Forty Years a Teacher

Commentary

At age 24, at the commencement of his teaching career—coincident with the appearance of multiculturalism, postmodernism, the idea that Western civilization is just one approach—this author understood that the career before him would be in the service of a system in decline.

He could have withdrawn and chosen not to serve; instead, he followed through and paid the price. At times badly treated, as a libertarian among progressives, he thought he could work independently. Like the industrialists in “Atlas Shrugged,” his mistake, then, was to work within the system.

Like those industrialists, he did not recognize that the integrity of his own work would be used against him; for example, while he was made to feel unwelcome, his successful concerts were used to showcase how well his schools “appeared” to be doing.

By the end of his career, the hypocrisy had completely backfired. On the day of his spring concert (at an elementary school where he had a huge instrumental and choral program), just before they went on stage, the principal approached him and said: “I can see that you have more children onstage than in the audience, that your curriculum is truly multicultural, that the level of performance at this school has never been higher. But don’t come back next year; you don’t belong; you’re not one of us.”

A year later, this author took students from one school to another to create a combined orchestra. The understanding was that on the day of the performance the number of students who would be allowed to go—fifth graders first, then fourth, then third—would depend upon how many parent drivers showed up (not simply volunteered).

He told the only third grader that she would probably not go, but promised to take her next year. Sure enough, we were short a driver. And sure enough, her Latina mother complained to the Latina principal, who then said, “Watch this!” and made a phone call to the central office.

After 15 years at that school (but only 1 year for the new principal), she had this Caucasian author transferred to another school. Why she couldn’t drive the student herself or give the mother and daughter bus fare to travel 10 blocks is not clear. What is clear is that the mother, child, and principal were entitled.

The final straw was the state of California’s “Directive”: All Teachers Must Enroll in a Two-Year Course in Multicultural Awareness.

After 40 years of intensive multicultural teacher training at great public expense, education bureaucrats at the state capital, anxious to show that they had something new to offer (as in save their jobs), decided that Euro-centrism, teacher insensitivity to the cultural needs of minorities, was the problem. They decided that California teachers, though ranked among the nation’s best and having masters’ degrees in education from the University of California and Stanford, were to blame for the drop in ranking of California’s public schools from first in the nation (in the 1960s) to near last from the year 2000 on.

This author asked for an exemption. He indicated that he understood the problems of non-native speakers, having been a foreign student himself, that he had a foreign language teaching credential, spoke four languages and was genuinely appreciative of all cultures, having performed professionally with musicians of all ethnic backgrounds as well as having taught at inner-city public schools for 40 years.

He was denied the exemption and was told, “If we do this for you, others will ask for it (plus we know older teachers such as you will refuse and we can replace them with younger teachers at half the salary).”

In his last year, he showed up for work in September, following detailed instructions as to where to report for the first days of teacher meetings. After several hours he noticed that his name was not on the sign-in roster.

Someone suggested: “You’d better run down to Human Resources and resign—immediately. You are about to lose your health insurance and maybe your pension.”

This author’s gamble, that the district would not really enforce its absurd directive, didn’t pay off.

Perhaps what didn’t pay off was 40 years of political incorrectness—for example, returning from summer break and making remarks such as, “Where is Ms. Jones, the school’s best teacher? And where’s Suzy, my best trumpet player? Did they move to an artist colony?” Not appreciated. Both had withdrawn their attendance. Suzy transferred to a private school; Ms. Jones quit.

For the last 30 years, according to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, 50 percent of new (meaning young, bright, enthusiastic, well-trained) teachers quit within three years; 75 percent within five years. Although it is less so today, the statistic speaks for itself. The less obvious statistic is that over a 30-year period, when one teacher per year and one student per year leave, no one is left—except those at the bottom; no mystery, then, that California test scores are at the bottom.

How did that happen? One reason is that California, conforming to a nationwide vogue, forces teachers to “teach to the test,” the most un-Zen, un-Waldorf, unprofessional approach possible. This diktat only serves to push out the most creative students and teachers, even administrators, to satisfy that vague “community” need for equality of outcome (rather than individual achievement).

Couple it to equality of input, paying the worst teachers the same as the best, giving the worst students the same attention as the best, and voilà, you have a major reason for the scholastic results of political correctness.

Transfer that politicized formula to private industry and you have the story of “Atlas Shrugged,” in which the private sector is rewarded (with state assistance) for failure rather than ability, in which objective standards of excellence are replaced with relative standards, in which the rights of industries in need take precedence.

