Lessons Learned
David Bunnell had a great ambition to make a difference in our society and a great deal of scorn for those who were not concerned. High on his list of disapproval was almost the entire class of Alliance High School for being unaware, or worse, unconcerned about the condition of the Native Americans whose land they were living on. Alliance did not even exist until after Buffalo "Bill" Cody had scalped chief Yellow Hair in the Battle of Warbonnet Creek and Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were defeated by the United States Army. So thoroughly had the Lakota tribe been cleared away that the entire town could have been lifted up and plopped down in the Middle of Ohio without any noticeable difference.
There was a small population of Lakota in Alliance that lived in "Indian Town", a collection of homesteads on south of the rail road tracks accessible only by an overpass on one end of the town and an underpass at the other. Their houses were patched together shacks made with what building materials they could find. Old corrugated metal sheets, scraps of plywood and cast off doors all were attached side by side making a visual puzzle of a town. Most children living there were from the Pine ridge Indian reservation and were not attending school in Alliance. I visited Indian Town because I had a friend whose grandparents had a small farm in the area and we went there to play. The town is gone now. Elgin Badwound, a Lakota Sioux, was in my second grade class the first time I was in Alliance. I do not remember him except for the day at the end of the year when came up to me crying. He had just been told he had to repeat second grade. He was humiliated and afraid of loosing his friends. I remember him because he came to me for comfort. I probably said he would be okay. That summer our family moved away and did not hear about him again until seventh grade. The Corner Grocery was cross the street from the County Courthouse which housed the jail. Everyday a guard from the jail would come to the store to buy lunch meat to feed the prisoners. The guard told me there was a boy my age in jail for public drunkenness. The boy was Elgin Badwound. I looked up at the barred windows on the top floor trying to imagine myself inside one of those cells. "Drunken Indian" was a common phrase in Alliance and stories of them being passed out on the street were subjects of jokes among the class. "Indians can not hold their liquor," they said, as if they would not drink if almost their entire family had been killed or herded in to camps. At thirteen Elgin's life was already ruined, probably had been since second grade as far as I knew. He had been the only Lakota in the second grade class. He had had ambition once. Dave and I both had a habit of cheering for the underdog and this quality was stewed to maximum boil with the first Cassius Clay fight against Sonny Liston. The scorn the class universally heaped on the "loudmouth Clay" as they called him, was so vicious we felt sorry for him. With glee the class described how big Sonny Liston's fist was going to kill Cassius Clay and shut him up for good. David and I secretly mourned Cassius's probable humiliation and shared a disgust for the other students. Mohammad Ali's victory was such a thrill it bonded David and I together as devout fans. We followed Ali's career together right up until his retirement. The turmoil of the race riots in Los Angeles, Detroit, Newark and many other cities across the county created an atmosphere of a revolution. The 1968 Democratic convention, the Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and students killed at Kent State all swirled around in David’s head like over cooked vegetables in a boiling pot. While David and I were both believed in social justice, the difference was that David took action. While I was working at the John Deere factory and living out my artist's fantasy, he and his wife, Linda, had taken teaching jobs a Chicago inner city elementary school that was suffering from the casual neglect of the ruling class. David taught the sixth grade and before beginning his second year he began trying to convince me to become a substitute teacher in the same school. Apparently, since the conditions were so stressful, almost all the teachers took every sick day available to them. So desperate was the school for substitutes I could be hired full time even without a teaching certificate. I said yes, a decision that upset my brother for breaking up our little family dwelling on the hillside. I was surprised at Andrew because by that time he had numerous friends and was fully involved in the small Church of Christ that we all attended. Still, I had to leave angrily. Dave and Linda were renting part of a duplex in Oak Park, a village next to Chicago where Frank Lloyd Wright had lived. They invited me to move in with them. The apartment was small so I wound up staying in the basement with the oil tank for the furnace as a headboard; which is something I was becoming accustomed to since having once used a pile of dirty laundry as a bed in a tight living situation during my drug filled last semester at the University. Preparations for my first day consisted of David trying to describe a situation so full of stress and chaos that nothing in my lifetime experience would be of any use. He laughed at the notion my own suffering and poverty would foster understanding and kinship. The underfunded school in a poor district