The Freshprince Incident
Mar. 5th, 2005 04:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaFive years ago, as a student teacher, I was thrown out of Bellaire High School. On account of I'm not the most resilient person in the world, this has left a mark on me that has impacted my teaching ever since.
I think the five-year anniversary is the appropriate time to exorcise this particular demon. Part of that process is, I think, telling the story. So, if any of you should happen to be interested, here it is. Most of you have heard it before. Some of you were there to catch me when it happened. But for those of you who never heard it or who have forgotten - here it is again.
I had done all the college coursework for my teacher's certification at YouHou over the summer and fall of 1999. I already had the actual content done back at Rice, in both math and in English, so all I was taking were the pedagogy courses. This involved doing a series of in-class observations, which I did at HSPVA in HISD. I really, really enjoyed those, with the exceptions of the AP English III teacher, who I thought was much too rigid and inflexible with her students. I loved the students at HSPVA; they seemed to actually be interested in being there, and in learning (although not necessarily in the subjects I was observing, at least all the time). At the time, I was really sort of hoping that I could come back there to teach, despite that sort of being educationally incestuous for our social group.
Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to student-teach there - none of HISD's all-magnet schools permit student-teachers. So I had a choice between the three standard HISD schools closest to where I lived at the time, Lamar, Reagan, and Bellaire. I chose Bellaire, and in the middle of January, started in my student teaching assignment there. In retrospect, this was a pretty serious mistake; I now know I should have picked Lamar. At the time, though I knew a few people who had gone to Bellaire and enjoyed it, one of the Spouse's cousins was currently there, and I still had bad associations with St. John's on account of the Jerk. And the universe failed to tell me how big a mistake this was going to be, I'm guessing because it figured this would be a growth experience. So Bellaire it was.
Because I was doing double-certification, I would be stationed in a math classroom for the first eight weeks, and then take spring break when the school did, and return from break for an eight-week stint in an English classroom. Once a week, a group of six of us (three of whom were at Bellaire, the others assigned elsewhere in HISD) would meet with a mentor from the university to discuss what we'd observed and what challenges we were experiencing while teaching. Our mentor wanted us to meet at his house in Seabrook; fortunately, one of the other Bellaire student teachers offered to give me a ride there and back.
My in-school mentor at Bellaire, Mrs. P., was a woman with twenty years' experience teaching lower-level math. Perhaps I should say, instead, she had two years' experience, and had taught that second year nineteen times? I didn't know that yet, though. That semester, she had four classes of regular Algebra II, and two classes of trailer Algebra II, just starting the course in January. We decided that I'd observe her for one week, then start taking her classes at one per week, starting with the trailer courses. We actually went faster than that; I was teaching all six courses by week five. She seemed very eager to get me to do as much of the work as possible as soon as possible.
During week five, I got absolutely sick of doing the same thing every single day. I decided to do something different for test review, and gave the students a set of word problems to work on in groups. In order to make them more interesting, I tried to pick topics related to what had been in the news recently. One of the problems involved the math required to build a safe bonfire, in reference to the one that had collapsed that fall at Texas A&M. Unfortunately for me, it turned out that one of the students, an athlete who we will refer to here as Travis, was offended by that reference. I didn't find out how much until later.
Somewhere near the beginning of week six, the pendant that I wore on a regular basis fell out of my blouse, where I normally kept it tucked. Most of you have seen it, but for those of you who haven't: it's a silver wire circle inside a larger one, creating a crescent-shaped space, with a wire-wrapped pentacle shape in the smaller circle. It's about an inch and a quarter across the larger circle. I'd worn the pendant without hiding it at all at HSPVA, and in fact had gotten favorable remarks on it from some of the students (and one teacher!). However, when I'd gotten to Bellaire, I'd noticed that my mentor teacher was obviously very, very Christian. She kept both a Bible and a prayer book on her desk at all times, and a cross on the monitor of her computer; she'd made comments about what she'd done at church that Sunday or Wednesday to me often.
Now, while Bellaire is not as diverse as our school, it's certainly very diverse in its own right; I had assumed that she couldn't possibly have too much of an objection to non-Christians if she taught there. She had mentioned something about Muslim and Jehovah's Witness students before, in terms that made it clear she thought of them as other, but not disparagingly. Still, in order to avoid offending her, I usually kept the pendant tucked inside my shirt. I wasn't willing to not wear it at all - that felt like I was compromising my beliefs, or worse, ashamed of them. Perhaps it was arrogant of me.
