Edubabble and other Blither

I remember being a new teacher. It was cool. I was cool. Everyone else in the building was old, at least forty it seemed, burdened with soccer snacks, mortgages, bad knees, and indigestion. This is not to say they weren't fun. Most of them were. They were just older, in some cases jaded, in some cases apathetic, in some cases killjoys. I would never become like them. I haven't. Yet.

I learned early on in my career that youth is relative. On my 25th birthday I sailed into school still slightly smug about my own perceived youth. My boyfriend had just dropped me off, having to take the car in for some treatment or other. Upon crossing the academic threshold I ran into a student, young Juanita Sanchez. Seventh graders still love, love, love to talk to their teachers for the most part, and Juanita was no exception. Hey, Ms. Snow, she said. Was that your son who dropped you off? So much for my own perception. How, I asked, can I possibly have a son who has facial hair, Juanita? Juanita was oblivious to my pique. How was I 'posed to ta know? she shrugged.

This past school year I changed sides. I think I may have been traded. Our school hired 16 new teachers in the aftermath of an exodus caused by a retirement incentive that included health insurance-- these oldsters, you know. My new team consists not of rookies. I am now one of the, ahem, older players, the ones hoping for a pennant before they retire. (In my generation's case, they are the players who hope to be able to retire.) This became apparent to me at our faculty and staff's Back to School social at a local fire hall. I stood there, beer in hand, watching these new people, some of whom could have been my students, gyrate and holler in new-money glee as the D.J. (a new addition to our gatherings) played songs I heard at local clubs. At times it resembled a frat party, a tame frat party to be sure, but a frat party all the same. I knew the times, they were a-changing.

It had been a weird first week of school. It was the first time in my career that my mentor Mrs. Springer wasn't there. (She and her husband used the get-out-of-school-with-benefits card.) I had no one to run to with my usual line: I think I'm getting fired. I had no one to smoke cigarettes with in the boiler room. (We only did that the first few weeks of the first tobacco-verboten school year. We stopped when there was a fire drill while we were puffing.) I was too busy answering questions for the new teachers during that first week, though, to properly wallow in self-pity.

Truthfully, I really enjoy the new teachers' enthusiasm, ideas, style. They've electrified the building. I also really envy them because they have each other-- they go out together, gyrating and hollering in the bars, they occasionally come in hung over together, they're part of the new cool clique.

This past week has been weird, too. Sad, really. Two other mentors of mine passed away, two people who knew me when I was young and cool and stupid and wore hip clothes. Dr. G. was my college advisor, part father figure, part dirty old man who, I think, tried to kiss me once. I dog-sat for him and his wife whenever they vacationed; it was a great gig. Their house was gorgeous. They left a car for me. They told me to have my friends over, which I did several times. They kept a well-stocked liquor cabinet. They had a pool table. They had shelves upon shelves of books. They had real food. They paid well. They didn't mind when I almost burned down their house, leaving them a souvenir pan that they exhibited at parties, permanently scorched in patterns of macaroni. Dr. G. got me my job at the Sgt. London Inn, where I desk-clerked until I advanced to bartending. (A brief cocktail waitress stint didn't last. I spilled the same draft four times.) When I decided I wanted to save the world by doing my student teaching at a youth prison, he adamantly refused to sign off.

MAC, my cooperating teacher, smoked long, cool Mores. Her hair was dyed an unnatural black, and she drank tea all day long, spiked generously with liquid sweetener. When someone on bus duty noticed me cruising out of the parking lot in my Renault Alliance (rather quickly as I had to be at work within the hour) smoking my own Virginia Slim menthol, she promptly informed me the next day that I, too, could join in on the faculty room tobacco fun and was expected to do so. What's a girl to do, right?

I learned that teachers said fuck, and I learned a lot more from her, too. I think of MAC often when I'm observing my own student teachers, who, I must admit, are a hell of a lot better than I was. She knew I'd turn out okay, even though I'd sometimes come into school with a BRILLIANT idea I had to try. She let me try out these brilliant ideas, even though they'd occurred to me on the interstate. Afterwards, she matter-of-factly pointed out what I needed to do to make them work the next time. She made me step up to the plate and take control of the senior classes when they gave me a rough time, which they often did in the first couple of weeks. Chrissy, she said, flicking her More, you've got to step on those fuckers. Now. That was hard. These kids weren't exactly the kids I hung out with when I'd been a senior four years earlier. But it was okay. I did it... after a few missteps that often went something like this:

Miss Snow, have you ever smoked pot?

I don't have to answer that.

We don't have to ask again now, either.

Two of my former student teachers have called me a few times this summer, clamoring for my wisdom about jobs, interviews, and men. (Poor girls! If they only knew...) I've met with them to hash things out and have a few beers. I've loved every minute of it, even though one of them was born the year I was in 8th grade. She and her friend had Madonna dance parties when they were five and Madonna was in her blasphemy stage. She had never seen The Outsiders, although she had read the book, but who hasn't? She's cocky, she's cool, she's beautiful. And she has no idea what she's in for.