My racist teacher, in 'the good old days'

This is Cleveland Heights, at Fairmount and Lee, in the 1890s, the era my elementary school teachers, and their ideas, came from.

My grandchildren love their fourth- and second-grade teachers at Fairfax Elementary School. They’ve loved all of their teachers there, so far. I did not have anywhere near that kind of experience at the old Coventry School. Most of my teachers had been born in the 1890s and their ideas were as old as they were.

I know my third- and fourth-grade teacher (the same person) and fifth-grade teacher wouldn’t last long as teachers today, at least not in Cleveland Heights. (They might be okay in the deep South.)

My third-grade teacher was super-racist, and blatantly obvious about it, not trying to hide it. She displayed it proudly. There were no Black kids in my class—there were only a couple among the whole student body of 800—but even if there had been any, I don’t think that would have altered her behavior.

I guess, at my age back then, it didn’t occur to me to tell my parents the things she said to us about Black people. (Maybe because I also heard that stuff outside of school, too. But not at home). I’m sure that if I had told them, my father would have been up at the school the next morning, complaining to the principal and, probably, lecturing the teacher.

This teacher didn’t like me any more than I liked her, and she clearly showed it. When I went back for the first day of fourth grade, I was so relieved to be getting a new teacher. As was the custom at Coventry, we reported to our third-grade classroom and waited for our old teacher to take us to our new teacher’s room. We sat down at our desks, and she said, “Your new teacher is . . . ME.” So, we were getting her again, for another whole school year. I remember that some of the girls cheered, while my friend Fred, sitting next to me, and I both, simultaneously, audibly groaned, “Oh, NO!” and slumped way down in our chairs. That didn’t score me any points, and I didn’t care.

Of course, I might not have been any happier with another teacher. I remember one of the other fourth-grade teachers, Mr. Calendar, who was one of very few men in the school, and somewhat younger (than the others). His class and ours went to Red Raider Camp together for a week in early spring of that school year. I was an overweight kid. At some point during the week, we were all gathered around him as he was demonstrating some skill. A kid next to me asked me a question about something the teacher had said, and I answered him, quietly. Mr. Calendar looked at me and said, “Shut up, Fatso.” I don’t think a teacher could get away with that today.

It didn’t get any better in fifth grade. I had a teacher—this one only in her 50s—with obvious emotional problems. Under any kind of stress, her face became bright red, and she made this involuntary closed-mouth clucking sound with the back of her tongue, and then she yelled (at someone, or no one). And she snapped at kids (maybe adults, too), all the time.

I have a cousin, Carol Sindell, who was a child prodigy violinist. That same school year, at age 11, she appeared as a soloist with the Cleveland Orchestra. The next morning, our teacher told the class, “I saw a girl your age playing the violin with the Cleveland Orchestra yesterday.” I raised my hand, she called on me, and I said, “Carol Sindell is my cousin.” The teacher angrily yelled, “No, she isn’t.” And she went on with her story. That was typical of her.

That incident I did mention to my parents, mainly because I thought it was funny. My father didn’t. He was up at school the next morning, berating the teacher. But nothing changed.

She also did things like this, often: She’d move all the desks to the perimeter and have us gather in the middle of the room while she’d play recordings of various classical music pieces and tell us to move in whatever ways the music made us feel. She would then proceed to tell most of us that we were “wrong,” and that, for instance, “Frank is the only one who got it right.” Which, of course, is crazy.

I’m happy that my grandchildren love their teachers. Times have changed. When you see all those reactionary posts on Facebook about how things were so much better in the old days, I guess that’s part of what they’re talking about—teachers being allowed to be openly racist in the classroom, and to constantly humiliate students, and so on. That, apparently, is what they want to go back to. Keep that in mind next month, when you vote.