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It’s August 1st today: the official first day of my wife Nicole’s retirement from public school teaching. The contract for her 26th year expired, her first retirement benefit arrived, and she is liberated. As folks who know us both are well aware, she’s smarter than I am—I’m too weak to resist the pull back into the vortex, so weak that I basically quit trying before I got started leaving. However, the classroom is going to miss Nicole, and though I’m as far from an impartial observer as one can get, I am nonetheless very knowledgeable. I’m here to explain why she’ll be missed, in the form of celebrating her qualities.

(This is going to be tough, because it’s at core Nicole’s story to tell, and I respect that; also, she is the very last to toot her own horn, whereas sometimes I can not only toot mine in a heartbeat but borrow others’ horns and toot them, too.)

Nicole worked as a special education specialist, a Success Center co-coordinator, and a (C)areer and (T)echnical (R)esource (E)ducator, positions that, if one hopes to make progress and not go stark raving bonkers, require a serious and idealistic work ethic, astounding organizational skills, a broad knowledge base, constitutional discretion and patience, and—oh yeah!—consistent compassion, acceptance, empathy, and tender lovin’ care. That’s a lot to ask of someone who’s simply livin’, much less a public servant. I knew from the moment Nicole accepted her first job that she would excel, because those are the qualities I’ve seen her demonstrate as my partner of 36 years—it may be why we’ve made it this far!

The case:

WORK ETHIC AND IDEALISM: Nicole does not cut corners. So what, you ask. Well, I think our fellow educators would agree, but, as much as we want to be perfect, you’ve got to choose some corners to cut to make it out alive. There’s just too much on our plates on the regz. You can cut ‘em at work, you can cut ‘em at home, or you can split the difference, but it’s pretty much demanded of you. Whether she was writing or updating IEPs, checking multiple students’ grades and trying to tweak her approach, sending out emails (more frequently unanswered as her career proceeded—I’ve noticed it in my own work) to offer help, requesting folks’ presence at meetings and juggling their availability, jockeying with the oft-migraine-inducing of student scheduling, keeping all action within federal laws, or gathering all the necessary information to understand a student, I have never witnessed her shortcut it. Even on the many occasions where I counseled her to! The painful irony is that when you have a no-shortcuts approach, you’re gonna knock heads with shortcutters, which might not sound like a big deal, but there’s law, principle, and a kid’s future at stake. Nicole was once called a dream-killer by a peer who was shackled to their own convenience—slavery to convenience is part of what’s wrong today—because she wouldn’t fudge the outposts of reality. She has, much more than I have, incorporated innovations in learning into her practice—most of my own successful tweaks during the last 26 years of my career have been as the result of her prodding: “You mean you’ve never tried this?” Recent example: dealing with AI via Draftback. Merci beaucoup, ma cheri.

BROAD KNOWLEDGE: Nicole always went to the wall to gain the necessary knowledge to be an effective educator and supporter of her students and fellow teachers. Whether that was reading the books they were reading, exploring their enthusiasms in order to be more involved, or going to events in which they participated, she was game. Science deep dives. True-False Film Fest Academy and Girls Who Code sponsorships. Skills America dining marathons. Fundraising trivia contests. Career Center flower and BBQ sales. Nursing scholarships (in honor of her departed mom, but also supporting skilled students’ career goals—see photo below).

DISCRETION AND PATIENCE: I know federal education law, but even so, in the privacy of two teachers’ home, one would expect a lapse or two. Not in the Overeem domicile. I can’t tell you how many times when, as Nicole shared some of her struggles, I have asked a question that would require her breaching student privacy, and she’s firmly told me, “I can’t go there.” Nobody likes to be shushed, but on many occasions I’ve broached off-limits topics in a public setting (I’m naturally loud) and Nicole’s quieted me with raised eyebrows. Quite honestly? That’s integrity. It’s rare. As far as patience is concerned, Nicole’s increases in proportion to the student’s need. She’s learned that, often, the students who require the most patience are often the most interesting—and LOYAL—humans. Also, I think she discovered, as I have, that it’s the adults in this business with whom you most frequently exercise patience and even-temperedness. In particular, Nicole once shared with me an interaction with an adult administrator (there are other kinds) who presumed that she (Nicole) was automatically ignorant of class and race (I’d call it melanated) distinctions, which she most definitely is not—she’s lived some of those distinctions. I wanted to go on the G-D warpath on her behalf—a major frustration of couples who both educate in the same building—but SHE had to calm ME. She was pissed, no doubt, but she kept it professional and moved on. Well, I’m not quite sure she’s forgiven that, but it’s irrelevant as this point.

Nicole, upon the occasion of the first nursing scholarship she awarded to two Battle High School students. On the left, Yarelly Laguna Mendez; on the right, Teauna Gainwell. I am present for moral support.

COMPASSION, ACCEPTANCE, EMPATHY, TLC: I’ve known quite a few educators who work very hard to be seen to care a lot. And some of them do; for others, it’s a show. Nicole has always preferred not to make a fuss. In her 26 years, she has quietly built very strong professional and personal relationships with difficult and/or struggling students while also pushing them to cross academic finish lines. They tend not to forget it. Just the other day she had lunch with one of them who is now an educator herself. Also, being a bit of a non-conformist (again, quietly), Nicole’s bonded with numerous students who’ve had (usually legitimate) bones to pick with the system. Often, they’re the most interesting students, but I think for Nicole, she has related with their struggles, and that’s helped make them—and her—successful. Another detail: I’m not supposed to be listening to other educators’ phone calls with parents, but I’m in the same dang house with one. Nicole’s kindness and understanding in talking to parents who are understandably frustrated (and perhaps not so understandably, depending on their self-monitoring) has been at the level of art. It’s the one thing so many educators fear and hate to do that is also the most necessary, especially now. It took me way longer to realize that than it did Nicole.

So…she will definitely be missed in pub-ed circles. What next? Nicole still doesn’t know. BUT. She is passionate about gardening and agriculture, social justice and outreach, literacy, democracy, and much more—and we live in a town throbbing with volunteer opportunities. She has a chance to continue being a positive participant in the human milieu—but perhaps in an even more direct way than she did as an educator. I know she’s even considering substitute teaching, and she’d be great at that. But as of now she’s enjoying waking up without an immediate schedule to attend to, being able to do nothing or everything on a given day, and…just breathe. I am truly enjoying watching her experience that, and I am extremely proud of her for the quality of her career, taken as a whole. She’s built it, whether consciously or not, and somebody’s got to brag about it.

Musical Moment:

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We’d already visited four distilleries in the previous two days—Stitzer-Weller, Castle & Key, Buffalo Trace, and Woodford Reserve—and had terrific experiences. We’d worried that our Alabama buddies who’d met us for a short Louisville vacation might get bored with so many tours focusing on producing bourbon, but, as we had assured them, the geographical, structural, and production idiosyncrasies of each could fascinate. And they did.

Each of our guides provided us essential information and entertained us. Two of them had clearly been leading tours for awhile and appeared to have sipped deeply of their distilleries’ supply—I don’t mean to say they were drunk while working, just that their descriptions of whiskey notes communicated intimate familiarity. A third was younger than the four of us and as well-informed as the others; she was also the freshest and most relaxed (impressive, since, as she shared with us, she was herding five kids at home)—and came with the best jokes.

To complete our tour of tours, we headed to the splendiferous hideaway of Maker’s Mark, in a valley just beyond Bardstown. Nicole and I had visited it years before, and our friends might have been looking forward to it more than they had the others—we’d built it up to pretty serious heights. However, we ourselves were not prepared for our educational dervish of a tour guide, Jim. (I hope to edit this in a few days with his last name and a photo when the Maker’s distillery staff gets back to me.* I’ll let you know.)

From the second our tour began to our last sips and swishes in the tasting room, Jim unleashed a torrent of Maker’s history, stories, science, and fascinating footnotes with a stunningly precise delivery style. Initially, he reminded me of a coffeed-up Jerry Todd, Rick Moranis’ SCTV deejay—a bit schticky, brisk and clipped to AM intensity, maniacally rehearsed. My friend Kenny even asked him if he’d been in radio (he said he hadn’t, but I was dubious). He seemed beyond the need to take a breath; I joked to Nicole, who also teaches—I was just then starting to make the association—that nobody’d ever told him about processing time. She replied, simply: “He’s pretty good. I like him.”

Quickly, my amusement shifted to amazement and admiration. His energy was clearly generated from enthusiasm. His knowledge, deep and detailed—from experience (we learned he’d spent much time in Maker’s labs). His articulation and accuracy, considering the sheer amount of process description and insights, distillery narratives, and…yes…spur-of-the-moment improvisations (takes one to know one), could not possibly have come from memorization. The way he organized his presentation, used nonverbal cues (favorite move: slapping his thigh for emphasis), sensed confusion or curiosity within the group, communicated love of his subject, and kept one eye on the clock—there was a tour ahead of him and behind him—left me with a particular suspicion. Had he ever taught?

