Mrs. Southern was a born again Christian who was very sweet, but she preached to us all the time, told us rock music was the devil, kind of like Dana Carvy's character Church Lady on SNL years ago.
Mrs. Southern censored what we read. We had to read and write book reports, but she had to approve the book first. For example, she did not approve of Evenor, because it was fantasy. I read that, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien outside, and since my father was blind, my brother and I read him the Tolkien trilogy, taking turns reading, the three of us in a room together. I would get hungry... and Dad would say, "what's she eating now?" The writing about food made me hungry.
In Mrs. Southern's non separation of church and state class, which was against the law (it was public school) and I actually knew two boys who were Jewish, Frankie and Michael, she preferred we read books off of her bookshelf like The Cross and the Switchblade or The Hiding Place, about Corrie ten Boone in Amsterdam, the Christian family who went to concentration camp for courageously and heroically hiding Jews, actually a very good book, and something to learn about.
Anyway, she would show us a brief film, and we had to write on it, and then read out loud to the class. It was interesting what kids wrote. For example: after watching this film called High on Life, with sunsets and a couple kissing on the beach, one kid wrote: "life is not just about kissing on the beach..."
Wow, jaded so early.
There was an African American girl named Quana who was an amazing poetess. She would write real heavy stuff and read it fast, (way before the time of rap) like "you're just a broken doll... shattered on the wall..."
Anyway, finally in tenth grade, where as well as diagramming sentences, we wrote an essay on the movie, David and Lisa. I recall writing it at my grandmother's condo. My parents were out of town. My English teacher, Mr. Corbett wrote, "boy, can you write..." on my paper. That was the first of anyone believing in me, Mr. Corbett, that is in terms of school teachers (I did have some music teachers who believed in me and then some later in college, especially Art and a Choir teacher who wanted to feature me on tour singing Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez, my 'signature song' so to speak, then, even got a standing ovation at a school function for it.) He also had us who played guitar come and do a concert. When I told him my uncle by marriage was Norman Mailer, he was super impressed.
Later in my adult life, I was a substitute teacher. Once I was subbing for in school suspension, a disciplinary class. The boys had dunked another boy's head in a toilet. I guess they had seen it on a cop show or Stephen Segal or something. They had to write apology letters to him. I told them to be sincere. One asked what sincere meant, and I told him to look it up in the dictionary. It was amusing that they used the word itself in their letters, for example, "I am sincerely sorry..." or "I am sincere, asking your forgiveness..." To tell the truth, I was a bit impressed and proud that they had learned something, and from me. I know what they did was pretty bad. But then, that is what ISS was for, because it was pretty boring in there. They also had to eat lunch with me at a separate table, etc. and it lasted about a week or so.
Well, so much for junior high essays.
No comments:
Post a Comment