of the city was filled with children frantic for any scrap of happiness they could grab without suffering the wrath of punishment used to quell their rebellion. Having read the "Autobiography of Malcolm X" was not going to help me he said. Neither was being sympathetic. I was to be a substitute teacher, a position of least respect and authority, and all that mattered was surviving the day. I could not imagine what he was talking about. What I needed to do, he told me, was assault the class with as much aggressive bluster as I could and gain control as quickly as possible. I should enter the class room with authority, slam the door shut hard and shout "Shut up and sit down" as loud as I could. Reading the "Autobiography of Malcolm X" did not prepare me for what I was about to see. The school building was a large, old fashioned brick building similar to the elementary schools in Alliance except that all the glass windows on the first floor were gone, replaced by metal sheets. The front doors were steel with holes where a large chain was fed through. The students were funneled through the doors they were padlocked shut at eight am. Latecomers had to bang on the door until a guard opened up. Inside the all black students cascaded through the halls, children from kindergarten age size to near adult eight graders swirling around each other like white water rapids. Their last minute bursts of laughter and announcements of existence reaching fever pitch before being channeled into their designated rooms to continue the battle for snippets of satisfaction. The metal lockers reverberated the animated chatter to a high pitched din announcing the entrance to the flip side of my life. I had become nothing next to their everything. I could only humbly absorb their world. I walked anxiously through the loud, chaotic hallway to my assigned class for the day, slammed the door shut and shouted so hard my glasses became briefly dislodged. Once I could focus on the room I a saw a young boy sitting on a window sill casually tossing books out the open window. The rest of the class were chasing each other around the desks in a game of tag. I ran with them trying to corral each one individually and berate them into their seats. When the recess bell rang they left and, fortunately, less than half came back. I felt useless and hopeless. I asked the other teachers for any help they could give me but all they offered was spiritual advice or techniques such as starting the lesson plans left by the teacher quickly to settle the students down. Usually there were no lesson plans. Taking attendance became the first line of attack. The restless students would become still at the sound of their name long enough to be directed to their seats where the most compliant remained while I tried to round up the more spirited ones. The most lively I usually memorized before noon from repeated use. Vocalizing names was essential for my survival. The most unruly where then threatened to be turned over to the vice principle, the feared dispenser of marshal law. His ace in the hole was the authority to inflect serious pain insides the confines of his office. Through his slightly open door I saw him whip a seated boy across his thighs with his belt. The boy's scream was piercing. The vice principle visited my classes daily in the beginning to give me a fighting chance to maintain some control but his effect was brief. The biggest challenge was the children's almost uncontainable desire to talk to each other. It was the most innocent of activities that created the background of chaos that swelled intensity while I tried to deal with the more assertive and clever disruptors. Even with class assignments I was dealing with near riots, with no lesson plans it was a full on battle. The more docile students I asked about their studies so I could at least try to give some instructions, or a page to read, maybe some math problems to solve. In desperation, I asked a young student how her teacher maintained discipline. She took me to the teachers closet and grabbed a yard stick wrapped around and around with tape to make a strong whipping stick. "The teacher used this," the child said. "How?", I asked. The girl spun slightly around and pointed down to her calf. "She hits us there," she said. "Oh," I said. Oh, oh, oh. The very polite young lady was giving me an option on how to proceed. Other students in different classes showed me various teachers interments tucked away in desk drawers and supply closets. Ping pong paddles, belts, clubs made out of tightly rolled magazines, spark plug wires and a baseball bat were all options that I had to think about. The choice was between morality and a desperate need for control, a desperate need for quiet. The instruments shown to me were from the younger classes, by sixth grade the students were too formable to think about attacking. By eighth grade the students taunted police on the street through the open window. Knowing the instruments were in the classroom was not much help because the thought of using them was so obviously wrong. So obviously wrong that no teacher I talked to would admit to hitting a child, in fact, I was admonished to never hit a child. However, one day the choice was made for me. Not a particularly unruly day but a day when a tornado of uncontrollable chatter drove me past my rational mind. Grabbing the available instrument, a baseball bat, I announced to the class that everyone was to sit