Posts Tagged ‘university’
As a school photographer, I take pictures at schools. It was only a matter of time before the school I student taught at would come up. I worried at first, given my history.
Fortunately, my initial anxiety proved unfounded — besides the customarily cool-blooded greeting I always got from a certain teacher, puzzled indignation from across the room by way of another, and an awkward, friendly joviality from the principal, taking pictures there was a blast. Of course, once word got around that I was on campus, and I use that cliche liberally, just a few familiar faces came up to say hello.
Four of my trouble students stopped by; since last semester, these now-juniors had decided to get back on track. As they left, I ensured they had their priorities straight.
You’re graduating; you’re going to college — right? All of them, unequivocally, gave me the right answer.
I accept it, because, as my master teacher had noted, even if they’re telling me what I want to hear, at least they’re hearing themselves say it. One of the students went as far as to say that I was his favorite teacher, and the reason he was doing better this semester, but I doubt it — his parents weren’t happy come open house, and he always did tend to gild the lily.
The long-haired pothead who played hooky more often than not, and was more than a little belligerent during my student teaching semester, got a buzzcut and earned a honor roll grade-point average this semester. Because he had the most dramatic turnaround, I took the time to get in one more piece of advice as he sauntered away:
Don’t aim for City College: Shoot for State.
What are you talking about? I’m shooting for Harvard.
That’s the spirit.
I just started at a jovial sort of community band, funded by a local university. I had been having plenty of fun, and though I was busy trying to recruit other but better trombone players for it, I had run into little success. This week, the two guys I had recruited flaked out.
In a jovial, faux-exasperated tone of voice, our director asked me where the two of them were. In a jovial, faux-exasperated tone of voice, I answered.
Hell if I know.
Half of the band gasped. Our director sent me an amused but officially disapproving glare. The community-made half of our band laughed upon recognizing either reaction.
I was as shocked at that shock as half of the band was with my language. I come from bands where instructors will cuss out a band if they feel the band would be better motivated by doing so, and that’s the least of my stories.
One director, upon hearing cacophony where there should be ordered dissonance in stacked seconds, said what he heard sounded like an abortion looks.
Saying “hell” is nothing.
More ironically, I consciously don’t cuss — a habit I most definitely did not pick up from my family, and at the same time one I most definitely picked up because of them. My words don’t get saltier than the silly-sounding “douchenozzle,” and that’s just about the only word I take pains not to say around schoolkids.
Yet I made some college freshman blush because I used language I’ve heard on the playground — the elementary school playground — and I don’t think it’s because she’s a flute player. Either way, I don’t think I’ll ever be in her good graces.
Something tells me I would have spared some nerves if only I had remembered that our sponsoring university was founded in 1944. By Mennonites. Freakin’ Mennonites.
I can say freakin’, right?
