10 October 2024
Trust is one intangible that gets abused on a daily basis. And once trust has been mangled, then broken, the victim has nowhere to turn but to another try at trust.
It can be a Herculean effort, but, even if it’s a minor push forward of your free will, it’s worth it. The price for not trusting, again, after betrayal, is steep, very steep.
When I was sophomore in high school, the teacher of my Algebra class was a Mr. S. We got along fairly well, once he’d assessed my way of working, not just on equations, but on apprehending reality, people around me, and the bigger picture of a situation that, at first blush, looked small and simple.
In the early days of this math-class, Mr. S. would chalk-write the equation to be solved on the green-chalkboard. He would then turn to the classroom of teenagers, and begin to explain the algebraic process to be learned in solving for X.
And I’d tell him the answer. The correct answer.
This unwitting one-up-manship went on a few times; and then Mr. S spoke with me, privately, after the other students had left the room at the end of the class-period. He patiently, and diligently, explained to me that the answer is not The Point of the lesson.
The Point is learning the mode of solving for the unknown through a process, or technique, that applies to that linear equation. By the time that we got to the use of the distributive property, I would have to master how to use the elementary steps, or building blocks, to isolate the variable; and I would need to know, like the back of my hand, the order of operations.
Disciplining Debra’s mind was the objective here, and I still feel appreciative of the truly hard work that Mr. S. put into that vexing task. It wasn’t a thankless task. Far from it, I soared during those two semesters with Mr. S, so that, by the late spring of that educational year, I’d wonderfully mastered all that Mr. S. had intended for me to learn.
Come the Final Exam, I did well, very well. In fact, Mr. S. crowed to me that my test score was the highest in the more than 10-year history of this regional high school. He was so jubilant about his accomplishment, that he showed the test to the Principal, a man who was a former algebra teacher.
Mr. Principal did not trust my stellar grade on this Final Exam. He was what I would later learn is a misogynist; but, at that time, sixteen-year-old me didn’t have a clue as to why someone more than twice my age would cast aspersions on my hard-earned achievements.
Mr. S. sounded somewhat apologetic when he spoke with me about having to do a Re-Do of this final exam. I would need to show more of My Work on each problem before he could grant the test a final grade for the end of this school-year, and submit it to Official Posterity.
Mr. S and I had gotten to know each other well. He knew that I hadn’t cheated on this exam, or on any exam, test, or quiz. His reputation as an algebra teacher was on the line, or it had been put on the line by what I can only assume was an administrator whose sense of trust in people was guarded like Fort Knox.
I re-took the Final Exam one afternoon, after the end of the school-day. I had to slow myself down, way down, to show my work. I do think that I’d perceived, back then, that this insulting imposition of a Re-Do to prove myself to be a student who didn’t cheat, was a tacit, and intended, slur of the trustworthiness of an excellent instructor of algebra — by a former math-teacher who was well on the way to becoming a petty code-enforcing administrator: an educrat.
The student was irrelevant in this power-play by a pettifogging principal.
I’d unknowingly gotten in the way of an overblown ego that was blowing it as an administrator. The war between true teachers and narrow-minded educrats is a silent, but entrenched, battle to wrest bright, young, developing minds from the fonctionnaire sinkhole of rules, regulations, bureaucratic twaddle, and pompous drivel that masquerade as meaningful goalposts in the acquisition of yet more power over the individual in America.
My test score the second time around on this Final Exam was even higher than the first one!
I think of Mr. S every time that I pull out my pitch-pipe to do scales before working on vocalizing a song. My algebra class had been scheduled right after my Choir Class, which took place immediately after Lunch.
Singing on a full stomach is not advisable. It’s a muscular activity! On the other hand, singing on an empty stomach is even less advisable. The sweet spot of digestive-energy for singers is, I have learned, somewhere in the vicinity of that for doing yoga, or going for a swim after a meal: at least one hour.
I’d therefore forego lunch on the days when I would be vocalizing (and work on algebra problems in the Cafeteria!).
After Choir Class, I’d buy. at the School Store, a package of 3 chocolate chip cookies, the kind with the dark chocolate chips (I later found their re-incarnation in my Cat Cookies, made by Nabisco, and long-gone from shelves, even before FJB-World got foisted on America.)
With cookies and books in hand, I’d rush to arrive on time at the classroom of Mr. S.
It became a ritual for him to walk past my desk as he was giving a lecture, pick up my package of cookies, and proceed to eat them!
“You took my cookies!” I protested.
“You are not supposed to eat food in class,” he advised me.
But a teacher can, was my silent reply.
It was His Classroom, after all.
Nowadays, showing your work is an excellent way to prove to the hypocrite code-enforcers of existence that you’re not a cheater in so many arenas of an actual life. I’m exceedingly glad I got a head-start on Having the Receipts!