At the end of our tour, he demonstrated a quality I’ve always felt is an essential part of a teacher’s repertoire: a respect for his audience’s desire for fun. If you’ve not experienced a distillery tour, they end, of course, with the payoff—the chance to taste three or four samples of the product. Each of our previous guides had somewhat rigidly requested that, during each tasting, we sniff, sip ’n’ swish, proffer a note-guess, sip some water, then wait to be prompted to repeat with the next sample. This may seem a too minute and/or insignificant detail, but Jim was quick to tell us once we were seated that we could explore as we wished and ignore his commentary. For me, it confirmed that he thought like a good teacher ending an important lesson.

After we—of course—exited to the gift shop, I couldn’t resist pulling his coat.

“Hey, Jim! You did an amazing job! I’m getting ready to start my 43rd year as a teacher, and I have to ask: have you ever been a teacher? If not, you’d be killer in a science classroom!”

He grinned, thanked me, paused, and answered [I’m piecing this together from memory, likely with some inaccuracy], “Funny you should ask me that! We have a program that brings students in to learn about our scientific process and methods, with an accent on chemistry, and I participate in that**. I consider that a compliment, coming from you!”

“One thing that really impressed me was how few flubs, uhhhs, and stammers marked your presentation—I’m not sure you even made one! I thought at the beginning of the tour that you were going rote from your past tours, but now I think, given everything you packed in, that would be impossible!”

His reply: “Never do it the same way twice.”

A man after my own heart.

I drank quite a bit of Maker’s over the next two days.

*I emailed Maker’s in preparation for writing this—it’s why I’m a day late—and I’m still awaiting a reply. You may get a kick out of my request:

^{“My wife and two friends of ours visited Maker’s Mark last Friday. Our tour guide, who had significant lab experience, was amazing! Short fella, extremely exuberant, stunningly articulate and intelligent—he made the guides at the other five distilleries we visited look like struggling amateurs. I spoke with him after the tour; I’ve taught for 43 years myself, and I wondered if he’d ever been a teacher, and he said he was involved in a Maker’s program that worked with science students (if my memory serves—I drank a lot of bourbon Wed-Sun LOL). I write a Substack newsletter that draws from my experience as an educator, and I would love to focus a post (ASAP) on him! BUT…I cannot remember his name! Can you help? If you are not sure…he sounds like he also has RADIO EXPERIENCE—I mean, no verbal flubs or “uhs” or “ummms.” My Substack’s at https://substack.com/@phillipovereem if you want to check me out. Please email me his name ASAP if you can. Thank you! (Also, if you have a photo of him he’d let me use, that would be cool!)”}

**I may have to correct this once Maker’s gets back to me. I was a bit stunned from Jim’s excellence and can’t perfectly remember what he told me about Maker’s program—plus…the samples (I had a couple extra since one of our party wasn’t really a bourbon drinker LOL).

Musical Moment

Up to this point, I’ve only shared songs that I either used in class for educational purposes or at least wanted to. Here’s one that, had it arrived on this plane of existence in 1984, I would have left many faculty meetings CHANTING.

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The Overeem Farewell Tour Begins

“Those who can, do.
Those who can’t do, teach.”

—An anonymous ass.

As someone who has perused 30,000 student essays in his career, bleary eyes peeled for elegance, I certainly admire the beauty of that construction.

As someone who has read vast libraries while trapped in classrooms overseen by the tucked-away incompetent, indifferent, incurious, and ill-educated—classrooms far rarer than supposed, but still too numerous, though longer green and better conditions might help that—I can definitely understand that thought.

As a proud American who is sometimes too exhausted to deal with our peculiar complexity, I can see why someone might want that bumper sticker.

As someone who for his first 21 years could not quite see beyond the chalkboard curtain, I can even imagine why someone might reach that conclusion.

Conclusions, though, seldom stand still.

Thus, as someone who taught, coached, supervised, sponsored, advised, and, mostly, importuned the public school students of these United States from 1984 to 2015, through turbulence and change I need not catalog (because had those decades been unaccountably halcyon and stagnant, the truth would not have changed), I can say this with authority:

That quote is bullshit.

Oh, the times I have wished to Barbara Eden-blink an insufferably certain boor into a classroom of 30 variously motivated and inclined 15-year-olds, who are oh-so-simply waiting for something cool to happen—and keep that boor in place for 180 days.

Oh, how I have wanted to point out that, if teaching were that much of a soft option, why aren’t people stampeding in to get that easy money, that three-month vacation, that panoply of benefits, that podium behind which one need only stand and talk while urchins copiously take note of one’s unassailable wisdom?

The fact is, from my current retired vantage point, I deeply understand that I loved teaching because it isn’t a cakewalk. Maybe I can’t count money or prognosticate its movements. Maybe I can’t build a house, take a car apart, or help folks heal. I definitely respect and admire those that can. But I must say the doings of teaching are manifold—and, more than that, layered in a way that would cause most jugglers to drop their hands to their sides in defeat. Beyond the challenge, it is also very frequently fun, and always worthy.

My hope for this account of my final year of full-time teaching is to try to support those contentions beyond refutation—especially that such as the sophistry expressed above.

“Those who can teach, do.
Those who can’t, get the hell out–PDQ.”

There. That’s at least a shade truer. Take it from me.

Though I am descended from several teachers on my mother’s side (she was a teacher herself), that I’d become one was far from a foregone conclusion. In fact, I had a bizarre stamp on my forehead from a very early age: “NBA statistician.” This may have stemmed from my father taking me to a Los Angeles Lakers – Kansas City Kings game in 1973, when I was 11—I was dumbstruck as I watched Wilt Chamberlain lope stiff-kneeded up and down a court for one of his last times, then pass within a yard of me coming out of and going back into the locker room. However, in my recollection, I’d begun a strange habit before that moment: designing my own statistics sheets and scoring televised games, then typing them up—little fingers hammering an old manual—hole-punching them, and keeping them in a notebook. Soon after, I began inventing players and creating box scores for imaginary games in which they, for example, grabbed 30 rebounds, scored 30 points, and passed for 11 assists. Fantasy career statistical profiles followed, and, before I really realized it, my notebook had stretched beyond 1,000 pages. Though my parents knew about it, I showed it to only one friend, and was still working on it when I became the statistician for the Carthage (Missouri) High School baseball, basketball, and football teams—while playing on the former two!

In a later time, someone would have suggested medication.

None of this seems to point to a classroom. Truly, it seems to point to loneliness. I did not see that; I saw myself gaping at the greatest basketball players in the world every night of the season for free while getting paid to do what I’d already been doing obsessively since I was 10. The fabled no-brainer. The reader’s familiarity with Malcolm Gladwell’s commentary on repetition might lead him to suspect I walked away from good fortune—but Gladwell really often misses points.

A teacher interfered with my brain. A teacher who did many different things extremely well, unlike anyone else—unlike any teacher—I’d ever known: Howard South. Technically, he was an art teacher, and he actually painted and showed us his work. Every time I’ve written an essay or done an assignment to provide students a model, I’ve thought of him and smiled. But he was more than an art teacher—just as most in our profession are, out of necessity, teachers of things beyond our certification. Perhaps because he had accurately identified me as a cocky moron with a sand-grain of potential, he dropped a folded slip of paper off at my workspace almost every day, and I didn’t see him do it for anyone else. I’d unfold it to behold—well, I remember the very first one, scrawled in his eccentric, loopy hand: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. THOREAU.” I didn’t know from Thoreau; I dimly apprehended the meaning of the phrase, mainly because I was desperate to get in about 50 girls’ knickers, desperate to find someone who wanted to talk seriously about Bob Dylan, desperate to locate the delinquents who spray-painted “Ramones” on the baseball stadium walls, desperate not to be terrified while I was driving a car. That wasn’t exactly what Thoreau was getting at, but I was within shouting distance. I looked him up, and immediately figured something out: Mr. South had told us he’d built his own home in the woods, and ol’ Hank had done something of the same thing back in the 19th century. A-ha. Convinced of his authenticity (I didn’t know that word then), I took Mr. South’s art instruction seriously—how else to explain a cubist painting of Indiana Pacer star Billy Knight (I wish I still had that)?—but the quotes and my private research were a irresistible driving force that released my thoughts from the captivity of teenage self-involvement. Also, I was thinking about what weren’t known yet as triple-doubles a whole lot less frequently.

Not that everything was liege and lief between Mr. South and me. In his class, as in most others, I had jerkoid tendencies. The difference was in his responses. When I accidentally ripped a lightning bolt-shaped tear into one of his large-scale paintings with the leg of a stepladder and didn’t tell him, thinking I could sneak out undetected, he found me in English thirty minutes later and assigned me a 15-page research paper on the differences between objective and subjective art. Teachers aren’t supposed to punish recalcitrant students with writing, because that might condition them to hate writing. In this case, however, I was fascinated with what I learned, and my thinking is still influenced today by my discoveries then. Also, the paper was easily the best I had ever written, and the post-paper conference I had with him taught me more in 15 minutes than I learned that entire month elsewhere.

