Ask people to name a teacher who impacted them profoundly and they will struggle to come up with a name or two if they are lucky. In fact, try it now. Think of a teacher who had the greatest positive impact on you. For some this an easy task, for others it requires much thought and contemplation.
Ask those same people to name those who they thought were awful, and they could easily whip off a list of 10 to 20 in a heartbeat.
It’s sad really because the bad ones we had seem to outnumber the good ones by about 10 to 1.
What troubles me more however, is that there are bad teachers and then there are those who are simply cruel. They do and say horrible things that can impact a kid for a lifetime.
The story below is a true account. It was given to me some 15 years ago at a learning disabilities conference I attended by one of the presenters.
His name was Richard Lavoie, who was and is an expert in how to identify and teach students with learning disabilities. The man is brilliant. He provided insights and observations that day that quite literally altered my entire teaching philosophy.
The story he shared was written by his son when he was in the eleventh grade and recounts his experience with his grade 2 teacher.
*****
Chess
“Chess is the most beautiful thing,” so sings the character Jason in the musical March of the Falsettos. Chess is a game that I learned in the second grade. In fact, it was the only thing I learned in the second grade. Mr. Parson’s (his name has not been changed because he was not innocent) was undoubtedly one of the worst teachers ever certified by the state of Connecticut. I entered his class a fresh, bright, modest and eager student. However, he soon managed to change my young life into a giant chess game…a game that I very nearly lost.
The game board seemed innocent enough. A traditional elementary school classroom with all the desks in neat, even rows, cubbys along the floor and a chart demarking the “Ages of the Dinosaur.” I entered the room, nervous but excited and made my gambit by finding the desk with the strip of oaktag with my name “Chris Lavoie” scrawled across it.
After greeting some of my friends from the previous year, I took my seat as Mr. Parsons entered the room. He was overweight…in fact he was incredibly fat with a big round face and a distinctive stalky gait. He was the kind of man who, if a smile were to cross his face, could be described as jolly. My new teacher crossed his desk and picked up his attendance sheet ans started reading off the names in his low, raspy smokers voice, “Andrews, Sarah…Darling…Charles…” until he finally reached “Lah-Vuah, Chris.”
I raised my hand. “That’s Lavoie and you can call me Kitt!”
“I can also call you Chris,” he responded icily. In a stunning opening move, he captured my bishop, along with my sense of individuality. I should have realized then that he was a cruel man but, in my innocence, I continued to play his game. He then went on to use my inexperience to further push me toward defeat. I was quite simply unaware that you couldn’t shout “King ME!” in the game of Chess. That is exactly what he did. The entire year he took full advantage of the fact that he could, indeed call me “Chris.”
Through similar acts of arbitrary cruelty, he continued to defeat me until I was left with only my king, two pawns and a rook. He, however, was left with a full slate of pieces. He was my teacher…there was no way of beating him. It was his board. Eventually though, the game began to stabilize. I felt safe and forcibly content with my four remaining pieces. Everything was seemingly beginning to work out. However I was, at the time, in the lowest reading group in class. I knew that I was capable of more than that. Thus, I approached Mr. Parsons and asked to be moved to a higher group.
“You think I put you in the wrong group, huh? Mr. Parsons growled, making it apparent that he saw my attempt to secure a better education as a personal attack on his teaching ability. “Fine, we’ll move you to a group where YOU think you fit better.” With that, he moved me from the lowest reading group to the highest.
To his surprise, I managed to keep afloat and, in fact, succeed in that group. He did make sure however, that on the occasion I did make an error he would point out to the group that, “Chris lied to me. He told me he was good enough to be in the reading group with the smart students.” I made an ingenious move by managing to get him to allow me to move to a higher group, yet somehow, he had turned it around to take one of my two remaining pawns.
I went on through the year, terrified that I was indeed the dishonest, stupid, conniving person that Mr. Parsons had told me and the rest of the class I was. I began to believe that nothing I could do would allow me to succeed in school or in the long run, life. Thus, I stopped working. As I saw it, or more accurately as Mr. Parsons had painted it, the fact that I did or did not do my math was irrelevant; I would be a failure either way.
So I huddled back in the corner at school, my knuckles white from the iron grip with which I held my three remaining chess pieces. Fortunately, I had my parents and little brother at home. They did not know that I was failing so miserably in school so they stood as an invincible stone tower on the hill, my only link to the world of prosperity and happiness.
That is, however, until one Friday, when I delivered to my parents a note from Mr. Parsons in a sealed envelop. It said, “Your son has managed to fall sixty-four math lessons behind the rest of the class. He must complete all of the assignments he’s missed by Monday.”
With the last sweeping s in this signature, Mr. Parsons crushed my tower on the hill and threw my rook into the scattered pile of my pieces atop my self-identity, self-worth and self-esteem. I was left with only a piece in each hand and tear on each cheek.
I managed to complete all 64 assignments in one long weekend. Furthermore, I managed to make it through the last month of school with both my pawn and king in hand, despite the fact that Mr. Parsons announced before class every day that I would be staying back an extra year in second grade. Then, at five-to-three on the last day of school, he asked me to stand up in front of the class. I stood and walked up to his desk.
“Class,” he announced, “I am happy to tell you that Chris will be going on to the third grade with the rest of you. I cannot take the chance of having him in class for another year.”
Then something amazing happened. I actually…smiled…and said, “Thank you.” My only remaining pawn fell to the ground and shattered in a flourish of white marble. Mr. Parsons had managed to take away my last shred of self-respect.
Since leaving Mr. Parson’s class, I’ve moved up nine grades bringing our game to a draw. Occasionally, I want to find Mr. Parsons and show him what I have done. I’ve actually made an education for myself and more importantly, created a future for myself.
And finally, I have managed to regain the self-respect that Mr. Parsons had taken from me at such an early age. He beat me because I did not know how to play the game. I now know how to play. I now know that the best way to win is to allow my opponent to defeat himself through his own weaknesses.
Mr. Parsons is very good at beating eight year olds at adult games. However, someday he will wander into a game with someone who knows how to play and he will lose.
I managed to keep my king. I won.
©Christian T. Lavoie
*****
What really hit home was what Lavoie said to us as he was discussing his son’s story. “Here I was an expert in identifying students with learning disabilities and I had no idea this was going on with my own son.”
When he asked his son why he never told him and his wife about this back then, the son simply replied, “He was my teacher. I thought he was right.”
If you are parents, guard your kids well. Take an active role in what is going on in their school life because they are too young to know they are being saddled with labels that can last a lifetime and they are too young to know that most of what is being said is not true.
Beware teachers who place all the blame on a child who has not met the required standards. That’s the easy thing to do…to slap labels of failure on the kid.
Defend your kids and fight those labels because they have impact even when said once.
Being that teachers are the ones who have at least 5 years of post secondary education and specific training in education, perhaps it is they who have failed the child. Maybe they are the ones who should be saddled with labels?
To ideas worth quitting,
Dean
