the first fire and my engima
“I think they’re getting ready to fire you,” Mr. Angry said.
“What? Why do you say that?"
He shrugged, “Just the stuff you tell me. I’ve been working
in HR for over 10 years. I think they’re setting you up for failure.”
“I can’t believe that. Why would they?” But even as I said
that I thought about my meeting with Mr. Worm and Mrs. Rabbit. The words fire
Lani? sat in my mind.
“I don’t know. I just know. Keep your eyes and ears open.
They’re collecting evidence. They’re building their case.”
***
Mrs. Rabbit and I formed a friendship outside of school after
my first year. We were both far from our homes, had no friends and children of
our own. As we became closer she revealed something to me.
“You know, last year when all those parents pulled out of
your class and there was all this talk about how you were too young to teach, I
was part of a committee that was to decide if we should fire you or not.”
“I know, or at least I suspected as much.” But internally I
was distraught to hear it out loud. I felt betrayed.
She looked surprised. Then I told her about Mr. Worm’s
notepad.
“Who else was on this committee?” I casually asked.
“Mrs. Bear, Mrs. Turtle and Mrs. Raven.”
Mrs. Raven and Mrs. Bear I could understand. I refused Mrs.
Raven’s mentorship and it was probably personal.
I kept a mental distance from Mrs. Bear. I didn’t trust her.
Many things I told her in confidence ended up coming back to me through another
faculty member.
But! “Mrs. Turtle! I hardly know her! She hasn’t even seen me
teach!”
Then during Christmas break, I received a phone call,
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me,” It was Mrs. Rabbit.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“They fired me.”
“What?!”
“Mr. Worm and Mrs. Bluejay called and said they wanted to
talk and I said fine where do you want to meet and they said they could stop by
here, my house, and when they showed up they told me that the faculty decided
to let me go.” She laughed, “So they fired me. Right here in my own living
room. I even offered them tea.” More laughing.
At the time I was the faculty member that sat in on the Board
of Directors meetings. I was to take notes and report back to my colleagues
what transpired. It’s not something I sought out but the faculty recognized
that I was not only available but good at it. So they nominated me. But after I
told the Board that firing Mrs. Rabbit in her own home was the stupidest and
most inconsiderate thing (I’m good at defending others, not myself I guess),
the faculty decided that I wasn’t best suited for the position after all.
The Core Group made the hasty decision to fire Mrs. Rabbit
due to the pressures from the parents. Mrs. Rabbit’s class parents issued an
ultimatum, “Fire her or we’ll pull our children from the school”.
At the time I don’t think the faculty realized this but by
abiding to the parents’ wishes, the faculty no longer had control of their own
school. This wasn’t about power struggles so much as this was about teachers
controlling and protecting their own environment, their livelihood. Mrs. Rabbit’s
situation shifted the perspective of the faculty from trying to help one
another to trying to desperately please the parents. A big part of this shift
was due to Mr. Skunk who wanted to run the school like a business. Which I kind
of understand but isn’t this what government is trying to do with our public
schools? I don’t know if you’re aware of this but it isn’t working.
I never liked Mrs. Rabbit’s replacement. She was one of the
parents from the third grade class. Teaching your own child? Now that’s a
faculty faculty parent. I guess I didn’t like Erika (her real name) because she
acted so damn smug as soon as she took over the class. I heard she quit after
the next year, probably wasn’t able to engage the boys’ imagination, and please
those pesky parents. . .
Mrs. Rabbit’s class parents worked as a group to fire her.
Unfortunately she had been sinking into depression and her lackluster attitude
towards her class was becoming apparent. In some ways, I think she was almost
relieved to be let go. But she had been a teacher most of her life, having
taught in public school and now was frantically trying to figure out what to do
next.
A part of me thought firing her in the middle of the school
year, without having a chance to say good-bye to her students was unnecessarily
cruel and the other part understood why the Core Group did it. She was visibly
unhappy, and threw temper tantrums in her frustration with the faculty and
school, the biggest one being when she threw her keys across the foyer during
an open house. She had unprofessional moments, but we all did, including the
Core Group. The only problem being, no one could fire the Core Group.
***
The office manager, #1’s mom was an overzealous protector of
her only child. Her daughter was overfed with love, attention and food, as if
her baby as still in the womb, incapable of caring for herself.
The mom had the great misfortune of working part-time in the
school office and much like #14’s mom was around to watch the minute by minute
play action of the school's activities. When I was in the first grade
classroom, the office was across the hall but when my class was in the second
grade classroom we were behind the office, sharing the same wall. Mrs. Number
One could hear everything that went on in my class.
When my class was with another teacher, I’d sometimes sit in
the office with her and listen so I could hear with my own two ears how well
sound traveled across the wall. But I’m sure she put her ear against the wall
too. Who wouldn’t?
One time #1’s mom came running into my classroom when she
heard her daughter scream. It was a yelp really – her daughter had burned
herself with some soup from her thermos. I understand but then I don’t. If you
can’t be around your child at school without interfering then you should find
another job.
She immediately apologized, “I’m so sorry. I heard her
scream.” By the time she arrived I was helping her daughter with the spilled
soup.
“Oh, let me Miss Cox,” she pleaded, “I can’t believe I put
the soup in when it was boiling hot. I feel so stupid. She could have gotten
really hurt.”
I was taken aback by her presence but recovered, “It’s okay.
Don’t blame yourself.”
“Next time I won’t be in such a hurry and wait for the soup
to cool.”
I simply stared. Her daughter was fine. She continued to
ramble about the soup for a few more minutes until she finally left.
Then there was the time when we went outside to jump rope,
#1’s mom yelled from the building, “Should you be wearing those shoes, dear? I
thought those hurt your feet?”
