or, ‘Teacher Leave those kids alone’
When it comes to the worst teacher I had, it’s no contest. The Music Teacher. Which is odd, cause I’ve been collecting rock and jazz music for over 50 years.
Mrs. H had a long horse face, a third-eye cheek mole and a frozen hair perm. She favored blouses with big bows, large gaudy pins, and cake makeup with garish bloody lips. When she left a room, her perfume lingered for hours.
She also possessed a bloated ego, believing music was as important as math or English. In the beginning (first/second grade), she was tolerable. But as the years passed, we sang boring old songs that had no meaning to us (such as: ‘When Sammy Put The Paper on The Wall’). Lyrics were never explained. I figured out later our music books were printed around 1940.
She also thought herself a concert level pianist. As we sang, she would end verses with long finger rolls, a cascade of chords, and maybe some little ad libs on the highest keys. When arriving for class, she would bang two chords to signal us to STFU (she didn’t believe in talking, I guess). If we kept yakking, she’d do it again, then get up and scream at us to return to our teacher. She wasn’t mean, but exponentially moody.
Throughout the year, she would decide boys weren’t singing loud enough (loud enough??? Ha! Make that NOT singing), so we sang sans girls as punishment for just being boys. I figured out how to lip sync songs, opening my mouth wide so she knew I was a good boy.
Her pride and joy were plays for the parents. We trained for months to learn words. Two plays a year–one was always Christmas, of course.
l learned from my mother that she kept a list of every kid’s parents’ occupations. Every September, she would bounce excitedly into the teachers’ lounge and ask the assemblage about new kids. Were there any doctors, lawyers, bankers in the mix? That usually cleared the room–she was very short on friends, as you might guess.
Richer kids were encouraged or drafted to have spotlights in plays. At the time, we never understood how kids were picked–and being boys, we detested singing and were relieved to be in the chorus.
At some point, there was a minor ado about the plays. She had pushed a girl to be part of a foursome doing a number, and the girl had cold feet at the 11th hour. The poor girl never showed, and Mrs. H had to announce that song X in the program wouldn’t be sung that night, leaving her thoroughly mortified. She took it out on the girl later, which led to parents demanding an apology (which they got). This in turn led to permission slips being required to participate in the play. I envied the lucky boys who brought slips saying they were not participating. She’d make sure to remind everyone when slips were due. I distinctly remember one boy telling her with a smile, “My parents won’t sign the slip.” Talk about red-faced anger.
By fifth grade, everyone was sick of her face, attitude, and self-importance–twice a week for 39 weeks, Five years. We might not have been able to put it into words, but we realized that she just used us to get parental attention/smiles.
Then she made a crucial mistake: she pissed off the girls.
Addendum: One of the plays she put on had a running joke about a deaf old woman. Cripes, why couldn’t someone have canceled that stupid teacher back Then??!!