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FALL 1999
George A. Crispin
Woodbury MMToward the end of August the days become noticeably shorter, the nights a bit cooler, and my thoughts turn toward the inexorable end of summer and the reopening of school. As our family embarks upon a yearly trek to the mall to shore up my sagging wardrobe, I await the inevitable letter from the superintendent of schools announcing the opening date of the district school, proudly proclaiming the improvements done over the summer. It is an annual ritual experienced by most teachers across the nation. Thus it is, and has been, for the past thirty-seven years, but with one exception. This year will be my last school opening. It will be the last year I encounter a sea of young faces, struggle to learn over a hundred names, lug books from the storage room, and attend a score of meetings enduring the annual predictable "welcome back" speeches while plagued with all that has to be done. But this year is different. I am retiring.
I, along with the other teachers, help with the opening of school for my thirty-eighth, and last, time. The halls will be jammed the first day with students who are not sure where they should be, chattering about their "awesome" summer, and searching Guidance for a schedule change so they can be with their friends. In they come, fresh faces revitalized by a two-and-a-half month hiatus, somewhat confused, on their temporary best behavior, full of hope and expectation.
The changes I have seen since my first opening in the fall of 1962 have been profound. In that first year the district was mostly rural and farming. Many of the boys had to avoid at all cost after-school detention because they had to help with the evening milking. Hunting in the fall was their favorite sport. This was before felt-tipped pens, pocket calculators, computers, and many other now common gadgets. Schools were not air conditioned. Calling a parent was a disaster for the student, not for the teacher. Things have changed. What teachers face today seemingly dwarfs challenges of the past. I love teaching, and my students, and went into the profession with the starry-eyed notion of "saving the world." While reality took over in time, I never gave up the attempt to "save the world," at least as an idealized goal. But reality did set in, and the challenges grew over the years.
My students are wonderful, but today they bring into the classroom problems I could hardly have imagined when I started teaching. There is Natalie. She is a lovely girl with a "peaches and cream" complexion, a disarming smile, an engaging personality. No one could have convinced me she was on hard drugs, crept out of her home after midnight to be with her friends and get "high," returning before morning without exciting parental suspicion.
There is Wayne. His father abandoned the family when he was a child, and he has heard only an unbroken diatribe from his mother about how deceiving and corrupt his father, and all men, are. He does not like me. I am a man.
Theresa is not using drugs; her father had her tested. So why is she, a talented girl, failing nearly every subject?
Robert comes to class exhausted. As class starts his head goes down. I playfully chide him. His head comes up. The next time I look, it is down. If I do not chide him, he falls asleep. He is polite and cooperative, when awake, and passes the course, somehow, barely. He leaves school sharply at the dismissal bell, drives seventy miles to the casinos at the shore, and works until midnight. There is no father in the home; he is the breadwinner. His mother is unemployed. I encourage him and let him sleep.
Barbara is a vivacious, outgoing student who keeps the class moving by her electrifying banter. She is silent for a week, moody and withdrawn; the class drags without her participation. I call her aside after class and gently inquire.
After several minutes of denial, she asks me to close the door, and then gushes forth her fear that she may be pregnant. I tell her I understand her pain and encourage her to inform her parents. "But they'll kill me," she exclaims. I tell her they will know sooner or later. Inform them now and get help. A week later Barbara withdraws from school. I never heard what happened to her.
Debbie is a quiet, moody girl in my study hall. Her guidance counselor asked to talk to me. His face was sombre as I walked into his office. Over the next few minutes he relates the hair-raising story of how Debbie fought daily with her father until one day, out of an uneasy feeling because the house was so quiet, he went to the basement to find his daughter, split seconds before her efforts to hang herself would have been fatal. Slowly I reached out to Debbie. She was the only student in my career who could, at any time, come into my classroom. The other students wondered why I allowed this. Neither they, nor she, ever knew. When I pass her in the halls I say a silent prayer.
In the face of this I, like most teachers across the nation, attempt to teach. I try to inspire a love of the poetry of Whitman, respect for the exquisitely crafted thoughts of Emerson, or admiration for the conscience of Thoreau. Thus it has been for the last thirty-seven years, and it will be this year, my last. What, then, can be said for the last of almost four decades?
It has not always been uplifting, although there have been many uplifting moments. It has not always been inspiring, although there have been many inspiring events. It has not always been successful, although there have been successes. What then? My answer is that it has been meaningful.
What has been the meaning of 4,370 students accumulatively sitting for 6,840 days in 34,200 classes? Perhaps its meaning for me can best be illustrated by one humorous, but all-telling, encounter several years ago at the local mall. After some exhausting shopping, I sat resting on a low ledge, my back to a spraying fountain, a cup of cappuccino in my hand.
As I looked up I noticed a tall policeman, shoulders like a refrigerator, with a blond crewcut, staring at me with steel grey eyes. His steps toward me were measured and deliberate. Visions of an arrest, being taken away in handcuffs, booked and jailed, morning headlines, flashed through my worried mind. Vainly I tried to remember my lawyer's number.
"Are you Mr. Crispin?" the policeman queried in a deep, authoritative voice. While assenting, I ransacked my mind in search of what possible law I might be breaking. Drinking cappuccino on a ledge? Loitering too near a fountain? Looking suspicious? All of these were among the possibilities I entertained.
"Do you remember me?" he countered. I did not. "Do you remember giving me many detentions after school?" Retribution now hung over me.
Then his face went through an amazing change. "Perhaps you do not remember me," he explained, after giving his name. Now, vaguely, I did remember.
"You were always on me, trying to straighten me out," he recalled. "I want you to know, Mr. Crispin, that you taught me many things, and I did not always pay attention. But you didn't give up." A lump was starting to form in my throat.
"Later in life I grew to see that what you said was true. I just want to thank you for all you did for me." I was not going to be arrested after all. My eyes were moist and vision blurred.
Not often in our lives as teachers does such a clear, ringing statement authenticating our efforts come. But if I had not encountered this former student in the mall, on a ledge, drinking cappuccino, the truth of our encounter would not have changed.
We scatter seeds, as teachers, and some land on fertile soil and grow. Sometimes we see the fruits of that growth years later in unlikely places. Sometimes the seeds yield fruit that we never get to see. And sometimes the seeds we plant yield fruit that in turn produce seeds that yield other fruit. We toss our pebbles into the river of life, the ripples move outward, sometimes touching the farthest shore.
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