— but another would be there again next period. There’d be an anonymous noise while I was talking — a clicking or a harmonica note or something similar — and it would stop the moment I did. I couldn’t ignore it because every time it happened the whole class got out of control and became noisy, and I couldn’t pin it down either. And the thing was, they knew as well as I did what would happen if I cracked down on anyone and sent him to the principal’s office for discipline.
I’d
get spoken to, not the student, for letting things get out of control. It was
my
responsibility.
“Hell,” Groton said, “is a roomful of rebellious juveniles — and a pusillanimous administration. I was committed, and I refused to quit — but I became obsessed with the progress of the negotiations between the state authority and the FEA.”
“FEA?” Ivo asked.
“Florida Education Association. That was the teachers’ group, and they still may be, for all I know. I really came to appreciate their stand. I never worked so hard in my life, in the face of such abuse. Oh. the newspapers were full of editorials! ‘Wonderful Volunteers Filling In For Errant Teachers,’ ‘Nobody Cares About Our Innocent Children,’ ‘Governor Unavailable For Comment’ and so on. But I was in a position, as I had not been before, to comprehend the truth. The boys were a lot less innocent than the editorialists! I was a scab — a strikebreaker — and while I think there may have been some better way to protest, the teachers certainly had compelling arguments on their side.
“The extra pay had seemed nice at first, like so much lagniappe. It enhanced my normal gross by a good fifty percent. But it wasn’t worth it! For one thing, my time was never my own; I was grading papers every night and trying to do something about the ones with identical mistakes — pretty sure sign of cheating, but not
proof
— and preparing for the next day’s sessions. I had trouble sleeping. I kept seeing those vulpine young faces peering at me, waiting for any slip, eager for my attention to wander so that they could sling another spitwad at the windowpane. And I realized that their regular teacher had to do this all the time — for no more pay than that fifty percent!
“But the worst shock came at the end. The teacher walkout collapsed after a couple of weeks, and most of them came back to fill their old places. I went back to my own job with voluminous relief. It was the weight of the world off my shoulders! But I paid one more visit to that school, after things were settled, because I wanted to meet the man I had replaced. I wanted to apologize to him for my ignorance and interference, and congratulate him for being a better man than I was. The education had been mine, really, and I had learned a lot of respect for him, knowing how good a job he had done under such conditions. I had seen his books and records, and knew he was a very fine engineer, too;
he
was right up to date, even if the texts he had to use weren’t.
“But he wasn’t there. His classes had been redistributed among other teachers. The school board had refused to hire him back. It turned out that he was an officer of the FEA, and one of the organizers of the walkout. So the board had its revenge on him and those like him, even though they were among the best teachers in the system. The mediocre teachers they kept; those were not ‘troublemakers’ who insisted on pushing for school improvements. I learned that this was happening all over the state, and I knew that the educational system there was never going to be the same again. They had brutally purged their most dedicated men and women, the ones who cared the most, rather than admit that the teachers’ complaints were valid.”
“Why didn’t they pay their teachers more?” Ivo asked. “Buy better texts, and so on? Why did they let so many other states forge ahead where it counted?”
“The state was in a financial bind at
I’d
get spoken to, not the student, for letting things get out of control. It was
my
responsibility.
“Hell,” Groton said, “is a roomful of rebellious juveniles — and a pusillanimous administration. I was committed, and I refused to quit — but I became obsessed with the progress of the negotiations between the state authority and the FEA.”
“FEA?” Ivo asked.
“Florida Education Association. That was the teachers’ group, and they still may be, for all I know. I really came to appreciate their stand. I never worked so hard in my life, in the face of such abuse. Oh. the newspapers were full of editorials! ‘Wonderful Volunteers Filling In For Errant Teachers,’ ‘Nobody Cares About Our Innocent Children,’ ‘Governor Unavailable For Comment’ and so on. But I was in a position, as I had not been before, to comprehend the truth. The boys were a lot less innocent than the editorialists! I was a scab — a strikebreaker — and while I think there may have been some better way to protest, the teachers certainly had compelling arguments on their side.
“The extra pay had seemed nice at first, like so much lagniappe. It enhanced my normal gross by a good fifty percent. But it wasn’t worth it! For one thing, my time was never my own; I was grading papers every night and trying to do something about the ones with identical mistakes — pretty sure sign of cheating, but not
proof
— and preparing for the next day’s sessions. I had trouble sleeping. I kept seeing those vulpine young faces peering at me, waiting for any slip, eager for my attention to wander so that they could sling another spitwad at the windowpane. And I realized that their regular teacher had to do this all the time — for no more pay than that fifty percent!
“But the worst shock came at the end. The teacher walkout collapsed after a couple of weeks, and most of them came back to fill their old places. I went back to my own job with voluminous relief. It was the weight of the world off my shoulders! But I paid one more visit to that school, after things were settled, because I wanted to meet the man I had replaced. I wanted to apologize to him for my ignorance and interference, and congratulate him for being a better man than I was. The education had been mine, really, and I had learned a lot of respect for him, knowing how good a job he had done under such conditions. I had seen his books and records, and knew he was a very fine engineer, too;
he
was right up to date, even if the texts he had to use weren’t.
“But he wasn’t there. His classes had been redistributed among other teachers. The school board had refused to hire him back. It turned out that he was an officer of the FEA, and one of the organizers of the walkout. So the board had its revenge on him and those like him, even though they were among the best teachers in the system. The mediocre teachers they kept; those were not ‘troublemakers’ who insisted on pushing for school improvements. I learned that this was happening all over the state, and I knew that the educational system there was never going to be the same again. They had brutally purged their most dedicated men and women, the ones who cared the most, rather than admit that the teachers’ complaints were valid.”
“Why didn’t they pay their teachers more?” Ivo asked. “Buy better texts, and so on? Why did they let so many other states forge ahead where it counted?”
“The state was in a financial bind at
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