NEW TEACHER REALITIES My teaching career began in the middle of the school year on January 3, 1966, at Langley Junior High in Washington D.C. I envisioned myself standing at the front of the classroom, teaching quiet, attentive, and respectful students. It did not take long for me to realize teaching would not be exactly how I envisioned it. The morning bell ringing signaled the start of homeroom and the beginning of a hectic day filled with chaos and frustration. A gaggle of thirty teenage boys burst through the doors of room 318, laughing, talking, shouting, and being generally unruly. "Good morning," I said as I smiled pleasantly with my pen and attendance sheet in hand to signal it was time to call the roll. Some of the boys paid me little attention. "I'm waiting." "Class. Class. Please settle down," I said a little louder. A few students came to order, but others kept doing whatever they wanted. The smile on my face concealed the frustration I was feeling inside. "I'm waiting," I said again, raising my hand, hoping to get their attention. Finally, I gave up and began to call the roll, attempting to be heard above the din in the classroom. There was never complete quiet and calm in the classroom. I was continually interrupted. "Mrs. Garrett, Can I go to the bathroom?" "Mrs. Garrett, I'm thirsty. Can I get some water?" "Mrs. Garrett, I forgot something; I need to go to my locker!!" I handed out hall passes to everyone who asked. Even though teachers were instructed to keep the number of hall passes issued to an absolute minimum, I felt compelled to give in to most students who asked for a pass. Randy was the biggest troublemaker in my homeroom. He had repeated the seventh grade twice, so he was fifteen years old in the seventh grade and thought that he could rule the class. Sometimes Randy would become irate if I did not let him have his way. "Why can't I go to the bathroom?" he demanded. "Because class is almost over," I replied. "You can go when you leave class." "I need to go now," he shot back. "You can't tell me what to do," he'd snarl in his deep voice as he stared down at me. He was about five or six inches taller than me and would stand close to me and continue to argue. I was dwarfed by his physical presence at five feet two inches and one hundred pounds. I hated dealing with his aggressive behavior, so I usually gave in to avoid having a confrontation. Eventually, after a lot of effort, I was able to take attendance and breathed a sigh of relief when the bell rang, signaling the end of homeroom. The boys stormed out of the room in the same unruly manner they had entered, and I was glad to see them leave. This scene was repeated daily during my first weeks at Langley. At first, I could not understand why my homeroom and some of my classes were filled with rowdy students, and other classes were filled with students who were well behaved. I soon learned it resulted from the implementation of the track system and social adjustment classes. The DC public school system used a controversial track system to organize students in homogenous groups based on standardized test scores in reading and mathematics, academic grades, and teacher input. Veteran teachers were usually given sections with the top students, and the new teachers got the most challenging students. Some veteran teachers had a reputation for handling disruptive students, so they were given a homeroom section with students on the lower track. I guess that is how I ended up with section 713, which was considered the lowest academic level boys' section in the 7th grade. This was the homeroom I had inherited from my retired predecessor. Those boys gave me a fit. My music classes did not get off to a great start either. In the middle of the school year, I was hired as a temporary teacher to replace the music teacher, Mrs. Coverdale, who had retired. She had taught at Langley for seventeen years and the students loved her. She was a legend, and her absence left a void. The students were not happy to see me. Every day I had to listen to them commiserate on the departure of their favorite music teacher. "I sure miss Mrs. Coverdale," someone would say with a sigh whenever I began a lesson. "Yeah, I wish Mrs. Coverdale was here," another student would mournfully reply. Teachers were required to write lesson plans. For each lesson, the teacher had to write down the goals for the lesson, the questions to be asked, and the expected answer. Unfortunately, the lesson never ended up being like what was written. The junior high music curriculum was mainly singing. It was taught through songbooks that contained songs a typical city black child was not interested in: "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," "I Wish I Was in Dixie Land," "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain." During my first year of teaching, I followed the curriculum and stuck to my lesson plans. Much to my chagrin, many students did not enjoy the lessons I prepared. "Mrs. Garrett, why do we have to sing this country song?" someone asked when I started to teach a lesson using the song "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain." RUDE AWAKENINGS I was not prepared for what I experienced during my first year of teaching. The disrespect, the backtalk, the utter disregard for rules and authority figures was unnerving. I admit that I was naïve. I expected the students at Langley to behave the way students behaved when I was growing up in Kinston. I was taken aback by the students' confrontational behavior. I did not expect to have to justify my decisions to a child or discuss what I said. That was the problem. I would say something to a student, and he would talk back to me. He would continue to come back with something else to everything I said. I wasn't prepared for that, and it really frustrated me. They did not respect authority or adults the way I had been taught. In Kinston, when the principal walked into the classroom, the students would immediately be quiet. At Langley, when the principal came in, the students might behave, or they might not behave. At home, teachers were held in high regard; and students respected them simply for the fact that they were teachers. We not only respected our teachers, we loved and appreciated them. If a student misbehaved, it was mischievous behavior but not hateful or hurtful. I expected the students at Langley to respect me because I was an adult. To settle down and listen to me because I was the teacher. But that was not necessarily the case. There was no special respect or love for me just because I was a teacher. New teachers weren't even a zero in students' minds. They were less than that. New teachers entered the classroom as a minus in the students' eyes. It was up to the teachers to raise their status and prove they deserved to be respected. I've always found people who were different from me interesting, which is why I found my students' behavior intriguing. As much as the disruptive students frustrated me, I was also fascinated by them. I had never seen that conduct in children before. I wondered, "How does a 12-year-old start acting like that?" I was amazed that city kids had enough gumption to speak their minds and behave the way they did. I quickly realized my expectations for these students were not realistic. I had no experience with urban children. I also realized being good at student teaching in a southern high school did not automatically translate into being able to manage students in an urban junior high school. Sure, I learned a lot of best teaching practices when I was in college. But I did not know enough about what to do when the situation did not go as planned. During student teaching, the master teacher was always in the classroom. On the rare occasion when a student acted up, she would step in and rescue me. At Langley, there was no rescue at hand. I was on my own. A NEW RULEBOOK Despite my frustrating experiences, I still wanted to be a teacher and make a difference in my students' lives. Those disruptive students were not going to run me out of there. I was so happy to have a job, to even get one in the middle of the school year. At no point did I consider asking for a transfer or quitting. Those thoughts never entered my mind. My four years at Bennett had given me confidence because all students heard from everyone on campus was, "We believe in you." "We're expecting great things from you." Seeing successful, confident women professors and other Bennett Belles who had graduated let me believe that I could do the same. We were taught not to make excuses. If you needed to "burn the midnight oil" by staying up all night to complete an assignment, we were expected to do whatever it took to get that assignment in and before the deadline. There's no greater feeling than the feeling of relief and satisfaction you get after a difficult challenge has been mastered...