On another occasion, I made an honest if colossally stupid mistake. Just outside the back door of the annex in which South taught was a stump. Mr. South kept a sledge hammer leaning against the stump and, if a student became frustrated with a project, the student could step outside and hammer on the stump to release the frustration. I am telling you, he was a genius. I must confess, though, that I was easily the most frequent visitor to the stump, and the frustrations I was exorcising were seldom artistic. A summer had passed, and I was a week or two into South’s Art II class when I became vexed at something, likely a girl’s indifference to my cool. I slipped out the back door to find…no stump. Mr. South had ground out the stump over the summer and built a storage shed. Wind whistling between my ears, I picked up a large rock and two-hand-overheaded it into the shed’s cinder-block foundation. Literally. Into. As in, embedded in. This time, I fessed up, and South gave me a list of materials to buy at the hardware store; the next day, he taught me how to mortar up a hole by making me mortar up the hole. Like I said, he was a genius.

When I walked out of my last class with him, I walked out with a heavy heart. He’d shaken me up. As I approached graduation, I was still thinking about statistics, and what a guy had to do to see Julius Erving on television, but not nearly as often.

Arriving at the University of Arkansas via the spin-the-bottle method of college selection (it was the only school I had visited, and, even then, I was giving a friend a lift down there for his college visit), I took what I thought were the typical boring gen-eds and, through a fellow Carthaginian who’d been recruited by the Razorbacks, landed an unpaid position as the college baseball team’s statistician, a stroke of luck which thrilled me, even if I did have to tutor my pal in college algebra. As fate would have it, the excitement quotient inherent in these undertakings was the reverse of my expectations.

I had accidentally enrolled myself in honors composition and literature, and, after nearly vomiting when I came back from the university book store with 12 novels and a textbook for that class alone, then learning I was required to write an essay a week on top of the reading, I figured the jig was up and I would flunk out. I didn’t really know what drop-add was, but neither was I a quitter, so I figured I’d just take my lumps. The class and the excellent TA, however, picked up where Mr. South had left off, galvanizing my attraction to pure thinking and berzerking me into an English major by the time I walked out of my final exam. Slaughterhouse Five. We. The Crying of Lot 49. Emma. The Great Gatsby. Those are the novels I remember most, and they exploded my mind; in my six years of secondary school, the entirety of my reading (aside from weekly close inspections of Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News) had been an abridged Great Expectations, Of Mice and Men, Hamlet, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, the latter two left squeaky-cleanly unexplicated by my senior English teacher, who preferred telling stories of his war experiences. After that freshman year baptism of literary fire, I was hooked on lit.

Meanwhile, the statistician gig bored me stiff. Part of this stemmed from no longer being an athlete myself; part of it was the daily wiping of tobacco off my shoes (even if the spit had originated from the lip of future MLB kinda-star Kevin McReynolds); part of it was the sheer torture of the tutorial obligation. The biggest, and saddest, factor was that keeping stats had lost its luster for me—particularly when juxtaposed with the challenge of reading Zamyatin and Pynchon. I’d known what career was in store for me since I was in elementary school, and I recognized quickly that that had vanished. The question for me had now become, “Can I just read for a living?”

Maybe I was under the influence of Flannery O’Connor—actually, I still am—but I did have an epiphany, and remember the exact moment it emerged from my progressively brightening consciousness. At this point, I was a sophomore. I’d characteristically changed majors twice, from journalism to psychology to English. But I was just having fun in the moment. I don’t remember giving much thought to a career, and, as great as Mr. South and that freshman-semester TA had been, I was still locked into the idea of a solitary job. Much of my life’s grand excitement had really happened in my head, and I pictured myself working by myself. Right there, the reader should see how important this epiphany was going to be.

I was sitting in Mr.—that’s Mr.—Soos’ English literature class, and he was leading us in a discussion of Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much with Us.” Soos had already won me over by a) making deceptively difficult essay assignments (“Write a 1000-word personal essay around the word ‘vacillation.’ That is all.”); b) digging my argument that “Layla” was the greatest rock and roll song of all-time (he argued for “In the Still of the Night”—I’d bow to that now over my own choice); and c) really taking time to break literature down with us—not for us. In the case of Wordsworth’s poem, he was on fire, and fellow students were making modern connections like a string of Black Cats popping. I watched, listened, thought about his smart, funny, and encouraging comments on my essays, and realized, “This would be a fun a job. This is for me.” Helping people see, think, communicate, and appreciate—for one, those tasks were unselfish and paid dividends for humans in the future, and, for another, one could enjoy oneself thoroughly while performing them. I can still see Soos wildly waving his arms as he homed in on a line, suddenly came to a stop and slammed his hands to his hips, leaned forward, and stared at some mesmerized student for a response, then exploded in joy when the student articulated a powerful thought, scanning the class to make sure we had heard what our peer had just said. Yep, I thought, I think I can do that.

A vintage photo from the days when I required bowing before students addressed me.

And I did. My professional career carried me first to Springfield, Missouri’s Parkview High School, where old pros like Charlie Smith and Jim Dunlop taught me the dos and don’ts in the faculty smoking lounge, where speech-and-debate legend Bob Bilyeu, the first of the “great ones” I ever met, explained the pedagogical concept of benign negligence to me, and where a great principal named Dolores Brooks forced me to sponsor two different extracurricular clubs—as it should be for the newbie, as it isn’t often enough done today. Now, they get a choice.

What’s up with that?

After a difficult wrangling with a new and high-strung principal who thought my student government was doing too much (more on that later), I found my way to Columbia, Missouri’s Hickman High School, a much larger school where class, academic, and racial tensions throbbed through the hallways and the competition between teachers might have finished me had I been a rookie. For the first time, I drank from the well of teacher leadership, ever so briefly, as we debated the issue of tracking as it (truly) existed in our school; I was also introduced to the concept of team teaching, specifically the CWC (“class within a class”) approach, through which my partner Karen Downey would train me to be twice the teacher I was coming in.

Karen and I followed an excellent principal, Wanda Brown, to a newly constructed middle school named Smithton, where I fell in permanent love with 6th and 7th grade humans, entered a skill zone that sometimes seemed unconscious, served as team representative, after-school detention supervisor, basketball and track coach, building philosophy committee member, and unwilling mediator of 97% of team discipline issues—all at the same time, and I never felt too tired. It was great fun, until certain adults ruined it with their narrow insights into pedagogy, personal responsibility, race, and special education, and Karen and I split for our old Hickman haunts (more on that later, too).

During the final decade-plus there, I taught decently (I’d give myself a “B”—after middle schoolers, I was spoiled for older students, and never quite regained my mojo), but did co-found, with a horrible English student named David Kemper who also happened to be genius networker, a club called The Academy of Rock, that achieved many of the heights with which I am most proud to have been associated with in this business. Somehow, I also ended up coaching Science Olympiad—I am science guy, but a “C” student in the field—which, though I did little but paperwork and bus-riding, put me in contact with some of the brightest, nicest, hardest-working, funniest students I’d ever known. Then the convertible of my career rear-ended the 18-wheeler of retirement. What followed is the nougat of this book.

Today, as a retiree who likes to work and can’t give up a longtime habit, I tutor college students when they have difficulty with any writing-related project. One thing I hear from them on a regular basis is how scared they are that what they think they want to do, what they are paying great gobs of money for the paper that says they can do it, will end up not being what they want to do, and they’ll be S. O. L. Every time I hear that, I reflect on how grateful I need to be that I ran into these three teachers in particular. They disrupted and rechanneled my thinking, and saved me from sitting on my ass watching sports events (albeit getting paid to do so) for 30 years, which I can honestly say would not have been as enriching as what I ended up doing instead: teaching.

Even after my epiphany in Soos’ class, I was still shooting craps: you can’t know if you’ll like teaching until you are left alone with your own classes and have enough time to work through the initial shocks, which can last a few years. However, the moment I stepped in front of a class of seniors at Greenwood Laboratory School in Springfield, Missouri, a student teacher charged with selling Anglo-Saxon and Medieval lit to a passel of jaded seniors and knowing precious little about either the lit or the kids, I knew that space was home. In time, I’d feel more comfortable in front of a class than any other place (until I got married); I am still not sure why that’s the case, since humans fear public speaking just a little less than dying. I speak more clearly, think more freely, respond more spontaneously, and laugh more frequently when I am running a classroom than when I am doing anything else. In fact, it hurts my heart to realize I just wrote that sentence with present tense verbs, because I don’t run classrooms anymore. But teaching has been a gift I have been able to enjoy for 60% of my days on the planet, and I am deeply thankful.

