FIRST PERSON - It wasn’t one single incident that made me quit teaching in a public middle school. It was the steady, moldy accumulation of dehumanizing, lifeless, squalid misadventures of which I was a part. Like that time with “Carlos,” to pick an incident more or less at random.
I can’t even remember what it was that happened between Carlos and me. Anger, impatience, frustration, stupidity — and that was just me. Probably just another student who categorically refused to do as he was perfectly reasonably asked — open a book, pick up a pencil, hand in homework — or a teacher’s ineffectual attempts to come up with any good reason at all to learn the Pythagorean Theorem, or some such timeless knowledge.
OK! Let’s say you have a ladder leaning against a wall. Suffice to say, our “conversation” ended without closure. But, evidently I said something that upset Carlos.
(The Rest of Peter Hirzel’s Salon column here)
(Peter Hirzel is a teacher and artist in Los Angeles. This piece was posted first at salon.com. Salon features such notable writers as Joan Walsh, David Sirota, Mary Elizabeth Williams and more.)
-cw
Tags: Peter Hirzel, LAUSD, LA schools, Los Angeles, education, teaching
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 75
Pub: Sept 18, 2012