So when it fell out when I was leaning over to pick up an overhead marker that I'd dropped on the floor, my thought at the time was only to be glad it hadn't happened when I was near her desk. I didn't even think she'd seen it. Two of the students did. One of them blurted out, "Hey, is that the Satanic star?" A little taken aback, I said, "no, it isn't." Travis then proceeded to tell the other student "No, you dope, that's the Jewish star." I said, "No it isn't that either," tucked it back in my shirt, and continued on with parabolas.
Later, during our meeting with our university mentor that week, I mentioned the incident and asked what, if anything, I should do about it. Most of my fellow student-teachers rolled their eyes and declared that it wasn't a big deal at all, that I shouldn't even worry about it. The university mentor said he didn't think it was an issue, either - that teachers had freedom of religion, same as everyone else, and that as long as I hadn't done anything that could be interpreted as preaching to the students, it simply shouldn't be a problem.
On Thursday of Week 7, I came in and taught our first, second, and third period classes as normal. My mentor teacher didn't say anything to me all morning - she seemed kind of distracted. Then, during lunch, she sent me to the downstairs teacher's lounge, where my university mentor was waiting for me. He told me that she had found out about my religion, and that she was dis-inviting me from her classroom. In fact, she'd told him, she felt that she was putting her immortal soul in grave peril merely by having me in her room.
I was stunned. No, I was in shock. I cried, and he was nice enough to let me cry for a while. He told me that the English teacher I was supposed to teach with after break also felt the same way, that she couldn't in good conscience participate in someone like me becoming a teacher, so we were going to have to find another English placement for me. Then we went back up to get my stuff. She wouldn't even let me in the room. My mentor had to go back in there and get my stuff for me. I never got to say good-bye to any of the kids, didn't get any closure at all. He was obviously highly annoyed.
We visited the Dean of Instruction at Bellaire. Not only did she not apologize, it was obvious from the way she was reacting that she was furious with me - and perhaps a little afraid herself. She berated me for "sharing my personal life with the students," which I didn't feel I had done - certainly less so than Mrs. P did all the time. She made it clear that I was not welcome on campus, although she did not go so far as to make the campus cop escort me off. All this time, I could see my university mentor getting madder and madder, but he didn't say anything.
He very kindly offered to get me some lunch and drive me home, rather than letting me take the bus in the state I was in. While I was eating, he asked me a few questions about my religion, which I answered. He was really quite puzzled about the way they'd reacted, and asked whether I thought in a school the size of Bellaire there might be some students of the same faith. I told him that I was nearly 100% sure there were, as I'd seen some in the hallways wearing the same symbol in ways that looked like they knew what it meant. (I've had it verified for me by the Spouse's cousins after the fact that yes, they personally knew at least three. I hope none of them ever had her as a teacher.)
As far as I can tell, what happened was that Travis looked up what my pendant meant on the Internet, saw an opportunity to "get me back" for the bonfire problem, and told Mrs. P about it. It's not clear to me that he realized it would get me kicked out entirely, although that's a possibility. I don't think he realized how much of a problem it would be for the school, or that the Dean would get involved. I don't think he thought much about it at all.
The next Monday, I went to the College of Education at YouHou, to talk to the director of student-teaching. She was really, really mad, but not at me - she felt that what had happened was religious discrimination, plain and simple. (She was Jewish. I'm not sure whether or not that's relevant.) The college's legal advisor felt the same way, but said that since I wasn't employed by the school, just there as a guest, they hadn't broken any contract or violated a law, so they really couldn't sue them. Fortunately, they thought they could find a new placement for me; I would just take two weeks for Spring Break, and then finish up my student teaching in English afterwards. I asked them for Alief, although I don't know in retrospect why I did - it just seemed far away from what had happened, but still relatively easy to get to. I ended up in Pasadena ISD, instead.
My English mentor teacher was a much more laid-back person, although my students were not as diverse. I had a lot of trouble connecting to the students, though - I kept feeling like the same thing would happen to me again. Somewhere around week 4 of that placement, she asked me why I was so jumpy, and I decided to trust her and tell her the whole story. She waited until I got to the part where Mrs. P kicked me out of her room, and then interjected "Oh, Jesus Christ, what a bigot!" Which sort of summed the whole thing up for me very well.
