Thursday, March 1, 2012

From Crayons and Perfume to the Smartboard Jungle (Intro)-Part One

And how do you thank someone who's taken you from crayons to perfume? This is the movie that helped inspire me to be a teacher!
If anyone asks what inspired me to be a teacher, it would be four words: To Sir, with Love.  Back in high school for the very first time, I watched the 1967 flick starring Sidney Poitier as an engineer who finds himself in an inner city high school in a poor part of London. The school was a melting pot of Caucasian, black, Asian and Indian students who shared a common bond—they were dirt poor and many were nearly illiterate. 

It was not Mr. Thackeray’s intent to be there for long. He was just looking to earn a living until his dream engineer’s job came along. And why would he want to stick around? The kids were not very bright, some could barely read, their manners were as poor as the homes they lived in. Most seemed destined to be hocking goods on the streets, or maybe just headed to clean streets. The girls would probably be unhappy homemakers who waited for their husbands to come home from their menial jobs while barely scraping by, trying to raise a couple of kids. These students had no hope. No self-esteem. Seemed to be headed nowhere. They didn’t believe in themselves and their teachers were certainly not inspired to teach them or prepare them for life. Everyone gave up. But along came Mr. Thackeray, a teacher with heart and passion. At first, he struggled to get them to learn how to read. The kids took pleasure in goofing around and basically being “screw ups.” But Mr. Thackeray decided he would not give up. He decided that before these kids could learn to read and write, they needed confidence and an adult figure that cared about them. 
Sidney Poitier's Mr. Thackeray took the kids into the real world and taught them to respect themselves and others.
 
Many of the students came from broken homes and had very poor home lives. So he took them on outings to museums and other cultural institutions where they never, ever would have gone to on their own. He taught them how to cook, sew and other important life skills. He showed them how to treat others and themselves respectfully. These students came to count on him and because of his tough love, started to respect themselves and each other. Once their self-esteems improved, they were able to take the next step—learn how to read, write and solve math problems. 
I cried when the students gave Mr. Thackeray his goodbye gift. The end of the school year still brings tears to my eyes, even after more than 20 years of teaching.
In one of To Sir with Love's final scenes, Lulu serenades Poitier, "the friend who taught her right from wrong and weak from strong."
 
And how do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume? I remember the first time I saw Lulu sing that beautiful ballad to Mr. Poitier while the waif like Asian actress presented the teacher with a gift at the end of the year prom. I started to cry.  If you wanted the moon…I would try to make a start. But I would much rather you let me give my heart, to sir with love.  And of course, Mr. Thackeray decides to stay at school, even though he gets a dream engineer job offer, ready to mentor the next wave of wayward youth.

Interestingly, at that time, I had absolutely no desire to be a schoolteacher. I could not wait to get the h@#$%% out of school as soon as possible. I hated it. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my English courses where I got to write up a storm, make up stories, read great books like the Great Gatsby and talk about them. But geometry, chemistry and the rest--forget about it! Like Paul Simon said in his hit tune Kodachrome, “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.” Fortunately, I was able to substitute basic computer programming (the idiot’s version) for regular high school math and basic geology instead of the usual high school level science. I got to take speedwriting and typing classes instead of the usual nonsense. 

This was totally me in the mid 80's--a real geek!
 
I was also a certified “square peg.” Remember that old early 80’s sitcom starring Sarah Jessica Parker as a geeky misfit with one best friend? That was me. I had one friend in high school that was geekier and more “bookwormish” than I was. We did not smoke, drink, hang out with boys or party. Our idea of fun was to get a whole pile of junk food including Big Mac extra value meals, put on our pj’s and stay up all night watching scary movies like Friday the 13th. Sure I would cut out of school early. But it wasn’t to hang out with friends at the arcade or basement drinking Budweisers. Nope not this square peg. I would head home at around noon, ditching the last couple of classes so I could watch The Young and the Restless & As the World Turns. I wasn’t a cheerleader, didn’t participate in any extra curricular crap. Heck, I did not even go to my own high school graduation. Didn’t see the point. Why would I want to celebrate with a bunch of kids I barely knew, a bunch of kids who shunned my best friend and me since we were the square pegs? The thought of teaching, being in a classroom that I could not wait to flee, never crossed my mind.

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