TheBanyanTree: Teaching 101

[Pam Lawley]

As a teacher, I've failed Responsibility/Reliability/Accountability 101.  If
a class is ALL failing a subject, at some point we have to look at the
instructor.  Granted we're only talking ONE student in this case, but he's
doing so completely poorly that it falls on me to step back and look at how
and what I've taught.

And knowing that I spent twenty years leading (and being led!) in the Marine
Corps, it's even harder to fathom how could have NOT instilled even a
smidgen of these leadership traits to my own blood!!

My son's bedroom is really small.  So small that what would be a nightstand
- beside the bed! - is kept in his closet.  Which works great, except that
it doesn't leave a lot of room for shoes.  Which isn't such a huge problem
since he doesn't own that many pairs!  But, even a pair of 'slides'
("flip-flops", sort of), a pair of dress shoes, and a couple of different
pairs of "tennis shoes" (and they are so NOT about the sport of tennis but I
don't know what else to call them... athletic shoes?) take up a lot of room
coming off of his feet.  Luckily, our foyer has a table in it, and under the
table is usually where he kicks off all of his shoes when he walks in the
door.

Cleats are another story.  He plays three sports a year, and each sport
requires its own pair of cleats.  And each year requires a new pair since
the cleats (that he used to outgrow every year but has since stopped THAT
crap!!) are beat to death and useful only for practice.  All those 'shoes'
go in the garage.  And they quickly add up.  And it's a very large pile
adding up!!

Many many months ago I was shopping in a local mall and happened upon a pair
of dress shoes on sale and amazingly, in his size (!!!), so I bought them
and brought them home for occasions 'just in case'.  When he was in middle
school he used to get dressed up twice a year - for the fall and spring
sports banquets.  He'd want to dress up and need khaki pants, dress shoes
and a nice shirt.  And he'd wear them exactly once!, and by the next
occasion he'd need bigger sizes!  So now that he was done growing, I thought
the shoes were a great bargain and it wouldn't even matter if he liked them
much or not - he'd only wear them who knew how few times!!, but when he
needed them - I'd have some on hand!!!

A few months back he got invited to a friend's birthday party.  I won't even
try to spell it, but it's a girl's 15th birthday party, celebrated by those
in Latin American countries.  I think.  My friend from Ecuadorian friend had
a party when she turned 15.  Anyway, he had to dress up for the party - it's
a requirement.  And he wore these new shoes and a shirt and tie.  A red
'power tie', not that that has anything to do with *this* story.

But after the party, he had to figure out what to do with the shoes.
Putting them back in their original box back under his bed never occurred to
him.  He tried leaving them under the table in the foyer but I nixed that.
All I knew for sure was that I didn't see them anywhere so they must be put
away.

And then came the day a couple of weeks ago when I was cleaning out the
garage.  Amongst all the other accumulated clutter was a pile of old cleats
and tennis shoes.  I told him to go through them, figure out what was
trashed, and trash them.  His pile got smaller.  It was only after the
'recyclable guy' came and left a container of shoes did I realize that
instead of putting the trashed footwear in the trash container, he'd just
thrown them in an empty recycle bin - because it was easier.  (It didn't
require pulling a lid off and putting a lid back!)  So one day last week, I
told him to put them into the trash container.

This week was the 'Homecoming' celebration at the high school.  Friday night
was the football game, and last night (Saturday) was the dance.  For the
first time in his entire seventeen years he has a girlfriend!!  And while
he's not gone to dances before because A) he hates dancing, doesn't dance
and B) he's not very social so standing around chatting with friends isn't
really up his alley either, and C) he didn't have a date, we've never had to
go get a corsage, or worry about all the 'dance' things folks worry about.
But this time we did!  Because of course a girlfriend wants to go and dance
and be social and hang out with her boyfriend!

So last week we went looking for a shirt and tie to match her dress color.
He already had black pants to wear, and of course, he already had shoes!
Yesterday morning I asked him if he still knew where the dress socks were
I'd gotten him for the wedding last month, and he'd already set them on his
bed.  He asked Jim to please iron his pants and shirt and tie (which Jim did
a *great* job on, and even de-linted!!).  It was about an hour before he was
supposed to leave when he started looking for his shoes.  Hmmm... where
could those dress shoes be?!?!?  Not under his bed, not in his closet, and
not in the pile in the garage.  Oh no!!  there were in the trash!!!!!!!!!!!
The trash which luckily was NOT recyclable so it would have already been
carted off to the recycle place in the Sky - thank goodness!!!, but in the
trash bin that had been empty when he'd thrown the shoes in it, and which
was now loaded with trash and oh yeah!, got rained in when he didn't put the
lid back on!!

Try and imagine the disgruntled look on his face when he walked into the
house, a shoe in each hand, wet and moldy each, held in his hands with
newspaper (since he couldn't actually *touch* these things!).  The shoes
were 'ruined', he couldn't go to the dance in something other than dress
shoes, and we couldn't just go to the store and buy more!  I'm not exactly
sure why, but Size 16's are just not something generally carried in
abundance in local shoe stores around here!!!

Sure the child was angry, and yes he was a bit panicked.  Mostly because it
was MY fault.  Yes, and here we come back to the whole subject of the
story:  My Child Is Not Accountable.  *I* made him chose (he said that!)
which shoes to throw away.  So it was my fault they were in the trash!  Had
I just let him leave them in the huge pile in the garage, then they would
have been in that pile when he went to get dressed!  But, since I made him
choose, and he couldn't think of a good reason at that moment he was
choosing (like *maybe* he'd have a reason to wear these perfectly new shoes
again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), it was easier to just toss them.  My fault!

Knowing the child like I do, I'm sure what *really* was going through his
head was that he screwed up and at that moment was screwed himself, but
voicing those thoughts is just totally foreign to his little brain.

Silly boy.  (Okay, more like 'obnoxious brat!!!!!!!!!!!!!', but....)  He
just had so little faith.  Jim finished ironing and took a scrub brush and
anti-bacterial soap to the shoes.  I set up on the floor by the bathroom and
commenced to blow-drying the cleaned, wet shoes.  They were never *totally*
soaked, though one was wetter than the other, and I didn't get them
*totally* dry (though* *I probably would have had I had more time!), but
they were good enough!  And I even had a second or two to polish and buff
'em up to a shinier finish before he had to put them on!!

He was kind enough to realize he owed humongous thanks, and he was, at
least, generous with that.

Anyway.  I've got to rethink my curriculum!!

Pam