I did better after that, but I still felt uncomfortable really taking to the students about anything other than the material of the class. Right before I left, I deliberately let the pendant slip one day. Two of the students, both sophomore males, recognized it; neither one seemed to have a negative reaction. That day during my off-period, I decided to spill the story to the other teachers in our lounge. Most of them had the same reaction as my mentor teacher; one grabbed me afterwards and berated me for outing myself - not because it offended her, but because she was Pagan, too, and that was going to make it harder for her to stay closeted! I left the students at the end of my eight weeks with very high marks from both my university mentor and my school mentor teacher, and a sense of closure from the students.
I got hired at the school I'm currently in over that summer, and the rest is history, I suppose. But ever since then, I've been terrified of the same thing happening again, The first three years that one teaches in a district, one is on a probationary contract - the school can simply not re-hire you for the next year, without explaining why. I kept hoping that when I was on a permanent contract, I would feel safer, and I did, a little, when I finally signed the green contract at the end of my third year. But I still feel very uncomfortable around certain topics, which is perhaps unfortunate as they're topics that are of great personal interest to me, for tolerably obvious reasons. And students who pick at those topics invariably remind me, a little bit, of what happened then.
I know they can't fire me now, and I don't think I have any more Travises, although I'm not sure about that. On the other hand, I'm more beholden to angry parents now, although only one out of the many angry parents I've dealt with so far was upset about that (and for whatever reason, she chose not to go through the school and came directly to me, which was fortunate in some ways).
Still, it's been more than enough time for me to begin getting over this. It'll be a long process, I'm sure. But it should be at least time to start.
And if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
Edit: after wavering on this a couple of times, I've decided to make this public instead of friends-only. If that changes anyone's decision to comment on this, I understand, although I doubt that it would.
I think the five-year anniversary is the appropriate time to exorcise this particular demon. Part of that process is, I think, telling the story. So, if any of you should happen to be interested, here it is. Most of you have heard it before. Some of you were there to catch me when it happened. But for those of you who never heard it or who have forgotten - here it is again.
I had done all the college coursework for my teacher's certification at YouHou over the summer and fall of 1999. I already had the actual content done back at Rice, in both math and in English, so all I was taking were the pedagogy courses. This involved doing a series of in-class observations, which I did at HSPVA in HISD. I really, really enjoyed those, with the exceptions of the AP English III teacher, who I thought was much too rigid and inflexible with her students. I loved the students at HSPVA; they seemed to actually be interested in being there, and in learning (although not necessarily in the subjects I was observing, at least all the time). At the time, I was really sort of hoping that I could come back there to teach, despite that sort of being educationally incestuous for our social group.
Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to student-teach there - none of HISD's all-magnet schools permit student-teachers. So I had a choice between the three standard HISD schools closest to where I lived at the time, Lamar, Reagan, and Bellaire. I chose Bellaire, and in the middle of January, started in my student teaching assignment there. In retrospect, this was a pretty serious mistake; I now know I should have picked Lamar. At the time, though I knew a few people who had gone to Bellaire and enjoyed it, one of the Spouse's cousins was currently there, and I still had bad associations with St. John's on account of the Jerk. And the universe failed to tell me how big a mistake this was going to be, I'm guessing because it figured this would be a growth experience. So Bellaire it was.
Because I was doing double-certification, I would be stationed in a math classroom for the first eight weeks, and then take spring break when the school did, and return from break for an eight-week stint in an English classroom. Once a week, a group of six of us (three of whom were at Bellaire, the others assigned elsewhere in HISD) would meet with a mentor from the university to discuss what we'd observed and what challenges we were experiencing while teaching. Our mentor wanted us to meet at his house in Seabrook; fortunately, one of the other Bellaire student teachers offered to give me a ride there and back.
My in-school mentor at Bellaire, Mrs. P., was a woman with twenty years' experience teaching lower-level math. Perhaps I should say, instead, she had two years' experience, and had taught that second year nineteen times? I didn't know that yet, though. That semester, she had four classes of regular Algebra II, and two classes of trailer Algebra II, just starting the course in January. We decided that I'd observe her for one week, then start taking her classes at one per week, starting with the trailer courses. We actually went faster than that; I was teaching all six courses by week five. She seemed very eager to get me to do as much of the work as possible as soon as possible.
During week five, I got absolutely sick of doing the same thing every single day. I decided to do something different for test review, and gave the students a set of word problems to work on in groups. In order to make them more interesting, I tried to pick topics related to what had been in the news recently. One of the problems involved the math required to build a safe bonfire, in reference to the one that had collapsed that fall at Texas A&M. Unfortunately for me, it turned out that one of the students, an athlete who we will refer to here as Travis, was offended by that reference. I didn't find out how much until later.