down. Waving the bat in front of me I watched the majority of the class ignore me. "Sit down!" I screamed and slammed the bat down as hard as I could on the top of the first desk in the row. From my periphery I saw the children dash to their seats but I was not to be stopped. "Sit down!" I screamed again smashing the bat down on the top of the second desk bouncing books into the air. "Sit down! Sit down! Sit down!' I howled, advancing to the end of the row. All the veneers of civilization had been stripped away from me and shortly after I began hitting little second grade girls on their open palms with a paddle or smacking forth grade boys on the legs which a yardstick wrapped in tape. Little palms and legs that were voluntarily presented for punishment by the primal beast I had become. Commands they accepted because they knew refusal would bring in the wrath of the Vice Principle. I had joined the ancient order of brutality that had kept those students in submission for the last four hundred years. The tension level was so high in those classes that at the end of the day I had to take long slow breaths to keep from throwing up as I walked to the L train. There was not enough intelligence, strength or charm to provide hope in that helpless situation let alone keep a head above the nihilistic cynicism smothering everyone in that school. We were killing off the doctors, lawyers, writers, and scientists that could have existed inside their tiny bodies. Years later I drew many violent images. I was not making social commentary. The drawings are about crimes committed by me. |
The most devious, successful and possibly cruel plan to quiet the siren song of the chattering children driving me towards the madness of corporal punishment was the use of bathroom privileges. Though unable to control their need to talk and have fun the majority of the class was obedient; which meant they honored my authority to grant passes to the bathroom. I numbered each row on the black board and used X's to note noise infractions. The row with the most Xs lost permission for anyone in that row to get a hall pass for the bathroom. The technique did not work well at the beginning of the day but gradually the room got quieter and quieter. I don't think during those calm moments I was able to teach anything of value or even if I attempted to cobble a lesson from the teachers notes. The most effective use of the plan was rewarding the row with fewest X's the chance to leave class a couple minutes early for the lunch line, the most valuable reward I could offer. The brief joy of those children getting that extra morsal of happiness was my only accomplishment .
The technique was useless for older classes. They would have paid no attention and just walked out the door. Those children were generally calmer anyway, due to maturity of their age. At that age, unmanageable behavior was handled by the Vice Principle or the law itself, if needed. Eight graders were an imposing bunch, veterans of a life I would have been lucky to survive. One day, two eighth grade girls jumped up and started pounding each other. I stepped in-between to break them up. My head was snapped back so hard by a fist that my snap on tie flew off, along with my glasses and all the pencils in my pocket. The class gently picked me up and helped reassemble my wardrobe.
One standout performance came from a fourth grade boy who did an amazing drum solo as he walked around the room rattling his drum stick off walls, desks, flagpoles and windows. I had to let him have a minute or two in his revery before stepping in to berate him into submission. He was in the school band taught by a drug infused new age teacher who walked through the turmoil with immunity because if his students misbehaved he simply took their instruments away. The only thing I had to take away was a day of possible achievement.
The technique was useless for older classes. They would have paid no attention and just walked out the door. Those children were generally calmer anyway, due to maturity of their age. At that age, unmanageable behavior was handled by the Vice Principle or the law itself, if needed. Eight graders were an imposing bunch, veterans of a life I would have been lucky to survive. One day, two eighth grade girls jumped up and started pounding each other. I stepped in-between to break them up. My head was snapped back so hard by a fist that my snap on tie flew off, along with my glasses and all the pencils in my pocket. The class gently picked me up and helped reassemble my wardrobe.
One standout performance came from a fourth grade boy who did an amazing drum solo as he walked around the room rattling his drum stick off walls, desks, flagpoles and windows. I had to let him have a minute or two in his revery before stepping in to berate him into submission. He was in the school band taught by a drug infused new age teacher who walked through the turmoil with immunity because if his students misbehaved he simply took their instruments away. The only thing I had to take away was a day of possible achievement.
The third grade class started out like most of classes I was assigned to for the day. I started with a quick search through the desk looking for any kind of lesson plan that could give me a clue how to proceed. Once the class had settled I wrote my name on the board. Considering the damage I had been causing to innocent children, I cynically spelled out the name “Attila De Hunn” on the board.