For most teachers in current United States classrooms, the game has changed a bit: their preparation time, organic collaboration time, and recovery time have been clogged up with tasks invented by people who’ve either never taught or got out into the big money of administration as soon as they could (“Teaching: where the major financial rewards are in getting out of teaching!”). In addition, today’s teachers are regularly not trusted to do what they are trained to do, and their so-called evaluators, often with no background in the subject matter at hand, render potentially career-altering judgments based on five-minute observations of 50- to 90-minute lessons. In the district I just retired from, these judgments are made under the rubric of “rigor” and “relevance.” The two best teachers I have ever taught with, one a classical ideas and world religions expert whose classes for the adult community in our city are in high demand, the other a history teacher who’s visited damn near every country in the world and structures her lessons around not only her direct experience but also classroom reading that would give college upperclassmen pause, were both judged to be offering lessons lacking both rigor and relevance by administrators half their age with a tenth of their experience and none of their background. A damn shame.

Fear not, reader who might want to teach, or who is teaching under the above yoke. Trends cycle through; the current one has cycled a little more widely, but it’s recently been exposed—unsurprisingly, in massive cheating scandals and plummeting standardized test scores—for the sham that it is. That doesn’t mean the next trend will be any more, um, rigorous and relevant, but it is sure to be a reaction against a method that’s seems designed to suck all of the joy out of our profession. All jobs have such obstacles, but for us this is the truth: in teaching, if you are passionate, if you know your subject matter, if you like the young, if you aren’t allergic to hard work, if you can reflect and adjust, if you’re joyful, if you can take a bad day and know the next one might be (and often is) fantastic, if one academic victory in seven hours can sustain you, if you’re not afraid to play and improvise, if you really believe that all humans can learn and change—nothing can touch you. Also, if that string of ifs applies to you and you aren’t teaching at present, you might want to think about filling out an application today.

What follows is a day-by-day account of my final year of public classroom teaching, which, as I described above, came faster than I ever could have expected, and which I did not exactly meet with relief. It was originally published in different form in 2012 and 2013 on Facebook, where my audience was composed to a great extent of fellow teachers, current and former students, and many others who’d been in my educational orbit. Knowing it was my last year, I wanted to remember the best moments of every single school day. I could have been more discreet and written in a private diary—“How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog!”(Emily Dickinson, you ol’ spoilsport!)—but my instincts told me that, for one, the journey might be entertaining, and, for another, it might reveal an educator’s reality in an appealing way at a time when we were under a bit of political fire. I’ve never been one to grouse much about student behavior or tsk-tsk across the generations, so I chose to pick an instance each day that was simply piquant. Initially, I feared I wouldn’t finish it, but when I named it “The Farewell Tour” and began numbering the days, I provided myself a sense of obligation and appealed to my old statistician self (it’s still down in there, somewhere). To occasionally break up the marching-by of days and elaborate on some of their happenings, I have inserted some useful advice for future and current teachers, humorous and frightening career anecdotes that may defy belief but are verified true (I assure you), a few Top 10s (because who doesn’t love those?), and a few encomiums to colleagues and students without whom I probably wouldn’t have gotten here.

I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did, and encourage some of you to consider sharing your knowledge in a classroom. My biggest hope for this book is that it will convince you that teaching is a very fun profession, and please keep in mind while you read that, according to ol’ Fessler’s career cycle for teachers, I was allegedly in a stage accompanied by stagnancy, cynicism, disengagement, and—I love this one—the wind-down. Make any interpretative adjustments as you see fit, folks.

This was originally published on my “Overeem Farewell Tour” blog—link at the top—in the Fall of 2013.

Musical Moment

During my first year teaching in Columbia, Missouri (1990), one of my classes was large (32) and not traditionally successful in language arts classes. I tried to teach a unit built around Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, but on Day 2 it was crystal clear that it was not working and they weren’t having it (honestly, I could understand why). So for the first and only time in my career, we abandoned ship and swam to the shore of Alice Childress’ A Hero Ain’t Nuthin’ But a Sandwich. THAT unit was terrific, and inspired a discussion of the effects of capitalism on struggling and oppressed communities, which in turn inspired me to type out and mimeograph (those were the days) copies of the lyrics to this song, which we listened to and talked about for an entire period. I still love it as a musical systemic analysis.

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I have tried to keep these in mind, and keep ‘em:

1. Thou shalt not engage in a power struggle.

2. Thou shalt not assume any of your students will rise no higher than convenience store clerk.

3. Thou shalt not lie when you do not know the answer to a student question.

4. Thou shalt not hold fast when a student reveals you have made an error.

5. Thou shalt not forget to leave an emergency sub plan in your desk.

6. Thou shalt only curse when it is lingua franca of the student in question (whom you are meeting out in the hall).

7. Thou shalt remain cool when you are called a motherfucker (it is inevitable).

8. Thou shalt not force your favorite artifacts down your students’ throats.

9. Thou shalt call parents, especially when you don’t want to.

10. Thou shalt not live at your school (Translation: Thou shalt keep livin’).

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11. Thou shalt not judge transfer students the minute they first walk into your room.

12. Thou shalt not intercede in a cat fight.

13. Thou shalt remember administrators have their problems, too (and they will surely take them out on you).

14. Thou shalt remember that’s why administrators get the big bucks.

15. Thou shalt always bring a book to faculty meetings.

16. Thou shalt not buy six-packs for students.

17. Thou shalt only smoke while driving around the block on your “break.”

18. Thou shalt conceive daily of how your students will remember you in ten years, and act in accordance with your hopes (“being liked” is not enough).

19. Thou shalt remember what bugged you when you were their age.

20. Thou shalt remember that students > teachers > administrators > central office.

21. Thou shalt remember that enthusiasm, deep knowledge, compassion, and organization are the best classroom management tools.

22. Thou shalt remember that you were a young teacher once, too.

23. Thou shalt remember that the older teachers are your griots.

24. Thou shalt remember to write a fresh quote on the board every day for students who just stare into space (their eyes will eventually come to rest upon it).

25. Thou shalt not overstay thy welcome!

EXTRA CREDIT COMMANDMENT:

Thou shalt regard all commandments with _____________.

Those are still mine (though I haven’t smoked since 2007). What are yours?

Musical Moment

I have never played this for my students but I have badly wanted to. As well as teach my students the legend of Tuli Kupferberg….

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Quite honestly, until I’d almost taught 30 years already, I’d seldom given a thought to retirement. All I knew about a pension plan was that a chunk came out of my salary every month that I usually begrudged (especially early on—I’d taught almost ten years before I made $20,000 per). Also, as I mentioned last post, extracurricular sponsorship had re-energized me, and a new assignment of British literature offered me a welcome challenge of a somewhat unfamiliar curriculum that I grew to dearly love. At the urging of a few of my fellow veterans, I’d even applied for an assistant principalship (they were crafty fellow veterans), and, ignoring Thoreau’s advice the whole way, bought some new clothes. [Un?]fortunately, though I made the circle of three finalists, the then-current principal and a committee of my peers (no English teachers in the room?) believed that, in the principal’s words, I “would hate it and [my] students would miss out.” I was initially chapped off—I am not a believer in clairvoyance—but THANK THE STARS I WASN’T SELECTED BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE HATED IT!!!! I am not all about the Benjamins, which is damn near a requirement for retaining your sanity if you’re among that elect.

However, when I hit 50, I thought to myself, “I’m down for at least another decade, but maybe I better understand retirement now.” My wife Nicole unsurprisingly agreed. I made an appointment to meet a father-and-son retirement team who would walk me through the process as long as I brought all the relevant paragraph. My biggest concern was how long I’d have to sit and listen to money talk. I am not lying.

I pushed my paper across the table and they took turns inspecting all of it. After about 10 minutes (I was already getting impatient), Pops asked, “So when were you planning to retire?”

“Hmmm…I guess at 65 at the earliest. I have 15 more years in me, easily.”

“You can retire after next school year.”

“Wait what? I don’t want to retire yet!” Those are words that, from what I understand, are seldom spoken today—but these were, I suppose, different times.

“Well, we understand that, but you’ll essentially be teaching for free starting the fall semester of 2013. You’ll already have 29 years in, you can apply to buy two years of service by rolling over your tax-sheltered annuity—you’ll be approved due to the social security hours you’ve accrued—and you would start receiving your monthly retirement benefit in September plus a bump for having 31 years on paper. That would amount to more than you are currently making now per month—and you’d need to do nothing. Smart folks would find another job, and with that, you’d make up the amount of the annuity rollover pretty quickly.”

I can’t believe I just typed that dialogue! But, yes, that was the deal, and even though I have truly not cared about the money as long as we had enough for food, shelter, beer, music, and books, and as long as I loved the job, it even made sense to me. In retrospect, had I not followed what was essentially a whim, who knows how long I’d have gone on in the financial dark.

I was stunned for the remainder of the summer, but when my final full year started, I pledged to myself I would not phone it in, as I had seen some of my peers do. In fact, I wanted to do as much as possible as well as possible and enjoy that as much as possible—because I really wasn’t sure what was next. I knew from having watched my dad try to retire that I was not going to try to do nothing creatively—I had to, wanted to, work. But I could worry about that later.

