A Lonely State of Education

Sitting alone at my kitchen table holding a glass of Cabernet, I feel my shoulders release from captivity. Staring at my grandparents' mission style table, its dark wood and deep scratches from a century of abuse, straw no longer poking out of the wooden chairs I've since recovered, I remembered my dad tried to repair the wood; long gone are our table conversations.

It's Valentine's Day and my husband is of course working late, because every day is Valentine's Day after four kids and nearly 24 years of marriage, right? I breathe a sigh of relief. At least the three boys are playing Wii in the basement; their noises of negotiation ensure me I am safe to let down my guard. Dinner can wait. I swirl my glass of wine watching it lap the sides of my stemmed glass. God damnit, why is she still affecting me? The bitch, the teacher who questioned my judgment, walking away and waving me off like a child today. 

Staring at the deep groove in the table that sits six, a groove that still hides decades of food in its cracks and needs re-gluing, not unlike my life, it occurs to me we are not so different. With four children myself, I can easily understand how being the last of six Ms. Stelter might feel unloved, insignificant, ignored. I only had one brother and he was an asshole to me as a child. I can't imagine parenting six siblings! At the beginning of the year, Ms. Stelter seemed drawn to me because of my large family.

I can relate to feeling less than adequate. Ms. Stelter sure as hell makes me feel like that dressing me down with her "here's how I would've done it" attitude in class. I trace my finger along the deep groove in my kitchen table. She reminds me of my mother talking over me on the phone. Sending her to voicemail, I only ever call my mother back five minutes before my destination now that I live in another state. 

The pitter-patter of rain in the gutters feels soothing as I pour another glass of wine. Cheers to me! I'm a glass half-full kind of gal, unlike my mother, remembering the night in our Colorado basement she threw her hands in the air walking away from me. "Kristen, I'm a 67-year-old woman. I'm not going to change!" I picture Ms. Stelter walking away from me, hand up as if to silence my truth. I will no longer be silenced! Years of therapy have created windows in my walls.

"Ms. Stelter," I sure as hell was not going to call the condescending bitch her preferred 'Mandy' as she walked away, high heeled boots clicking on the third grade tile floor, her springy curls bouncing in rhythm. "I think you misunderstood what I said. That was not my intent!" I raced to catch up with her as she cleaned up and scurried children with fury. I observed twenty-four students racing around tiny desks with the attention span of my Schnoodle chasing a squirrel. Surely these splintered desks are the same from my childhood, decades ago. Teachers are expected to do so much with so little in public education. The pay hardly worth the master's degree loan Ms. Stelter was surely paying off.

Pulling out my laptop and placing it on my kitchen table, I knew I needed more data. I felt sorry for Ms. Stelter but could hardly understand her reaction. Liam says she's strict. I heard that before I requested her as a teacher, but my son needed a structured classroom and I didn't need to date her! With her perfectly curled coif and holier than thou presence, I knew we'd never share a glass of vino, like Liam's other teachers. 

Liam's second grade teacher, Mrs. Koonley, was the bomb. All the kids loved her and she didn't give a shit if they colored Wilber the pig pink or purple, and Crayola markers were not off-limits in her class. I still have Liam's 'Courage' crayon drawing of a stick figure diving into a pool of triangle sharks hung in my kitchen. He always asked to save artwork from Mrs. Koonley's class. 

I asked Liam about the artwork he brought home last Friday of a black construction paper ant Ms. Stelter had perfectly cut out for students to glue on their farm. It was an effort in perspective and I knew Liam never would've made the brown fence the proper size on his own, recalling how I'd seen her demonstrate artwork in a classroom where student projects all looked the same. Whatever happened to fostering independence and creativity I wondered, slam dunking the 'Stelter original' farm ant in the recycling bin. 

I wish Mrs. Koonley had not waited until the basketball game last week to confide Ms. Stelter was the reason she transferred to 2nd grade. "She's a god damn bully!" Mrs. Koonley said. "You are only one of 50 parents she's had an issue with. She talks behind everyone's back," she continued. 

Mrs. Koonley's words were sharp in my mind as I found myself crying in the principal's office earlier today. "I've never quit anything in my life. Everything I do is for children," I said to Principal Galati as he reached to hand me the box of Kleenex. I knew his hands were tied. There's a reason Ms. Stelter still had her job. Mr. Galati used all the CIA phrases I was taught in the Agency, finishing by saying "I hear you," as he looked point blank in my eyes. I couldn't trust him.