Somewhere near the beginning of week six, the pendant that I wore on a regular basis fell out of my blouse, where I normally kept it tucked. Most of you have seen it, but for those of you who haven't: it's a silver wire circle inside a larger one, creating a crescent-shaped space, with a wire-wrapped pentacle shape in the smaller circle. It's about an inch and a quarter across the larger circle. I'd worn the pendant without hiding it at all at HSPVA, and in fact had gotten favorable remarks on it from some of the students (and one teacher!). However, when I'd gotten to Bellaire, I'd noticed that my mentor teacher was obviously very, very Christian. She kept both a Bible and a prayer book on her desk at all times, and a cross on the monitor of her computer; she'd made comments about what she'd done at church that Sunday or Wednesday to me often.
Now, while Bellaire is not as diverse as our school, it's certainly very diverse in its own right; I had assumed that she couldn't possibly have too much of an objection to non-Christians if she taught there. She had mentioned something about Muslim and Jehovah's Witness students before, in terms that made it clear she thought of them as other, but not disparagingly. Still, in order to avoid offending her, I usually kept the pendant tucked inside my shirt. I wasn't willing to not wear it at all - that felt like I was compromising my beliefs, or worse, ashamed of them. Perhaps it was arrogant of me.
So when it fell out when I was leaning over to pick up an overhead marker that I'd dropped on the floor, my thought at the time was only to be glad it hadn't happened when I was near her desk. I didn't even think she'd seen it. Two of the students did. One of them blurted out, "Hey, is that the Satanic star?" A little taken aback, I said, "no, it isn't." Travis then proceeded to tell the other student "No, you dope, that's the Jewish star." I said, "No it isn't that either," tucked it back in my shirt, and continued on with parabolas.
Later, during our meeting with our university mentor that week, I mentioned the incident and asked what, if anything, I should do about it. Most of my fellow student-teachers rolled their eyes and declared that it wasn't a big deal at all, that I shouldn't even worry about it. The university mentor said he didn't think it was an issue, either - that teachers had freedom of religion, same as everyone else, and that as long as I hadn't done anything that could be interpreted as preaching to the students, it simply shouldn't be a problem.
On Thursday of Week 7, I came in and taught our first, second, and third period classes as normal. My mentor teacher didn't say anything to me all morning - she seemed kind of distracted. Then, during lunch, she sent me to the downstairs teacher's lounge, where my university mentor was waiting for me. He told me that she had found out about my religion, and that she was dis-inviting me from her classroom. In fact, she'd told him, she felt that she was putting her immortal soul in grave peril merely by having me in her room.
I was stunned. No, I was in shock. I cried, and he was nice enough to let me cry for a while. He told me that the English teacher I was supposed to teach with after break also felt the same way, that she couldn't in good conscience participate in someone like me becoming a teacher, so we were going to have to find another English placement for me. Then we went back up to get my stuff. She wouldn't even let me in the room. My mentor had to go back in there and get my stuff for me. I never got to say good-bye to any of the kids, didn't get any closure at all. He was obviously highly annoyed.
We visited the Dean of Instruction at Bellaire. Not only did she not apologize, it was obvious from the way she was reacting that she was furious with me - and perhaps a little afraid herself. She berated me for "sharing my personal life with the students," which I didn't feel I had done - certainly less so than Mrs. P did all the time. She made it clear that I was not welcome on campus, although she did not go so far as to make the campus cop escort me off. All this time, I could see my university mentor getting madder and madder, but he didn't say anything.
He very kindly offered to get me some lunch and drive me home, rather than letting me take the bus in the state I was in. While I was eating, he asked me a few questions about my religion, which I answered. He was really quite puzzled about the way they'd reacted, and asked whether I thought in a school the size of Bellaire there might be some students of the same faith. I told him that I was nearly 100% sure there were, as I'd seen some in the hallways wearing the same symbol in ways that looked like they knew what it meant. (I've had it verified for me by the Spouse's cousins after the fact that yes, they personally knew at least three. I hope none of them ever had her as a teacher.)
As far as I can tell, what happened was that Travis looked up what my pendant meant on the Internet, saw an opportunity to "get me back" for the bonfire problem, and told Mrs. P about it. It's not clear to me that he realized it would get me kicked out entirely, although that's a possibility. I don't think he realized how much of a problem it would be for the school, or that the Dean would get involved. I don't think he thought much about it at all.