For that final year, I continued to teach three sections of British literature. To fill out my assignment, I’d usually taught two sections of senior English—seniors all day is a dream slate, truly—but that summer I’d been asked by the department head, a longtime peer and friend I’d much admired who was near retirement as well, if I would take two sections of literature seminar. Lit Sem was a kind of reading recovery class for all grades; ideally, enrolled students would enter reading at one or more years behind their grade level, the main goal of the course being helping them read at-level. That sounds like a gig worth taking, and I took it, but not instantaneously: a mix of grade levels is often no picnic; a handful of students each section tended to be reading at-level or higher but had in the past underachieved, been behavior issues, or both—in other words, a BAD FIT for Lit Sem—and guidance counselors looking to get generally struggling students a language arts credit tended to pack the sections. An ideal per-section population cap on an individualized reading improvement course held in a small classroom packed with books is 12-15—not 20-22, as I would experience and barely survive. Still, I wanted a challenge on my way out, so I agreed to the class. It allowed the department head to give every English teacher a schedule to their satisfaction, and that’s a rarity.

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably expecting a blow-by-blow account of my original Farewell Tour. I kept a day-by-day Facebook diary that year and transferred it to my education website, organized by month, so why replicate it? Maybe one day I’ll write that book! Suffice it to say that I succeeded in having fun, meeting a new challenge, generally teaching well if behaving a tad more loosely when it came to narrative tangents, and avoiding meetings. Right as I was starting to feel a bit nervous about a retirement gig, Hickman offered me a part-time teaching gig (a Brit Lit and a Lit Sem class) that seemed just right. That summer, my old teaching partner called me about a professional writing tutor opening at Stephens College she thought I’d like, which I applied for, was hired to fill, and fit with my high school schedule. Did it help that the person who hired me also grew up in Carthage, Missouri, and went to the University of Arkansas, like I did? It did not hurt. My part-time position at Hickman disappeared after two years when a new high school began accepting seniors, but almost simultaneously Stephens offered me two freshman composition classes to go with my tutoring gig, which I hungrily accepted. I’m typing this in my office in Hugh Stephens library as my 13th year here draws to a close.

I have been the beneficiary of chance as well as privilege more times than I deserve, but I did choose to walk through all those doors and do my best. I am deeply grateful, I assure you.

Takeaways?

I dared to not worry much about money and do a job I thought was fun. I have no regrets. It’s still fun for me; I actually wish I were able to teach more than I currently am.

Teaching seems to be a scary job, but if you are knowledgeable and genuinely excited about your subject matter, carry with you the wonder that accompanied your own learning, see young people as human beings and treat them accordingly, welcome the things they can teach you, and have a modicum of organizational skill, it can and probably will delight you.

I can neither paint nor play an instrument, but teaching is my creative outlet. Constantly fiddling with my methods and subject matter and obsessively thinking about what I would enjoy if I were my students’ age has kept work fresh for me, and usually been met with acceptance.

Perhaps this isn’t great advice, but I have steadfastly avoided teaching journals and chosen to keep educating myself with music, literature, film, and wide-ranging non-fiction. That habit has filled my kit bag with possibilities for connections I can make that will open doors for my students. Plus it’s much more fun. Learn by doing, baby.

It’s not an official part of the benefits package, but if you are receptive to your students and your subject matter—which, in Heraclitian style, changes with you—you will grow, you will evolve over the years. You know, some folks choose to quit growing at 18….

I could go on, but I’ll close with this, and I wonder if any other teacher reading this feels the same way: I’m never more my actual (and, I think, best) self than when I’m in front of a classroom. It’s no secret that, in pretty much all of our social situations, even in our closest and deepest and most comfortable relationships, we construct our identities. There’s always a core we keep close, or, sometimes, struggle to express and eventually rein in. I confess to having a bit of social anxiety—I can hear friends of mine as well as my wife laughing at that statement—which I deal with by filling any empty space with talk. It makes me seem socially affable, but there’s a measure of fear behind it all. Weirdly, I do not feel that when the bell rings to start a class. True, I can talk a lot there, but there’s seldom been fear propelling it, especially over the last 30-35 years. I am grateful for the stage teaching has given me to be free.

Musical Moment

Believe it or not, a parent once pulled her daughter from my middle-school teaching team because I described Chuck Berry’s delivery on songs like this one as “machine-gun style.” She told my principal (who fortunately backed me up) that I was advocating violence. TRUE STORY.

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Returning to Hickman in August of 2002, I knew I already had several things going for me other than 18 years of experience, and five of those at the school itself. I’d be working again with my teaching sensei/special ed specialist, though only three out of five periods of the day—I’d gotten a bit spoiled having her by my side most entire days during my middle school jaunt (please note: if every classroom boasted two allied teachers, our world would be a better place). My new principal was my old principal, a class act who had become even classier after several years of administrating. Unlike what I’d experienced (and didn’t deserve, really) from the beginning at Smithton Middle School, I would not be considered a faculty antagonist—most of the Hickman teachers knew me from my first go-’round at Hickman, when I was outspoken but expected to be, as that was (to a degree) part of the school culture. The best teacher I’d ever worked with as well as one of my very best friends—the inventor of Hickman’s classical ideas and world religions class, the sponsor of its chapter of Amnesty International, and the organizer of the school’s Speak Your Mind Forum—would be on hand to keep me from losing my sanity and hold up an educational bar I’d never reach but would always try to. Finally, my students would not cry when they forgot their locker combinations (lockers were for nerds, anyway), melt down in the flames of Puberty Crossing, or bring their helicopter parents into my classroom with them (not back then, anyway)—they were much more grown. When I walked back into Hickman’s teacher workroom for the first time in seven years wearing a Minutemen t-shirt (I always had my school picture taking wearing a rock tee) and a peer greeted me with “That band is awesome,” I took it as an omen that I would soon be sailing.

That was not to be. The thing is, at Smithton Middle School all students, aside from those with the most extreme skill deficits, attended their classes together. The EEE program provided the (supposedly) most gifted students some time each day to play together, but otherwise, in core and elective classes, they learned with students who weren’t as slick, privileged, or naturally proficient (if that’s even a thing). I loved that about teaching middle school! Every class had serious academic representation, and the fact that team teachers could create rosters allowed us to spread out students with behavioral issues evenly, which was key to reducing those issues. At Hickman High School, not so much. The stratification of classes, especially for sophomores, had become more impermeable since I’d left, creating a “bottom” level of core classes that would very frequently be lacking in role models. Three of my five assigned classes were 10th grade courses, and, while I would end up having “A” students in all of them, the most significant missing ingredient, one never missing in a middle school class I experienced, was enthusiasm. By the end of my first month of my return, I’d been brutally refamiliarized with adolescent apathy and classic teenage withholding behavior: nothing was more verboten than admitting a subject or activity was, um, COOL, MAN! Sixth and seventh graders had spoiled me by almost always caring and expressing their glee. I knew I would have to retool—pretend that middle school teacher had never happened and become a new teaching being.

It took me awhile. By the end of my first year, I felt I had never made the kind of difference with my students that I expected to. I had tried several strategies and taken some chances with curriculum, to no avail. After the first semester of my second year, I began doubting how long I could keep it up—I’ve always insisted on having some fun in anything I do, and I truly was not generating it. Out of the blue, in early February of 2004, one of my 11th grade students found me during lunch and reminded me of something I’d already learned but somehow forgotten, something I have always recommended to student teachers:

GET INVOLVED IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES!

They are time-consuming, yes, and they seldom come with stipends, but they allow you to see students and them to see you in a very different context. They can be—refreshing.

I needed refreshment more than anything else, and David, my student, asked me if I’d be willing to sponsor a rock and roll club. I was initially skeptical, because I’d heard such proposals before that amounted to wanting to just hang out and talk (enjoyable but not my idea of rejuvenation). But David quickly disabused me of that notion: he had an intricately worked-out plan that, as he unfurled it, inspired me to throw in some additional moving parts, and he quickly demonstrated that he was a master networker, bringing 40 students to our clubs first meeting. Sporting a gentleman’s D- in my class, he was not a master scholar—but it just didn’t matter. CONTEXT IS ALL! I won’t go into detail about what we ended up achieving in the ten years I sponsored the club: read it here (scroll down to Extracurricular Activities—>The Academy of Rock). While some of the links are dead, it’s all true. That experience immediately and continually energized me and shifted my attitude out of the doldrums into my customary positivity. Along the way, I also sponsored Science Olympiad (my high school science teacher would croak with the knowledge if he’s still above ground), the short-lived Hip Hop Club (more accurately described as the Kid Cudi club), and The True/False Film Festival Academy (which still exists in a mutated but wonderfully expanded form).

Later in the ‘Oughts, after my principal was promoted and her replacement encouraged me, I took a step into teacher leadership, something I wouldn’t have gone near in the past. For one, I was impressed that the new principal desired organized feedback from the faculty, regardless of how uncomfortable it might be for both parties. For another, I appreciated that he’d chosen to challenge me with the task, though, of course, I was skeptical about why I was selected. Had he divined that I was capable of being exploited? Or had he heard that I would make an honest stab at executing the duties? At any rate, I accepted the position and set about contacting department heads to send elected representatives to our first meeting.