The solution for the public schools is the solution and principal action in “Atlas Shrugged”: an owner’s strike. “Workers of the world, you try running an industry!” “Parents of the world, you try teaching in a public school!”

Socialists assume that society can change just one thing, such as ownership of the means of production, or ownership of the schools, and nothing else will change. They assume that the industrialists whose property you confiscated will stick around to help operate their former factories, and that teachers well prepared to teach American and European history, culture, and democracy will stick around to coach their multicultural replacements.

Once, during class, with one finger I tapped two students on the wrist to get them to stop talking. The parents of those students asked for a full hearing before the principal to resolve the incident.

Those students’ dysfunctional home life caused them to continually act up to get attention, yet those two students never missed my class. I allowed them to remain for the very reason that for my entire teaching career I taught their age level; namely, that when I was their age, 10, I was them.

Running scared, the principal said to me: “I will script the entire meeting, tell you exactly what to say. The last thing I want is the Board of Education coming here to question me about following their directives.”

Another time, music students throughout the district were invited to Lowell High School for a lecture presentation by Dizzy Gillespie. The rules of invitation were strict: Music students who did not qualify for federal supplementary funding from the Elementary Secondary Education Act (ESEA) could not attend.

In the school where I taught, most students qualified, but none of my music students did. Their parents cared for them just enough for them not to be classified socially and economically deprived.

The auditorium at Lowell High School that day was filled—with restless low-achieving students. Unaware, Mr. Gillespie spoke to them about 1960s black pride and political activism, telling the students that they were the black community’s next generation of leaders. (Not so different from conversation in the teacher lunchroom: “I don’t see why we have so many white teachers and downtown personnel at this school; we’re perfectly capable of running our own schools.” I reminded them of Brown v. Board of Education.)

Mr. Gillespie encouraged the students to continue their studies. He knew that ESEA was funding his presentation, but he had no idea what that really meant—which is that he was wasting his time, taxpayers’ money, the time of the 50 teachers who brought the students, and the time of the students themselves who would have been better off staying in the classroom. It was all very disturbing.

History Repeats

At close range, a student burped in my face. I touched the student on the cheek to let him know that was not acceptable. I told the principal. After 10 years of my volunteer teaching at her school, she said: “Walk out now. Do not come back.”

One hundred students were waiting to rehearse for the Spring Concert (chorus and recorders), and there were 15 intermediate recorders expecting to rehearse their graduation, but that was all irrelevant. The student who had burped in my face was known to the principal to be perpetually out of control—irrelevant. I hadn’t hit the student, I had just touched him—irrelevant.

I pleaded with the principal to reconsider. By email, I told her I loved that teaching job and that student and teacher should simply apologize to each other. “Absolutely not!”

I replied that if her decision was based on district policy (of which I wasn’t aware), I understood. If it was based solely on her intolerance of a teacher ever touching a student, I didn’t understand.

Had this principal, who greeted me every morning with “We all love you, Mr. Parker,” been secretly waiting for this moment? Under the circumstances, tossing out an experienced and dedicated teacher does not demonstrate leadership. Plus, I can never teach again.

In a New York Times article, writer Jonathan Beale wrote that Ludwig Wittgenstein, arguably the greatest philosopher of the 20th century, was deeply sincere and unsparingly self-critical. He trained to be an elementary school teacher and taught in Austria from 1920 to 1926. Prone to confession, he admitted that he had hit a schoolgirl for misbehaving. But upon interrogation by the headmaster in the pupil’s presence, Wittgenstein denied the accusation.

Beale didn’t understand the denial, which is why I should never have reported the incident—namely, because it’s not possible to be a sensitive, educated, and disciplined human being; over a long period of time teach students who are poorly raised, indifferent, and obnoxious; and never once give a remonstrative tap. Of course Wittgenstein lied—though it affected his conscience for years afterward.

The examples in this essay illustrate what it means for a nation to have politicized its public schools. Compensating for past discrimination, blaming a Euro-centric curriculum for poor Black and Latino test scores (as if those students could not possibly relate to Western civilization, i.e., to individual freedom), public education has “entitled” parents and students to special treatment—exactly what Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. both warned against. All that Douglass and King asked for was that this nation enforce its civil rights laws equally.

As with the politicized economic environment in “Atlas Shrugged,” for today’s politicized educational environment, Ayn Rand would have suggested that teachers and administrators withdraw their services.

An alternative, of course, would be for teachers and administrators to stick together.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.