated the room, things were running as smoothly as can be expected. Our classrooms were always filled with a hodgepodge of lazy screwoffs and otherwise good kids who just weren't very good at math and learning in general. So, there was only so much learning that could be expected.

This particular year, in the front row of one of our classes sat, from our left to our right, some kid who wasn't there half the time, a complete goofball "Phil", and a burnout kid who wasn't very swift named "Jerome". Why the alias Jerome then? You remember Jerome from that 80s classic Summer School...?

Shoop: Hey, I remember you. Where have you been?
Jerome Watkins: Bathroom.
Shoop: For the last six weeks?
Jerome Watkins: My zipper got stuck.

Sorry, go sidetracked. Anyway, Phil was so ADD that he had to sit in the front to prevent him from staring out the window, dazed, at whatever was happening, or else from trying some conversation with somebody around him. Despite this, he was extremely affable, though rarely on the right side of passing. For similar reasons, burnout Jeb also sat in the front row. Phil would often, in a very likable way, try to chat with one or both of us teachers about... well, anything else... during class. Often, his hand would shoot up and something random would come out. What did we think of the Giants game last weekend? Did you guys know that if you are driving without your seatbelt, you could get a ticket? Hey, I was watching wrestling this weekend and I was thinking of our lesson about, you know, squares and stuff. You get the point.

So one day we're giving a test. Jerome happened to show up that day and, like Jerome from "Summer School", in all likelihood got the best grade in the class. We're about ten minutes into the test and it's really quiet. But quickly, it becomes evident that Phil did not feel comfortable with the material. Phil starts looking up to see if we're looking at him, and if not, he gives the old "yawn, cough, and head-turn" about as obviously as a 13-year-old boy on a first date. Jeb, who was uncharacteristically awake on this particular day, was always worse off than Phil in terms of being aware of one's surroudings, and he didn't even catch on that Phil was attempting to get Jeb to help him out somehow. Jeb is looking at Phil, puzzled, and then looking back at his paper. Occassionaly, Phil then tries somehow to look at Jerome's paper, but Jerome is indifferent to all other students and is working at an angle where it is clear that Phil won't be able to see much in that direction. Soon Phil's stage-whisper-like attempts to cheat became comical to the point that everybody else in the class is starting to look at Phil.

Mike and I catch eyes and we decide, unspoken, that one of us must say something and it's going to be Mike. Mike nods and walks closer to Phil. Usually, in situations like these, teachers will quietly "re-focus" the student or deal with it discreetly. But Mike, in his unique style, stands in front of Phil and says loudly enough for the class to hear, "Phil, why are you trying to cheat off of these two guys? This guy [Jeb] is asleep half the time, and this guy [Jerome] hasn't been here in three weeks."

A number of things happened spontaneously and simultaneously. I looked down at my attendance book, which happened to be open in front of me, and it confirmed that yes, Jerome hadn't been there for about three weeks. Jerome, who had been hard at work, looked up puzzled at what was happening. Phil smiled a big goofy "you got me, wow, how did you know?" look at Mike. Jeb laughed self-effacingly at the fact that he was a burnout who never knew what was happening and was half-asleep often. Several students chuckled.

A combination of strong feelings, both positive and negative, about my situation of teaching this class which I had been telling myself was way "below" me, all arose at once. And, looking at these goofball faces in front of me from left to right, I lost it. I started laughing so hard that I literally fell down to the floor. Once students saw me like this (and I was usually all business, I never was like this), it started them laughing. Just as I was controlling my laughter, I looked up at my students, caught eyes with Phil and Jeb's goofy faces again, and lost it even more. I had to leave the room and laugh to myself for about 3 or 4 minutes straight. Finally, I composed myself, went back in the room, and we all chuckled for a little bit.

There was an implicit understanding, I'd like to think, on the part of all the students and on our part as teachers that we were acknowledging our own goofiness and the goofiness of the situation in general. Phil always took our joking on him well, especially when Mike did it, and he was laughing as well. Finally, we all focused and got back to work.

Calculus Humor

At my previous school in central Jersey, I taught everything from low level Geometry to Pre-Calculus (but no Calculus). The Calculus courses were all given to two or three established teachers. I became buddies with one of them. Teachers are evaluated by "observations" from administrators where they come in a couple of times per year and watch you teach. (You could be jerking off in class the other 178 days that you don't get observed, in theory, and if nobody complained you'd be ok. I digress.)

Anyway, my buddy would often talk about the times he got observed in his Calculus class, even by our math department head, and would note that it was funny that his observers had no idea what he was talking about.

One day, he said the following to me: "[Our department head] is trying to observe me, when he can't even Chain Rule his ass to his elbow."

(The Chain Rule is one of the most fundamental rules to integrating and differentiating functions, and is used in Calc I and in every level of math beyond that.)

His offhand joke didn't even really make sense, but I found it hilarious and we laughed about it often for years after that.

Now, I've been teaching Calculus for a couple of years now, and gotten observed in Calculus two or three times, each time by former gym teachers turned administrators. Each of them said, essentially, "I had no idea what the hell you were talking about, but it seemed like a good lesson." I laughed about the idea that they, indeed, could also not Chain Rule their asses to their elbows.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

"Seven years has gone so fast / Wake me up when September Ends"
- Wake Me Up When September Ends, Green Day

My guilty pleasure song du jour is Wake Me Up When September Ends. If you've never heard it before, here's a video I found on YouTube. This clip is shortened from the original, longer video.



I try to pride myself of being a fan of "good" music, and I don't know whether this Green Day song qualifies or not, but whatever, I find this song incredibly catchy. Despite what the video shows, the song is about the singer's father dying when he was a kid (as the always-reliable-Wikipedia entry will tell you), which is touching in and of itself.

Interestingly, the song seems to have taken on two other meanings for some people. Often, people hear the chorus of a song and (sometimes incorrectly) derive the meaning from the chorus or from selected lyrics (like the Beatles' "Revolution", or like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A."). One meaning is that people connect this song with September 11. It has been seven long years since September 11, 2001 and some of the lyrics combined with the quote that I led this blog post with seem to touch on the innocence lost in our nation and in the world since then. Another meaning was the awful aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. My high school composed a montage of images from Katrina and played them everyday in homeroom for while set to this song. Just the images set to the words "wake me up when September ends" was interesting.

Since I haven't done much else other than teaching for a career, the month of September has consequently always been kind of a benchmark month, from childhood through now. For me personally, this is my 9th year as a high school teacher, and recently I have grown increasingly unsatisfied with my life as a teacher. So September and the start of autumn, in general, evokes a wide variety of feelings for me - some happy memories of being a kid, playing soccer in Teaneck, etc... to now starting each school year and having to leave the wonderful summer months behind, and remembering the innocence of childhood... some of the lyrics reach me on that level as well. Maybe I'm reading too much into the song.