The principal had made the effort to assemble a massive three-prong binder of resources I could study which, characteristically, I opened once and stored—I like on-the-job training and trust my mind, instincts and experience. That seemed to have worked during the three years I led what was called the faculty advisory committee: very few meetings were marked by noticeable tension even when we (fairly frequently) voiced concerns that had the potential of annoying the, um, brass, and I’d estimate that we stimulated constructive action on the adminstration’s in 70-75% of the issues. Regarding those we couldn’t bring to resolution, half of those were very instructive for me—I developed a better understanding of the marching orders our own supervisors had to observe.

One disappointment I felt was cynicism expressed by some of my closest teacher friends that I’d become a tool. All I can say is that I was aware of that possibility and worked hard to avoid it, mainly by making sure our conversations were accurately and meticulously reported out (thank you, Kathy!). I quite frankly enjoyed my time with the committee, but, once I knew I was retiring, I stepped down for my final full-time year, and observed a gradual change that was my deepest disappointment. We’d been serving under another new principal (the facilitator of the committee had moved on after trying to shape a faculty that could operate on its own without a principal in charge—a goal a very much admired but which we did not achieve), and in no time it seemed obvious to me that my replacements were blatantly more manipulable (a very young teacher and a non-teaching staff member who was a known suck-up to power—sorry but ’twas true) and that the power of the committee had been significantly reduced by procedural changes. One thing I learned in my 31 years teaching public school is that many good ideas never get implemented and those that do very seldom last. I am happy to report, though, that Hickman’s current version of the committee, brought into being by yet another new principal—why doesn’t anyone stick around? (there are reasons, I know, but still)—is doing some amazing things I wish we’d thought of.

Reflecting back on these extracurricular opportunities I took advantage of? You noticed, I am sure, that I was asked on these occasions, and (always with a shade of reluctance) accepted. When I transferred from Smithton Middle School, where I’d not only taught in a teacher pod model but also served most of those years as my team’s representative, a member of the building philosophy committee, the after-school detention supervisor, the curator of the school library’s international music CD collection, and both a head JV basketball and long-distance track coach, I simply assumed that since Hickman was vastly larger and did not employ teacher pods, I wouldn’t be needed for the more than simply teaching. I had thought and even felt I was looking forward to a lighter load and more time to spend on life. However, the obvious fact was that I had enjoyed those additional responsibilities (I’d even continued coaching at Smithton for a year after I’d already transferred) even though I didn’t get paid much for them and honored a serious time commitment. I should have sought out extracurricular opportunities from the beginning of my tenure at Hickman. In fact, I should have remembered how fun sports and clubs were from my own high school experience. Sometimes the answer for ending your struggle is right at the end of your nose. I shouldn’t have pretended I never happened; I needed to have remembered how I did. Like my dad, I can be very slow on the uptake—but I usually get there.

These are hard times for educators, which makes extracurricular participation more important for both students and teachers. Yep: more time commitment. My personal response to that is, well, life isn’t a rehearsal—it’s the show. Along with acting with enthusiasm, depth of knowledge, an organizational framework and basic humanity, one of the most essential recommendations I can make to teachers starting out is—get involved outside of your classroom.

I can already hear my English teacher buddies mutter Animal Farm quotes….

(TO BE CONTINUED)

Musical Moment

I’ve had the privilege of teaching some very talented and intelligent young writers at Stephens College (few have had much to learn from me). One regularly made eloquent cases in writing for Taylor Swift’s work, which I do not dislike but which—this is not intended cruelly—I don’t need like I need other music. I’m a 64-year-old happily married dude with no daughters, after all, though I can admire her skill as a writer and performer. ANYWAY, Alena stopped by my office recently with a fellow creative writing major, and they sweetly challenged me to actually listen to Sabrina Carpenter with full attention. It had gotten around that I’d said to one of my classes that I’d never even heard “Espresso” (still true), and they felt I required education. The pair were too smart, sincere, and concerned for me not to follow their dictates—and (unsurprisingly) I am better for having done so. This Carpenter woman is devilishly clever! I am wrong a lot for someone who listens to as much music as I do, and I obviously need what follows more than my readers probably do:

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It’ll make sense in a few paragraphs.

In April of 1984, as a college senior at what was then Southwest Missouri State University, I accepted a teaching assignment with Parkview High School. When I confronted my first classes that August, they were filled with 130+ humans (roughly 100 ninth graders and 35 seniors). “Confronted” is the word; I was nervous enough to feel the need to take an adversarial stance. The ninth graders were new to the building; the seniors were on the way out—well, 22 of them were hoping to be, as they were enrolled in a last-chance “bonehead English” (as one fellow English teacher put it) course for which I was provided no reasonably fresh materials. During my very first class, a local news reporter and her cameraman popped in to get some footage—just in time to witness me bring a stack of To Kill a Mockingbirds down on my head. I was wearing a gray three-piece suit with a maroon tie, being excessively concerned about my professional appearance, and I was already sweating. And not just from fear of flopping: only the main office was air-conditioned, none of the rooms had ceiling fans, and I’d neglected to buy a floor fan to bring with me. Note: I’d brought home $900 a month during the summer working in a cheese factory; my monthly take-home pay for Parkview was $865 that year.

By winter break, I had survived to the extent that I knew I would really like the job. But I was always broke by the end of the third week of each month and my social life had withered to nonexistent due to grading expectations and pure exhaustion. I was sound asleep by 8:00 pm most Friday nights. Before classes resumed in 1985, I received a call from one of my very favorite college profs, Kay Lederer. Dr.Lederer explained that another prof was not returning for the spring semester and had not given advance notice: “Would you be interested in teaching a composition class for adults twice a week in the evening?”

My immediate response? “Why ME? I’m barely hanging in there with high school kids! I don’t even know if I’m any good at this yet!”

“Phil, it pays and I bet you need the money. Plus, we believe in you.” During my last two years of college I had somehow fooled my English instructors, without intention but with raw enthusiasm, into believing I knew things, when in reality I’d just been drippy-nosed white boy punk (and I use that final word in the pejorative sense).

I did need the money, so I closed my eyes, swallowed deeply, and exhaled a quavery “I’ll do it.”

I’d taught adult swimming lessons when I was 17—that was not remotely as easy as teaching tykes. Adults tended to have long-engrained habits and fears that were a barrier to learning. Teaching them to write struck me as possibly easier; it was their being twice or possibly three times my age that worried me. “Imposter syndrome” is a pest that buzzes around many instructors’ heads; I doubt if it had been labeled thus at that point, but I definitely fretted that they would detect I was full of shit, which I was sure I would be at least a third of the time words were coming out of my mouth.

Early has always been on time for me—I like to get comfortable in my setting—so I fake-sauntered into my assigned classroom, expecting maybe one or two students to have beaten me there. I had learned that I could appear before a class without a tie; I was still afraid not to wear a jacket, but since some of my SMSU profs had worn jeans, I was relieved to be able to be comfortable. I also had a pack of cigarettes handy, as all of my cool profs smoked in class and had burn holes in their tweed—those were the days, eh? However, upon entering, I was alarmed to discover that most of my 25 or so students were already in the house. I quickly snatched a dart out of my pocket, lit up, took a big drag, and tried (likely unsuccessfully) to look blasé until 7:00 rolled around. I opened with a nervous welcome and blurted out some scattershot information about myself, and was horrified to note that damn near the whole class was writing down everything I was saying. Also, they were completely silent and attentive—I had not reckoned that I would not have to exercise the classroom control I was trying to master with high school kids. If they were focused, I thought, I will surely be found out. However, I had no choice but to plunge forward into the unknown, advising them only to write down what I was saying when I told them to. High school teachers will surely chuckle at my shock at being raptly listened to.

I don’t remember much about how I taught composition—this was 41 years ago! I can’t even remember if there was an assigned text. I only remember being very locked in out of sheer fear, emptying my brain of everything I knew that worked regarding knocking out an essay, never really being questioned (these were very nice adult students), and never ever letting class out early. The one class period other than the first one that I have a vivid memory of did not end well—but not in a way I would ever have expected.

We were perhaps two-thirds of the way through the course, and one night in February I was on fire. I could feel actual wisdom pouring out of me as if I were a medium for universal truth; the feeling was not just mental but physical, too. I was sweating, and not due to the blast furnace-level dry heat blowing out of the radiators—I remember being on the verge of some kind of ascension when I suddenly noticed it was already 9:00 pm. I cut my final knowledge-flow short and dismissed the class, but they hesitated and even seemed…disappointed. They shuffled out, sneaking looks at me, and I thought, “Damn—I must have been good!” At that moment, the last student out, a very sweet middle-aged woman (she was probably 35!) stopped, turned to me, and lifted her hand to my empty and stunned forehead.

“Mr. Overeem, you are red-hot with fever. You need to get home and get into bed and go see a doctor first thing tomorrow morning!”

