When my oldest daughter was a middle schooler in a Suburban Detroit school, I went to go pick her up one afternoon to bring her home. There, in the carpool lane, the school’s principal came over to my car and told me that a particular teacher wanted to have a private word with me regarding my daughter.
I remember the principal saying, “don’t worry, it’s nothing bad.”
Still, if you are a parent and you are reading this, you know exactly how I was feeling at the time.
When my daughter bounded into the car, right after “Hi Dad, I’m hungry,” I asked her why this certain teacher would want to see me privately. My child said she had no idea. I responded with, “well, think hard, because I’d rather hear it coming from you than from the teacher, whatever it is.”
Now, this was a teacher who my daughter had reported to me regularly said the word “shvartze” in his classroom to describe black people. In our house, that word was taught as racist and never to be used.
It was something I meant to talk about to this teacher, so maybe after he finished with me, I could talk to him about that word.
So the day finally came. We were to meet at 8 p.m. in his living room. My daughter, meanwhile, and her class’s “Battle of the Books” team had just won a reading tournament against other schools at the nearby public library. When I informed the teacher of this, he had no idea of what I was talking about.
What happened next was awful.
He told me that it was his philosophy that 12-year-old girls all reach a fork in the road. One way would lead to a life of religion and doing the right thing, the other way would be, in his words, “too worldly.”
He said that it was his goal to keep the girls “in a tunnel,” to make them always “giggly girls.”
Giggly girls?
A tunnel?
He told me that my older daughter had said a “disgusting” word in class. It was for lack of a better description, a four-letter word beginning with the letter “s.” He never heard her say the word, but another girl did, and reported my oldest for that.
I felt my blood pressure rise, my muscles tense and my lip quiver.
I heard myself say to this teacher, “my daughter tells me that you use an ‘s’ word yourself in class.”
He looked at me with a defiant puzzlement as in “how dare you challenge anything I say.”
I responded by asking him if he said “shvartze” in class to describe black people.
He didn’t deny it, saying he meant no harm, it was just a Yiddish way of describing blacks.
My response was that I didn’t buy that. The word “shvartze” might as well be the “n” word, and in my house because it is used to describe one’s fellow man, it has a more dire consequence than the four-letter “s” word.
I then told him that I’ll work on my daughter’s “s” word, but that he better work on his “s” word.
We departed. It wasn’t ever as friendly with him again.
I write this story, because it taught me that there’s more to be an educator than standing in front of a classroom and teaching a lesson plan.
Another example.
A child I know was publicly accused of stealing a pencil by the teacher of her class. The teacher went so far as to frisk this little girl, but found nothing. Later that day, the pencil turned up. Where, it was in the teacher’s pocket the entire time. The girls’ parents spoke to the teacher that evening, because their child was heartbroken and embarrassed. The teacher apologized on the phone. But the parents went a step further, insisting that the teacher apologize to their child in front of the very students who were present when she falsely accused the little girl. To her credit, the teacher did exactly that. The lessons for all concerned were priceless. It was just too bad the teacher didn’t think of this herself.
Educators are teachers when they sit in their offices, when they go to the store, when they speak on the phone, when they worship in synagogue, when they deal with children, adults, teen-agers, Jews, gentiles, blacks or whites. Holding a piece of chalk in front of the classroom doesn’t make one a complete educator.
An educator should always remember that their actions will be remembered in a child’s life well through their adulthood. My wife remembers one horrible elementary school teacher, who soured her entire third grade experience. We had a fifth grade teacher at my younger daughter’s school who was an awful role model for the children. Believe me, her former students remember her.
But these examples have to reflect all the way to the top, to the administrators of schools, to the people who sit behind the front desk to the maintenance people and yes, even to a school’s volunteer leadership.
How do we want our schools looked at by the community?
How do we our schools remembered by alumnae?
As a board member, how do we represent our school? Are we righteous? Do we take our position seriously? Do we even know what is really going on in the classrooms?
Fair treatment, striving to be a good person by example. An open mind, an open heart, a good listener, a fair person, and a realization that every child, every family is different and should be validated.
The children will one day be our educators, our educational administrators, our educational institutional board members.
Give them something to remember that is positive. Give them examples of how a good person acts, how they stick to the lessons of the greatest lesson plan of them all, the Torah.
Our children are watching you. Our children are listening.
They know what you have or haven’t done and how you’ve comported yourself.
Teach them well.