Unknown to me, the afternoon before, the actual teacher had marched out into the parking lot and proceeded to scream for half an hour before getting into her car and driving away. She phoned in her resignation from home. Suddenly those children had a new teacher named Mr. Hunn.
I had never taken a single class on teaching and had no experience other than screaming and hitting and was inadequate for what they needed. When the Principal asked me to take over the class I panicked and agreed only if they were seriously going to look for a replacement. I was in the class for six weeks.
The desk presented me with a sense of power I had not appreciated as a vagabond substitute teacher. Like a captain on a deck I could keep a barrier between myself and the stormy sea of children spread out in front of me. I had graduated from a substitute to an imitation teacher. I learned the third grade lessons plans as quickly as possible and the lessons learned from the brutality of substitute teaching help me control the class enough to get to know the children. I still had to rely on the Vice Principle to calm down the most unruly. I asked for him because I was not intelligent enough to negotiate with the young warriors battling or any kind of spoils they could win. I had live day to day without illusion of understanding the world I was in.
One day, after several weeks had passed and daily routine had allowed for moments of calm, I was sitting behind my desk grading the paper of a young girl who was standing beside me when I felt her fingers gently stroke my hair. She she pulled her hand away when I looked at her and smiled briefly before looking down to the floor. Filled with the same curiosity, I reached out and gently stoked her low afro. In unison, all the girls in the class jumped out of their seat and charged toward me, climbing right over the desk with their arms outstretched towards my head like a wave breaching an embankment. In a flash I was on the ground with dozens of fingers rubbing my hair. I starting rubbing as many of their heads as I could reach in return, stirring up fever in them that made me fear being torn bald. Yelling for them to stop and waving away their arms I managed to stand up. Fortunately; perhaps stunned at what had just had just done; they filed politely back to their seats. A few girls hung back because they missed their chance to reach me. I bent down and offered my head to them. They politely stroked my hair and then joined the rest of the class in their seats.Three weeks later I was notified that a new teacher had been found. By thenI was sad to leave but they deserved a teacher that was properly trained. On my last day the girls handed me a card they had made.
Unknown to me, the afternoon before, the actual teacher had marched out into the parking lot and proceeded to scream for half an hour before getting into her car and driving away. She phoned in her resignation from home. Suddenly those children had a new teacher named Mr. Hunn.
I had never taken a single class on teaching and had no experience other than screaming and hitting and was inadequate for what they needed. When the Principal asked me to take over the class I panicked and agreed only if they were seriously going to look for a replacement. I was in the class for six weeks.
The desk presented me with a sense of power I had not appreciated as a vagabond substitute teacher. Like a captain on a deck I could keep a barrier between myself and the stormy sea of children spread out in front of me. I had graduated from a substitute to an imitation teacher. I learned the third grade lessons plans as quickly as possible and the lessons learned from the brutality of substitute teaching help me control the class enough to get to know the children. I still had to rely on the Vice Principle to calm down the most unruly. I asked for him because I was not intelligent enough to negotiate with the young warriors battling or any kind of spoils they could win. I had live day to day without illusion of understanding the world I was in.
One day, after several weeks had passed and daily routine had allowed for moments of calm, I was sitting behind my desk grading the paper of a young girl who was standing beside me when I felt her fingers gently stroke my hair. She she pulled her hand away when I looked at her and smiled briefly before looking down to the floor. Filled with the same curiosity, I reached out and gently stoked her low afro. In unison, all the girls in the class jumped out of their seat and charged toward me, climbing right over the desk with their arms outstretched towards my head like a wave breaching an embankment. In a flash I was on the ground with dozens of fingers rubbing my hair. I starting rubbing as many of their heads as I could reach in return, stirring up fever in them that made me fear being torn bald. Yelling for them to stop and waving away their arms I managed to stand up. Fortunately; perhaps stunned at what had just had just done; they filed politely back to their seats. A few girls hung back because they missed their chance to reach me. I bent down and offered my head to them. They politely stroked my hair and then joined the rest of the class in their seats.Three weeks later I was notified that a new teacher had been found. By thenI was sad to leave but they deserved a teacher that was properly trained. On my last day the girls handed me a card they had made.