I told her, “No, I think I was just on tonight,” and she chuckled and walked out. I was feeling a bit…peaked, though. By the time I got back to my apartment, I knew I was sick. At the time, because it was within my budget, I was living in a clearly very old building that seemed to me mostly populated by senior citizens and possibly the down and out. Regularly, I could hear someone (if not multiple people) coughing all night long, and it wasn’t Hank Williams’ shade. Only renters and the landlord could enter the building freely; if I had a visitor, they would have to call me ahead of time so I could go downstairs to let them in. All of this probably sounds unpleasant, but I had a Murphy bed, which (only) I thought made the set-up cool. What would happen as the night unspooled was definitely not cool.

I took my temperature: 103. And my sinuses had begun to flood and drain. I assumed I would not be able to see a doctor until morning (?), so I ran a cold bath in the ancient clawfoot tub to try to bring down my fever. I was so delirious I did not notice that I hadn’t placed a towel on the rack before I got in, so, shivering and chattering, I hopped out and discovered I did not have a clean one available. I yanked a dirty one out of the hamper, dried off, and, clamping my hands on the sides of the sink, leaned in to look at how sick I was. Unable to bear the weight, the sink then broke free from the bathroom wall, cracking the cold water line and sending its issue into my face, soaking my towel and body in the process. I hadn’t realized a shut-off valve was in plain sight, so, as water began to seep out of the bathroom, I called the landlord, who angrily apprised me of that fact. After shutting off the valve, I dried off again, this time on random dirty clothes, got dressed, wiped down the floor with more dirty clothes (no laundry in this old dump!), checked the fridge for fluids and the cupboard for crackers, and, finding none, convulsed back into the winter night to drive to a convenience store for supplies.

When I returned to the apartment, dizzy and flushed, I thirstily slammed a big glass of Mountain Dew, only to find the liter was flat. I forced myself to drink a few more glasses, jammed a pack of crackers down by gullet, and collapsed into bed. I slept restlessly, but my fever finally broke in the morning, in time for me to call my absence in to the head secretary. I could tell from her voice she was scowling—teacher absences were not ever encouraged at the time. Nonetheless, I hung up and fell back into slumber.

I was awakened around 2:00 pm by the phone’s rattle. It was the lead secretary. She’d called to inform me that my sixth period students had run the substitute out of the classroom and wouldn’t let him come back in when he changed his mind—could I come in, possibly, and take care of the situation? It was a different time, but—this amazes me—I said no. I was hungry, thirsty, still damp and musty, hair askew, sink-less, broke, exhausted, and croaking. Comeuppance would have to wait, at least at my hands.

When I returned to class (the next day!), I had a good laugh with that class. My worst school experience during my first year of teaching was outside of school, but I did learn, when I feel inspiration has taken over my being, to run a heat check, make sure my laundry’s done and fresh towels are out, and look for a shut-off (either for my mouth, brain, or spewing water).

Musical Moment

I’ve written before about the “songwriter series” mini-lessons I taught to my 12th grade British literature students at Hickman. Above, I make reference to an artist and song we encountered (did you catch it?), many of whose lyrics can creep up on one during such times as these.

Yep, I know this is supposed to be an “education” newsletter, but I have frequently learned more from a three- (or 34-) minute record, baby, than I ever learned in school—and this is someone who’s taught through five decades typing that. I also keep a music blog to go with a more expansive education blog (that also includes music content), and that subject matter is better for my practice than teaching or English journals, though just plain reading what interests me helps, too.

I am a one-woman man but I have an open relationship with many musical genres. Even classical music can captivate me if it’s a little twisted and raucous! As you will see in my year-end lists below, like Dion I am a (helpless) wanderer, and as far as that goes it’s actually assisted me in my attempts to build relationships with students. If I can’t find a musical way to connect with a student, well, it’s probably my fault (unless they “just don’t listen to music”—there are such earthlings). Like playing three-way chess with Father Time and Heraclitus, if I’m keeping a list or constructing a rough-draft ballot I constantly move items up and back, on to and off of my lists, and committing the following to a published post makes me wince. Even though I have already annoyed the overseer of the poll containing the first ballot below by altering it twice after the deadline, I’d change it yet again before I posted it here if it weren’t annoying to me. I will aster-risk that.

I encourage you 1) to experiment even if it’s just the album title or cover that is attracting you, and 2) to BUY some music, rather than just stream it, which barely benefits most artists if it does at all. Variety is the spice of life, and folks gotta eat.

Dive in! Most of the selections can be accessed via Bandcamp or purchased through the artists’ websites (unfortunately, time issues prevent me from linking everything, though since I had to put an excavational list together this morning, I did link them—if I have time tomorrow, I’ll plug in links via an edit). Keep your ears and mind open.

Expert Witness Year-End Poll Ballot. EW is a FB group full of passionate music fans, writers, and players most of whom have been raised by the alleged “Last Critic,” Robert Christgau. Member Brad Luen, whose Substack slays and not just with music writing (SUBSCRIBE!), oversees and sweats over our poll, and here’s what I submitted to him finally—sorry, Brad):

Albums (we have 100 points to divide among our Top 10 albums; we can assign no more than 30 and no fewer than 5 to any record)

1. Tyler Childers: Snipe Hunter (25)

2. The Delines: Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom (15)

3. Los Thuthanaka: Los Thuthanaka (15)

4. Sabrina Carpenter: Man’s Best Friend (10)

5. Husker Du: 1985—The Miracle Year (10)

6. [ahmed]: Sama’a [Audition] (5)

7. August Fanon & billy woods: Gowillog (5)

8. Danny Brown: Stardust (5)

9. Natural Information Society: Perseverance Flow (5)

10. Karol G: Tropicoqueto (5)

Singles (we don’t assign points to these—but we can asterisk one to give it a boost; also, any song we listened to separately from its album can be called a single—streaming ruins everything but in this case I enjoy the freedom)

1. Natural Information Society: “Perseverance Flow”

2. Sabrina Carpenter: “Tears”

3. Tyler Childers: “Eatin’ Big Time”

4. Tommy Womack: “A Little Help Here”

5. Margo Price: “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down”

6. doseone & Height Keech: “Wood Teeth”

7. Karol G: “LATINA FOREVER”

8. Chappell Roan: “The Giver”

9. Lilly Allen: “P***y Palace”

10. Geese: “100 Horses”

EPs (these are what in the descending days of physical media were called “extended play singles”—for us, it’s an album roughly 25 minutes in duration or less; we also can use a curious eight points to distribute if…well…the formula is too complicated for me with the amount of coffee I’ve had)

1. doseone & Height Keech: Wood Teeth (5)

2. Kronos Quartet + The Hard Rain Collective: Hard Rain (1)

3. Makaya McCraven: The People’s Mixtape (1)

4. Taj Mahal & Keb’ Mo’: Room on the Porch for Everyone (1)

Current Favorite Current Singers (as with the singles above, Mr. Luen just counts the mentions)

1. Tyler Childers

2. Talibah Safiya (IMPORTANT NOTE: if I were resubmitting the ballot today, Talibah’s 2025 album “Black Magic” would have knocked Karol G out of my Top 10. ALSO, her new album “Eternal,” out in February, is seriously sharp—I, as you also might, got an early listen on EVEN)

3. Sabrina Carpenter

4. Phoebe Lunny

5. Danny Brown (please delight in watching him lip synch to Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” here)

Francis Davis Memorial Jazz Critics Poll Ballot. I am very lucky to be a part of this, as it includes some of the very best jazz writers and critics alive, and I am distinctly not one of those—I am merely a hunter and finder. Mr. Davis, who passed last year, was one of jazz’s best chroniclers, thinkers, and advocates, and the poll’s tireless organizer, Tom Hull, properly renamed the poll after him.

Best Albums

1. [ahmed]: [Sama’a] (Audition) (Otoroku)

2. Peter Brotzmann: The Quartet (Otoroku) 

3. Cosmic Ear: TRACES (We Jazz) 

4. Mary Halvorson: About Ghosts (Nonesuch) 

5. Steve Lehman: The Music of Anthony Braxton (Pi Recordings)

6. Amina Claudine Myers: Solace of the Mind (Red Hook)

7. Deepstaria Enigmatica: The Eternal Now Is the Heart of a New Tomorrow (ESP-Disk)

8. William Hooker: Jubilation (Org Music) 

9. OTHERLANDS TRIO: Star Mountain (Intakt)

10. Joe Chambers, Kevin Diehl, Chad Taylor: Onilu (Eremite)

Rara Avis (reissues or excavations of older material)

1. Various Artists: The Bottle Tapes (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

2. Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Jump Up & Down Fast—Vibrations in the Village, Live at the Village Gate (Resonance)

3. Cecil Taylor / Tony Oxley: Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance)

4. Marco Eneidi Quintet: Wheat Fields of Kleylehof (Balance Point Acoustics / Botticelli)

5. Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith: The World of the Children (Strata-East)

Vocal

1. Silvana Estrada: Vendran Suaves Lluvia (Glassnote)

2. Laura Ann Singh: Mean Reds (Out of Your Head)

3. Lena Bloch: Marina (Fresh Sounds)

Latin

1. Roger Glenn: My Latin Heart (Patois)

2. Miguel Zenon: Vanguardia Subterranea (Miel Music)

3. Aruan Ortiz: Creole Renaissance (Intakt)

My Own Selected “Excavations and Reissues” List (alphabetized): one thing teachers in all field areas should be responsible for is keeping history alive. We’re literally overwhelmed with “new content” every day, to the extent, I suppose, that some come to believe that’s all that matters. I do not believe this; thus, I put many hours into reading, watching and especially listening to old stuff—and that requires actively seeking out such precious artifacts. Please email me or comment if you’d like to know more about these (or, actually, anything in this post) and I’d be happy to help!

