At the end
of the 1994 high school year the staff of Brooklyn Junior High had a farewell
luncheon for departing teachers. I was
new to the school that year and didn’t know what to expect. Being more of an introvert, I would gladly
have foregone the whole ordeal. I had
made several friends on the staff—Ann, the English teacher who graciously
shared her room with me, and Pat, the warm-hearted social studies teacher
across the hall. They were the only ones
who’d really gotten to know me. I was a
part-time teacher working with ninth grade German students during the last hour
of the day, so there wasn’t much time for social interaction.
During
orientation the previous fall, the Spanish teacher John didn’t endear himself
to me by “sharing” that I wouldn’t be around BJ for more than a year. German, he assured me, was definitely going
to be cut the following year. I didn’t
like his condescending attitude and was a little shocked and miffed. It dampened my excitement about finding a
teaching job. My student loan bill
hadn’t even arrived yet. In the end he
was right and probably had prior knowledge about the language study plans, but
I didn’t have to like it or him.
I felt
increasingly nervous and anxious at the luncheon and my mind started to wander
as departing teachers were introduced.
Where would I be in a year? Were
my student loans a waste? Had I been
crazy to return to school after 25 years to get a teaching degree in
German? How would our family make it
financially? I’d felt so good returning
to my old college campus, proving that I could get good grades and make new
friends. I’d made it through nine
nervous weeks of intern teaching and then landed a job. Even if it was part-time, I was ecstatic.
Then I heard
Pat, in a slightly mischievous tone, call my name. Not the introduction I’d expected.
“Now Lynda Richter, our German
teacher, you’d just never guess. She’s
lived a real secret life this year.”
Oh my god,
what’s she going to say, I wondered.
Maybe I shouldn’t have shared some of my thoughts and feelings with
her. I felt a second swirl of
emotions. And then to have to conjure up
a smile one last time! “What are you
doing to me, Pat?” I questioned her
intentions. But then I realized that she
was just relaying to others, in a humorous way, what a difficult year it had
been for me. We had gone on a memorable
day trip along the Mississippi River earlier in the year and gotten to know one
another on a more personal level. I
really enjoyed her company.
She
continued on: “None of you is aware that
once Lynda left BJ when the school day ended, another part of her work life was
just beginning. She’d race home, change
into her uniform, drive 45 minutes to Mystic Lake Casino, and work until 4 a.m.
making change for customers. While
pushing her little cart around, she’d dream up lesson plans that could interest
ninth graders in learning German. No
small task! Then she’d drive home, sleep
a few hours, finish her lesson plans, and head back to school the next day for
another go round in seventh period. She
did this the whole year.”
I could hear
the laughter and wondered what people thought.
Was I being undignified as a teacher?
Pat obviously didn’t think so.
She knew how I’d struggled to make ends meet that year. A part-time teaching job for a first year
teacher didn’t contribute much to the family income. A second job was essential and the casino job
fit well with my time frame. The trouble
was my body didn’t react well to chasing the clock and getting three or four
hours of sleep a night. I was a wreck,
emotionally and physically. It took me a
long time to realize it. On the drive
home I’d roll down the windows, blast the radio, and slap my face to stay
awake. It barely worked, and one morning
at 4:30 a.m. I drove past Golden Valley, where I lived, on my way to downtown
Minneapolis and the nearby Institute of Arts.
I had no idea how I got there. It
was frightening! I’d obviously dozed
off, but woke up enough to steer myself in the opposite direction towards
home. Fifteen minutes later I headed up
the hill to our house, hit the side of the road, and put a bubble in the left
front tire, which remained there for nearly a year. It was a scary episode. What I’d done was just as bad as if I’d been
driving drunk and I doubt that any police officer would have had much
sympathy. I got lucky in many ways,
above all that I hadn’t injured others.
I learned a
lot about my needs that year, including the importance of getting a minimum of
six hours of sleep a night, doing my lesson plans a week in advance, not taking
myself and others so seriously, and trusting those who want to reveal your
secret life—IT’S ALL GOOD!
*A
postscript—I went on to do substitute teaching for another four years, in
German, English, social studies, history, and ironically, Spanish.
