School's Out

A friend and I were discussing a teacher from junior high.  He was a band director.  I wasn't in the band and I don't think she was, either, but this teacher had the ability to reach all the kids in the school with his fun personality.  He was also young, and in the mid 60's, a young teacher was still somewhat a novelty.  He seemed to understand us and our young teen social miseries.  There was another teacher at our school who also understood teen angst, but those two were NOT the norm.  Most of the teachers were old, even elderly, and although some of them were excellent teachers, some of them really should have retired before we arrived.  We had a music teacher who drank alcohol on her breaks.  Music class was ALWAYS crazy.  I never saw my math teacher not knitting.  I take that back - she would sometimes get into a rage and throw books out the 3rd floor classroom window.  I had an elderly science teacher who only talked about the airplanes he flew; especially the plane he flew under one of the local bridges in town.  He also let us draw all over the chalkboards.  My 9th grade civics teacher was the meanest woman on the planet, but had a mental breakdown in class one day, screamed obscenities at us and disappeared forever.  I spent one year in a sewing class and I don't believe the instructor ever called any of us by our correct names, but we did make triangle scarves and aprons from NO patterns!!!  How cool were we....  My 8th grade history teacher spoke in a monotone voice that made all of us stare at her the entire first week of school.  She truly looked like a ventriloquist's dummy.  We had an art teacher who could look at you and not look at you.  You know what I'm talking about - one eye looked left and the other looked right - at the same time.   We had fun in art class.  "Class, we're watching a fill-um today."  That was another science teacher. And my poor algebra teacher.... we would ask her to explain the problem over and over so we could watch the loose skin under her upper arm swing back and forth.  But with all their quirks, they had the ability to hold a large group of kids at attention because in those days, we generally behaved.  Talking was probably the biggest infraction of the rules.  Talking and throwing paper balls into the light fixtures.  Well, maybe a few other good tricks.  Gee, I'm so glad I didn't ever have to make a living as a teacher of junior high/middle school kids.  No wonder Mrs. Moses drank.....