Amasia: Anamibia Sessions 2 (Archetext)

Bar-B-Q Killers: The Last Shit, Part 1 (Chunklet 45)

Mohinder Kaur Bhamra: Punjabi Disco (Naya Beat)

Charles Brackeen: Rhythm X (Strata-East)

Stanley Cowell: Musa—Ancestral Streams (Strata-East)

Bob Dylan: Through the Open Window—The Bootleg Series Volume 18 (Columbia)

Johnny Bragg: Let Me Dream On (Org Music)

Master Wilburn Burchette: Master Wilburn Burchette’s Psychic Meditation Music (Numero Group)

Kenny Dorham: Blue Bossa in the Bronx—Live from the Blue Morocco (Resonance)

Electric Satie: Gymnopedia ’99 (In Sheep’s Clothing)

Marco Eneidi Quintet: Wheat Fields of Kleylehof (Balance Point Acoustics / Botticelli)

Shamek Farrah: First Impressions (Strata-East)

Shamek Farrah & Sonelius Smith: The World of the Children (Strata-East)

Woody Guthrie: Woody at Home, Vol 1 + 2 (Shamus)

William Hooker: A Time Within: Live at the New York Jazz Museum, January 14, 1977 (The Control Group / Valley of Search)

Hüsker Dü: 1985—The Miracle Year (Numero Group)

Michael Gregory Jackson: Frequency Equilibrium Koan (moved-by-sound)

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Seek & Listen—Live at the Penthouse (Resonance)

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: Vibrations in the Village—Live at the Village Gate (Resonance)

K. Curtis Lyle, Jaap Blonk, Damon Smith, Alex Cunningham: A Radio of the Body (Balance Point Acoustics)

Various Artists: Edna Martinez Presents Picó: Sound System Culture From The Colombian Caribbean (Strut)

Mazinga: Chinese Democracy Manifest—Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (Rubber Wolf)

Cecil McBee: Mutima (Strata-East)

Stephen McCraven: Wooley the Newt (moved-by-sound)

Charles Mingus: In Argentina—The Buenos Aires Concert (Resonance)

The Morells: You’re Gonna Hurt Yourself (Sound Asleep)

Yusef Mumin: Journey to the Ancient (We Want Sounds)

Music, Inc.: Live at Slug’s Volumes I & II (Strata-East)

Alick Nkhata: Radio Lusaka (Mississippi Records)

Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra Led by Horace Tapscott: Live at Widney High December 26th, 1971 (The Village)

Les Rallizes Denudes: Blind Baby Has Its Mother’s Eyes (Life Goes On)

Les Rallizes Denudes: Jittoku ’76 (Temporal Drift)

The Replacements: Let It Be (Deluxe Edition) (Rhino)

The Sex Pistols: Live in the U.S.A. South East Music Hall, Atlanta, January 5th, 1978 (UME)

Sun Ra: Nuits de la Fondation Maeght 5 August 1970 (Strut)

John Surman: Flashpoint and Undercurrents (Cuneiform Records)

Atef Swaitat & Abu Ali: Palestinian Bedouin Psychedelic Dabka Archive (Majazz Project/Palestinian Sound Archive)

Masahiko Tagashi: Session in Paris, Volume 1—Song of the Soil (with Don Cherry and Charlie Haden) (We Want Sounds)

Cecil Taylor / Tony Oxley: Flashing Spirits (Burning Ambulance)

Various Artists: African Jazz Invites O.K. Jazz (Planet Ilunga)

Various Artists: The Bottle Tapes (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Various Artists: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe– The Modern Sound of Harare’ Townships 1975-1980 (Analog Africa)

Various Artists: Sweet Rebels—The Golden Era of Algerian Pop-Rai (We Want Sounds)

Alfred White: The Definitive Alfred White (Music Makers Recordings)

Jessica Williams: Blue Abstraction—Prepared Piano Project 1985–1987 (Pre-Echo Press)

Thanks for reading and may you receive joy and fire as you listen!

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…there are many things I’d love to have done differently. Too often, early on, I just had to do it my way.

It’s not like I’m bowing out: my goal is to teach for 50 years. But as my bones begin to creak and my muscles atrophy and my mind is more susceptible to confusion and the inevitable is more present, I’ve been thinking more frequently about my mistakes. Of course, that's helpful in preparing for my future classes; I’m just tutoring this spring at Stephens and seeking more sub jobs where I can actually teach, but I am fairly sure my pedagogical number will be called this summer and next fall. Here are some past stumbles of mine I hope not to experience again.

I should have started calling parents regularly much earlier.

I should have couched literary instruction in gender and class examination as well as historical and literary focus.

I should have kept copies of every roster for every class so I could more easily remember whom I taught, where, when, and what.

I should have been more aggressive after my first six years pursuing extracurricular activities and within my first six years pursuing a course in American popular music.

I should have skipped a couple of teacher leadership opportunities, though I thoroughly enjoyed the one I accepted until it was gutted after I stepped down.

I should have tempered my temper, shut down the sarcasm, and limited the loquacious far, far earlier.

I should have at least occasionally read more educational research (I’ve always operated according to my native intelligence, such as it has been, and my daily observations), which would have eliminated the following regret.

I should have started conducting Socratic seminars in Year One.

I should have asked to work with a special education specialist in Year One (but that arrangement might not have been available).

I should have sought out guest speakers earlier in my career to augment units of study and give my students a break from me.

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I could tell you several stories for each of these regrets, but we have finite time on this planet. If you're a young teacher, take heed; if you know a young teacher, share this with them; if you're an old dog, it’s never too late. Second semester starts in a few days!

Musical Moment

Just a counterbalance.

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Two songs of Loudon’s always worked—they were tailor-made for Thanksgiving break. I’d type up and run off the lyrics so students could follow along (as well as pick them up after in case I might have run afoul of educational fair use). Though Wainwright’s enunciation is usually clear as a bell, sometimes reading while listening, I found, enhanced students’ engagement.

Thinking like an entertainer, I’d start with lighter fare, though as I mentioned above, sharpened blades are almost always hidden in even the most jocular of this artist’s songs.

Yep, that’s got some irresistible guffaws built in (“Forget about Thanksgiving / It’s just a boo-fay in between”—not to mention the “sweatshop full of elves”), but if one takes a beat after that 2:25 rush of jokes (the musical rush is no accident), there’s not a little bitterness built into the conversion of lovely family occasions into capitalist panem et circenses. No wonder the song ends in heartache.

Yep, teachers put on four or five shows a day, so you have to think like a performer, so I saved the more somber, thoughtful, complex, and potentially painful material for last. Wainwright’s “Thanksgiving” is so evocative of our dream of the holiday—in fact, a dream, wistfully rendered near the end of the song, is the point.

This time’s there’s really only one joke in the whole song: “If I argue with a loved one, Lord / Please make me the winner.” And, like I mentioned above, there’s a blade hidden in that cranberry sauce that’s being passed. The song’s almost 40 years old, and it might describe an American family’s Thanksgiving even better now than it did then.

Back to that dream.

I fall asleep, I have a dream
In it is the family
Nothing bad has happened yet
And everyone is happy
Mother and Father, both still young
And naturally they love us
We’re all lying on a lawn at night
Watching the stars above us….

We never lay on the lawn together, my brother, my father, my mother and me, but we had togetherness—it’s interesting how both songs are as much about the passage of time as they are about family or holidays. “Nothing bad has happened yet”—that was one line I wanted my students to absorb and carry home with them, though, for many of them, bad things had already happened, in some cases very bad things.

This Thanksgiving was the first I spent without both my parents above ground, as they say. We had dinner with one of our most beloved friends as well as a long-time fond acquaintance. Our friend had lost her husband—also a dear friend of ours—in February, and the acquaintance had been his best buddy for almost forty years. My mom died in June; the anniversary of my mother-in-law’s heart-wrenching passing from Stage 4 glioblastoma is around the corner, and her last real meal was on Thanksgiving Day 2013.

We shared some great food, laughs, memories, and discoveries this Thanksgiving, but I am fairly sure of this: we all had some very specific dreams as we slept later that night.

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Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.

Musical Moment

I’m still rocked by the passing of the great American troubadour and shit-disturber Todd Snider last month. Here’s a song I used to play as students prepared to leave for the December holiday break. Even some serious Snider fans don’t know he was covering a big 1949 hit by none other than Guy “Auld Lang Syne” Lombardo! The two songs have a bit in common.

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