Education Life

Cinnamon Altoids and Pepto-Bismol

Teaching may look hard, but that ain’t the half of it

I hated school. Hated it. After the last day of senior year, I stuffed everything into my backpack, tied it to my car bumper, and dragged it around the neighborhood for a while. Then I came home, fired up the barbecue grill, and tossed in everything flammable.

Becoming a teacher was not the plan.

Both my parents were college professors, but that didn’t seem like teaching teaching. University campuses are cool, and the students are — no offense to my high school classmates, who weren’t — smart and interesting. Plus the prof strolls in, does the class, and leaves. If the kids don’t show up it’s not your problem. If they’re disruptive you can just give ‘em the old Logan Roy “fuck off!” Well, sort of. There are some limits.

There was also a therapist who suggested it. Aside from constantly noshing on peanuts, there are the two things I remember about him. One was a self-consciousness exercise: knock something off a shelf at the grocery store and observe the reaction. It was an early lesson in adulthood — turns out very few of them give a shit what anybody else is doing. Dropping a notebook in homeroom can make you the butt of jokes for years, but in the real world people have 99 problems and you ain’t one.

The other was he suggested I become a teacher. I laughed in his face. Rude? Maybe, but it seemed ironic my head examiner needed his head examined.

Then it happened.

As mentioned, being a college professor seemed cool. So some years later I found myself on that track as a graduate student in mathematics. Part of it involved being a teaching assistant. On the first day I went to the assigned room, reached out to open the door, and nothing happened. My brain announced it no longer understood doorknobs.

I came this close to walking past and never going back.

Not to say I’m shy and socially awkward, but it is true my elementary school thought I was autistic. It’s been getting better— gradually — but enough so at the time to turn back and go in. More of a shamble, really, since I couldn’t feel my legs. Spending the entire first day of class leaning on the table at the front of the room was less about trying to look cool and more hoping not to pass out and fall on the floor.

That definitely would have made an impression.

After a few years, teaching turned out to be more fun than studying. I’m actually pretty good at it. Also, straight up not smart enough to be a mathematician. However hard you think it is, you have no fucking idea. Insanity. I finished a Master’s degree and half a year of doctoral work, then ran for the hills.

In the midst of all that, I had fallen in love with the woman who — thank the gods — is now my wife. She was training as a school band director, which looked very cool. So with the math thing dead, I dusted off my clarinet and applied to music school.

The truth is I’ve always wanted to be a musician but never thought I had the talent for it. Naturally — this being the story of my life — it turned out to be almost true. But I graduated as a reminder to take “classically trained musician” with a grain of salt and an honest-to-God high school band director.

It’s a very hard job.

Next time you’re at a high school football game, watch the band at halftime. It looks tricky. That ain’t the half of it. The kids have to learn the music and the routines while operating under the greatest handicap known to humankind — being kids.

A successful marching routine is the result of convincing a swarm of adolescents to all do the exact right thing at the exact right time. Let that roll around in your head for a while. Yes, I am nominating “swarm” as the official collective term for adolescents. Or maybe gaggle would be better. Geese already have it in use, but it feels right.

Where did my teaching career end up? In a hospital ER with a doctor suggesting another line of work. Placing your career satisfaction in the hands of teenagers is not for everyone.

Maybe the end shouldn’t have been such a surprise. A former student said some of his strongest memories of me were “cinnamon Altoids and Pepto-Bismol.” While it was absolutely the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, it turns out teaching band takes a lot of intestinal fortitude I don’t have.

So if you take anything away from this tale, let it be this: when your life reaches the point you’re going through a bottle of sickly sweet pink slime every week, it’s time to take a good hard look in the mirror.