Teaching - For the fun of it (April Fools' Day)

 

On April 1^st, I walk into my freshman English class and—surprise!—the students are sitting with their backs to me. They have turned all their desks around and face the rear wall. They are unusually quiet. No one snickers.

I consider my options. (Do Not Smile, I tell myself.)

I walk to the back of the room, far from my desk and the blackboard. (The year, 1980). I put my papers on the desk of a student now in the “front” row.

“Morning,” I say, in as normal a voice as I can manage. (Do Not Smile.) I pick up my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. “So in last night’s reading of chapter 9—."  Many, a bit hesitant (What! No response to our Fabulous Joke!!!), open their books too. But they are 14 or 15 years old; several cannot hold it in. First a few guffaws. Then we all break out in a good long laugh. April Fools!

Teaching gives us these moments that we cherish decades later.

As all retired teachers do, I worry about the negative perception of the profession; about the morale of those teaching today; about whether enough talented would-be teachers will find their way into our classrooms – and stay.

They need to know: this can be fun. Even joyful.

I once asked a veteran teacher why he kept at it. He smiled. “What other job,” he said, “can give you two good laughs a day?”

**

I am teaching middle school students and find too many write a lot as one word. So I create “A romantic comedy, in one act.” I ask a boy and a girl to take the two parts. I may have embarrassed one or two. I recall more than one red-faced student up in front of the class, trying to portray the heartbreak in my “touching” script. I hope they knew it was all in good fun.

LOT – What are you saying? You want to break up with me?

A - I have to, don’t you see? I’m too dependent on you! I need to stand on my own!

LOT – How can you speak to me like this? We’re one! We belong to each other!

A – I can’t breathe in this relationship! I’ve got to get out, I’ve got to get away!

LOT - But we look so great together! Everybody says we’re a perfect match!

A – Maybe they do, but the dictionary says no. This misspelling simply cannot go on! In the future, I will see you from a distance … one space away! BYE!

As teachers, we are not proud: anything to eliminate spelling errors!

**

Then there was Valentine’s Day. Before classes start I find four of the more confident 8^th grade boys to come in and practice reading a stanza each … from Robert Burns’ My Luv is Like a Red Red Rose. I offer my own awful attempt at a Scottish brogue, my loooove is like a red red roooose, and ask them to do likewise.

Later in the day, near the end of their class, I have the boys come up and give their reading. The hams among them exaggerate beautifully—Till aaaa’ the seas gang dddrrry, my der. At times the boys are laughing too hard to finish their stanza. But the words are almost too perfect to kill the sentiment. Their bonnie lasses, the girls in the class, are smiling. Maybe some feel sorry for these poor guys, forced to declare their undying loooove.

I’m not sorry. We had fun.

**

Moments of good humor in the classroom can lift our spirits. Students’ smiles and laughter can make our day.

Future teachers, the challenges are real. But it’s true, as well, that we teach for the fun of it.

Greedland - A Tolstoy parable for our time

 

   Published in 1886, Leo Tolstoy’s short story, “How Much Land Does a Man Need?,” speaks to this moment. A President constrained only by his own “morality.”

   Our main character, Pahóm, a peasant in a small village, is frustrated. Throughout the story, we hear his thoughts. This first one is a killer.

   “Our only trouble is that we haven’t land enough. If I had plenty of land, I shouldn’t fear the Devil himself.”

   The Devil hears that boast and decides to act.

   A small landowner is selling 300 acres. When Pahóm learns that others are buying up portions, he is envious. He and his wife raise enough to purchase 40 acres.

   “So now Pahóm had land of his own.”

   Soon there are disputes with neighbors. Pahóm decides, “I am still too cramped to be comfortable.”

   He hears of a new settlement far away. He sells the first property and acquires 125 acres in this distant region.

   “He was ten times better than he had been. He had plenty of arable land and pasturage …”

   And yet it is not enough. To sow more wheat, he rents land from a dealer.

   But he wants more control.

   “If it were my own land, I should be independent ….”

   A stranger stops by Pahóm’s house. He claims to have just bought 13,000 acres of land for only 1,000 rubles, from the Bashkirs, a nomadic tribe. Pahóm travels several hundred miles to see for himself. He meets the Chief and prepares to make a deal.

   “Our price,” the Chief tells him, “is always the same: one thousand rubles a day.”

   Pahóm is puzzled.

   “As much as you can go round on your feet in a day is yours, and the price is one thousand rubles a day.”

   The promise (or warning) is this: “You may take as large a circuit as you please, but before the sun sets you must return to the place you started from … if you don’t return on the same day to the same spot when you started, your money is lost.”

   “Pahóm was delighted.”

   He will start early the next day. That night he can hardly sleep. Just before sunrise, he dreams of the land deals he has made, and the Devil appears, laughing at a dead man. Pahóm realizes he is that man.

   He rises with the sun and hurries to the small hill where his walk will begin.

   The Chief stretches out his arm towards the plain. “See, all this, as far as your eye can reach, is ours. You may have any part of it you like.”

   “Pahóm’s eyes glistened; it was all virgin soil, as flat as the palm of your hand, as black as the seed of a poppy…”

    Pahóm sets out to stake his new property with three posts. He walks six miles before establishing his first post. He turns left and walks another good distance. The sun is high overhead. The second post is set.

   He has taken too long with the first two sides. The third side is shorter. He begins to panic.  

   “I must hurry back in a straight line now. I might go too far, and as it is I have a great deal of land.”

   “… he now walked with difficulty. He was done up with heat, his bare feet were cut and bruised, and his legs began to fail.”

   Ten miles to go.

   “Oh dear, if only I have not blundered trying for too much! What if I am too late?”

   He begins to run.

   “What shall I do? I have grasped too much and ruined the whole affair. I cannot get there before sun sets… “

   He is breathless.   

   “After having run all that way, they will call me a fool if I stop now.”’

   The sun is sinking.

   The Bashkirs are waiting at the top of the hill. He hears them “yelling and shouting to him, and their cries inflamed his heart still more.”

   He lurches on.

   “The sun was close to the rim, and cloaked in mist looked large, and red as blood.”

   As he climbs that final hill, it suddenly grows dark. But at the top, where the Chief is waiting, “it was still light.”

   Pahóm staggers up. He reaches the top just in time – and collapses.

   The Chief exclaims: “He has gained much land!”

   But Pahóm is dead.

   His servant digs a grave, “long enough for Pahóm to lie in,” and buries him.

   And Tolstoy’s final sentence.

   “Six feet from his head to his heels was all he needed.”