The next Monday, I went to the College of Education at YouHou, to talk to the director of student-teaching. She was really, really mad, but not at me - she felt that what had happened was religious discrimination, plain and simple. (She was Jewish. I'm not sure whether or not that's relevant.) The college's legal advisor felt the same way, but said that since I wasn't employed by the school, just there as a guest, they hadn't broken any contract or violated a law, so they really couldn't sue them. Fortunately, they thought they could find a new placement for me; I would just take two weeks for Spring Break, and then finish up my student teaching in English afterwards. I asked them for Alief, although I don't know in retrospect why I did - it just seemed far away from what had happened, but still relatively easy to get to. I ended up in Pasadena ISD, instead.
My English mentor teacher was a much more laid-back person, although my students were not as diverse. I had a lot of trouble connecting to the students, though - I kept feeling like the same thing would happen to me again. Somewhere around week 4 of that placement, she asked me why I was so jumpy, and I decided to trust her and tell her the whole story. She waited until I got to the part where Mrs. P kicked me out of her room, and then interjected "Oh, Jesus Christ, what a bigot!" Which sort of summed the whole thing up for me very well.
I did better after that, but I still felt uncomfortable really taking to the students about anything other than the material of the class. Right before I left, I deliberately let the pendant slip one day. Two of the students, both sophomore males, recognized it; neither one seemed to have a negative reaction. That day during my off-period, I decided to spill the story to the other teachers in our lounge. Most of them had the same reaction as my mentor teacher; one grabbed me afterwards and berated me for outing myself - not because it offended her, but because she was Pagan, too, and that was going to make it harder for her to stay closeted! I left the students at the end of my eight weeks with very high marks from both my university mentor and my school mentor teacher, and a sense of closure from the students.
I got hired at the school I'm currently in over that summer, and the rest is history, I suppose. But ever since then, I've been terrified of the same thing happening again, The first three years that one teaches in a district, one is on a probationary contract - the school can simply not re-hire you for the next year, without explaining why. I kept hoping that when I was on a permanent contract, I would feel safer, and I did, a little, when I finally signed the green contract at the end of my third year. But I still feel very uncomfortable around certain topics, which is perhaps unfortunate as they're topics that are of great personal interest to me, for tolerably obvious reasons. And students who pick at those topics invariably remind me, a little bit, of what happened then.
I know they can't fire me now, and I don't think I have any more Travises, although I'm not sure about that. On the other hand, I'm more beholden to angry parents now, although only one out of the many angry parents I've dealt with so far was upset about that (and for whatever reason, she chose not to go through the school and came directly to me, which was fortunate in some ways).
Still, it's been more than enough time for me to begin getting over this. It'll be a long process, I'm sure. But it should be at least time to start.
And if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
Edit: after wavering on this a couple of times, I've decided to make this public instead of friends-only. If that changes anyone's decision to comment on this, I understand, although I doubt that it would.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 04:12 am (UTC)Someday, you won't have to be afraid anymore. Keep looking forward to it!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 05:12 am (UTC)*deep breath* On a cheerier note, would you like to get together and do something during your spring break?
no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 07:40 pm (UTC)As for the ethical issues - it was quite clear to me that the Dean, at least, thought I was the one who had done something unethical, and she was protecting her school to the best of her ability. I sort of wish I'd gotten to talk to the principal about it, but I never did.
I know Dr. C at the university did put a "black mark" on the school for its student teachers for the following year. She left the year after that, so I don't know for sure whether it has continued past the one year.
I'd love to get together for something - when would be good for you? I have stuff going on Tuesday and Thursday evening, but I'll be free during the day . . .
no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 05:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 05:32 am (UTC)In reading your posts, you've always seemed a little too sensitive about students or coworkers finding out your religion, but after having read this I understand why, and I think you've got a good reason. This kind of incident would have scarred me, too, so I don't fault you for it still being a sensitive issue. I'm glad you're starting to work through it though, and I hope that should something like this happen again it will get dealt with differently. At the least, it's religious discrimination, and you shouldn't have to put up with it.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-06 02:28 pm (UTC)I know you are a good teacher, one I would have loved to have for my math classes, and one that would have been a safe haven for me, as I fled to the library for lunch during my first year in Texas.
Hugs!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-07 04:01 pm (UTC)I also agree with
understand...
Date: 2005-03-07 05:25 pm (UTC)Apart from that, I am glad that you have a good place to be in now. I too relate to your experience with angry parents, they can sometimes be your greatest allies. Wierd considering the current bent of texas admin towards parent complaints and the strange wave of conservatism. Hopefully it'll stay that way through out the new cultural changes