Her daughter yelled back, “I’m fine Mom.”
After visibly fretting for a few seconds, her mother went
back inside then reemerged with a different pair of shoes. I tried to ignore
her as she crouched down and changed her daughter shoes. There was nothing I
could do, she frequently came out of the office to help her daughter put on a
sweater, change her shoes (the children wore indoor shoes inside the class) or
she might come out to recess and give her a kiss – just because.
Sometimes she’d interrupt my morning lesson by sneaking in to
give her daughter her lunch or a snack. After a while I began to suspect that
this was her way of ‘checking in’ with her daughter and I dare say me - to make
sure the class was not as out of control as everyone seem to speculate. I
remember one time she open the door and
made a shocked face. “Oh,” she said when the room was silent and the children
were working on their assignments. “It's so quiet, I thought the room was
empty. I just wanted to add a little something to #1’s lunch. So sorry to
interrupt.”
***
#1 had a peculiar habit of walking on her toes, all of the
time. She must have had incredibly strong calf muscles and no she wasn’t an
aspiring ballerina. I was a little concerned. My Eurythmy teacher from teacher training days thought it was because
she had not fully incarnated into her body. And if that is too ‘New Age’ for
you, I think what she was trying to say was #1 was retaining or holding on to
infantile behavior. Sure, she’s eight years old but walking on your toes is
something you might see a child do from time to time or when they are acting
silly. Like the equivalent of thumb sucking or bed wetting, there are some
things that we expect children to grow out of but walking on her toes was her
normal way of walking or running or skipping for that matter. This is why I
refer to her as my enigma.
Her mother once confessed that she was constantly scared when
her daughter was a baby. She was afraid that she would do something to hurt
herself. When she saw that her daughter got too close to a rail or too far away,
she would pick her up and place her somewhere else. Now all good parents do
this, but #1’s mom said, “She never wandered very far it’s just she wandered
too far for me. Isn’t that silly?”
During the first grade, #1 would ask permission to do
everything. You have no idea. Everything.
“Can I throw this away?” was her favorite and most frequent
question.
I used to say, yes but then I learned to simply smile and
say, “What do you think?”
She smiled back, “Yes.” Then she started laughing.
By the end of the first year, she stopped asking.
***
There was a time when the children enjoyed jumping off the
play structure onto the bark chip covered ground below. They would climb up a
ladder that paralleled the fireman’s pole and then slide down or jump off.
The children got into this, to the point where they grabbed
umbrellas and pretended they were Mary Poppins. It was delightful to watch. And
like any good student of Waldorf training I tried to be diligent in my observations
of the children. The playground was a good place because it’s unstructured. You
don’t do this all the time because well, when else are you going to use the
bathroom?
All of the children jumped off from the highest platform or
rung in the ladder. It was amazing. It looked like a long way to go but up they
climbed and down they fell laughing and squealing. They were fearless. #1 was
the only child who would take a tentative step up the first rung then look at
me, “I can’t do it Miss Cox. I can’t go any higher.”
“That’s okay, you go as high as you comfortably can.”
She would look around in her nervous way then jump. Then
laugh. As time went on, she climbed higher and higher. I was extremely proud of
her. I felt like she had made a personal breakthrough – unlearning fear and
caution. Her mother had the best intentions but as a result her daughter was
tentative about any physical activity, and awkward. She’d always look back at
me or any adult, unsure, stepping hesitatingly forward and then scurrying back.
But #1 learned to climb higher and higher, it was wonderful
and I was there to watch her success.
***
I began to worry that #1 might have some sort of learning
disability when her writing did not improve like the other children. I hate to
even use that term but I can explain it no other way.
Her letters looked disjointed and she was unable to make her
letters sit still on lined paper. Sure, this is a difficult task for children
until they get the hang of it but we all know when something looks - odd. I
thought maybe she couldn’t read off the board so I moved her closer. I tried
making an extra copy of the day’s work and placed it in front of her. I asked
her parents to get her eyes checked, they were fine but her work was not.
It’s interesting to see how parents react to the news of how
their child was doing. Obviously good news is taken well and makes for a smooth
parent teacher conference. The parent sighs in relief. I am a competent parent.
My child is wonderful. But when the news is bad or is perceived as such,
parents can act in a variety of intriguing ways. It’s a study in psychology and
human behavior. Although no matter how careful you are with your words, or how
gently you say it, sometimes people are going to simply get mad at you. And
that is exactly how #1’s parents got.
Their daughter needed us to work together but instead our
relationship deteriorated. It was hard to be patient with parents who were
impatient with me. And so I began to resent them as much as they resented me.
Toe-walking and fine motor control issues can both be signs of autism - toe-walking especially is a classic hallmark of it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I don't think that is the case with this little acorn. I'd like to think I would have heard about this by now if that was the case with her. But who knows? Thanks for reading!
ReplyDeleteEnjoying your blog
ReplyDeleteI was a toe walker who spent years in remedial handwriting classes. I have a congenital neurodegenerative disease called CMT. Luckily - it doesn't have a connection to Autism or have an effect on brain development.
Your blog resonates for me on many levels. I am a free spirit who doesn't adhere to dogma with ease, my son has started K at a Waldorf school and I have been considering teaching Waldorf. I had a similar situation to yours while interning at Child Protective Sevices for my MSW degree.
Waldorf appeals to the artist in me - but I can't imagine being thrust into a situation where everyone is your boss and performance evaluations lack a standard to measure from.
It's too easy to be fired because of bias and misinterpretation.
Thank you Anon. I really appreciate it when folks tell me about their own experiences. And when of course, they understand or can relate to mine too.
ReplyDeleteGood luck, and if you stick w/ Waldorf drop me a line :) I love to hear how it goes. Cheers!