FROM THE LOOK OF THINGS and the way how some children does get on in and outta school nowadays, I doan know if I would want tuh be a teacher. One time, but not now, soul!
I think a teacher is a very special person, especially the ones who doan see teaching as only a means of collecting a salary at the end o’ the month; getting three vacations in a year or just a job. Ya have tuh love it and more than dat, love children. All children and dat ain’t easy.
I ain’t just saying this fuh so because I know some teachers who go way beyond teaching, tuh mothering, tuh pulling duh pockets many days buying lunch or some school supply for a child who doan have.
I know of teachers, one especially, who have asked a grandparent if she could keep a li’l girl who is very talented and bright and who has a lot o’ potential. Dat child, whose mother and father does do bare foolishness, now live wid the teacher and is doing excellent.
Look, it is one thing tuh raise a child or children dat is your own but you know what it is raising about 19 or 20 children?
The thing is they become yours because you does be wid dem all day long, all week long and all year long, fuh sometimes a whole five years. Then, when you have gotten dem tuh a manageable stage, duh pass and gone long tuh another school or outta school and ya have tuh start all ovah again wid another batch tuh train, groom, protect, guide, chastise, teach and mother or father.
Talking ’bout fathers, half o’ the children in schools nowadays doan see duh fathers.
Some o’ dem know duh fathers but doan have any kind o’ father-daughter or father-son relationship wid dem. So dat is why if or when a male teacher gets a li’l strong and stern wid dem, the boys especially does want tuh beat the male teacher.
It is picking out duh frustration and anger pon a male, the authoritative figure. Dat is why I think it is hard tuh get men tuh stay in the teaching profession.
I believe some men, even though they love teaching and want tuh go in tuh dat profession, they might not have the patience, the know-how nor capacity tuh deal wid some o’ these young male students duh got nowadays.
I know.
I had a brother who was so defiant and rebellious towards male teachers, one especially, dat he would prefer not tuh listen to the man or do he work because he felt the man was pushing he too hard and, as he say, was always pon he back.
He didn’t see it dat the man saw something great in him and was trying tuh help he bring it out. Evahtime he had tuh do a class wid the man he used tuh come home wid complaints and a letter from the headmaster.
We got a whole lot more female teachers than male teachers and dat is fine, but I doan know if men realise how very important they are in schools now. I doan know if the men understand their real role as men. I would nevah fuhget when Mac Fingall was a teacher at The Lodge School and how dem boys used tuh look up tuh he. Even after school, some o’ dem boys, married and wid children, still used tuh call he “Sir”.
I say it time and time before and I gine say it again: a lot o’ people like tuh lay blame pon the children and some pon the teachers but I will fuhevah say dat it is the parents. The children could only be what the parents produce. We want the perfect children but getting home doing a whole lot o’ foolishness and then sending them tuh school fuh teachers tuh train.
I gine talk li’l bit more ’bout this next week.
Mavis Beckles was born and raised in The Orleans. She has an opinion on everything.