Taking another sip of wine, the tannins lingering on my inner lower lip, settling like my mother's words, "You've always been too sensitive Kristen." I swallow hard and Google with the spy tradecraft of an unassuming woman undercover. Ms. Stelter doesn't know me. She treats adult volunteers with the same dismissal as an 8-year-old child; a woman who always knows better, like my mother. 

I figured my resumé and education would've warranted adult conversation and been sufficient to assist children in the elementary school hallway. Writing on chairs, workbooks in our laps, identifying verbs, adjectives and recounting the Mr. Popper's Penguins story in the voice of a news reporter. Third grade hands waving in the air with enthusiasm is the reason I volunteer. My heart always full until I return to Stelter's classroom and she makes her rounds. My son Liam, the first with crocodile tears she didn't notice a few weeks ago. 

All year I've witnessed her criticize the children, their demeanor changing as she moved from desk to desk, children sulking in her wake. I'll admit I was scared today by her explicit instructions and threats to squirrely boys to behave or be sent back to class as she criticized the P.E. teacher who gave them lollipops for breakfast on Valentine's Day. I tried to explain to Mr. Galati it's not her class structure, it's her delivery. 

Googling Ms. Stelter I figured Urban Dictionary would pop up with a bitchy description, her perfect picture beside. I knew girls like her in high school. I sensed her misery on Valentine's Day. Sure enough, my suspicions were founded. Vindication, not from the hairs she raised on my neck, but from the divorced, single, $60k income, SE apartment dwelling, data I found. She's 44? No way! I'm such a bad judge of age. At least I'm older and know better. Where does she get off so unprofessional?

I recalled her altercation earlier that Valentine's Day. "Here's how I would've done it," she said, waving her hands and arms mid-air to demonstrate how she would've sketched the teacher in the Bailey School Kids book. "I would've had them read aloud while I drew the teacher's red hair with my colored pencil in the workbook, stopping to get their feedback while demonstrating to them how to draw her picture." She looked at me as if I was a moron.

"Ms. Stelter, we read the passage at least 3-4 times and it was just as you suspected," I said, laughing and catering to her ego as best I knew how. "It was surely the lack of focus and distraction of the boys in the group. Had it been the red group and not the yellow group..." She interrupted me, stopping cold in her tracks, her demeanor changing as fast as the children she scolded. "What did you say?" she asked. 

Backpedaling like a child cornered by a bully, I hesitated. The suffocating smell of Tempera paint drying on the Stelter originals strung around the room reminded me whom I was up against. She cut me off. "Let me stop you right there. What you said was inappropriate," she scolded, waving her hand to silence me as she turned to walk away. 

I could only imagine she thought I was comparing reading group capabilities and not the fact that the yellow group was distracted on Valentine's Day, a group she forewarned me about. I'll be damned if she was going to silence me! 

"Ms. Stelter stop! You misunderstood my intent," I pleaded for her to listen, following her like a pathetic puppy, tail between my legs. Refusing to hear me she stopped to grab her clipboard before heading to the playground. "I guess I'm done volunteering," I said. "Guess so," she stated bluntly without looking up from her clipboard. 

Turning to leave, I forgot to wave goodbye to my son. Galloping down the elementary step stairs I could feel my blood pressure rising. Heading to the front door I stopped cold in my tracks swallowing hard. How dare she question my integrity? I've volunteered for children all my life, Head Start, CASA, and Chins Up, half-a-dozen organizations raced through my mind as I marched into Principal Galati's office with the urgency of a woman with everything at stake. Dismissing his aide, he motioned me over immediately, closing the door. Sensitivity is my goddamn superpower I reminded myself, choking back tears in his office as I explained the children affected by Stelter's words. He took notes and worried about the teachers' union.

Glancing down at my computer screen, an email pops up from Stelter@pps bringing me back to reality. Responding to my previous email documenting the end of our volunteer relationship, she praises my child and claims volunteers are always welcome in her class. The gas-lighting fog is thick as she's careful to cc the principal. She promises to take my comments from Principal Galati to heart and work on her delivery. She offers no apology or effort towards reconciliation. That would admit wrongdoing. She doesn't have it in her. Like my mother, I knew she wouldn't change. Raised from experience, the all-too-familiar pain in my neck back today, reminds me of my recovery. Shoulders down, head high, I'll be ok. But will her students?

Just then Liam races upstairs, interrupting my ‘alone-time’ to dine on Valentine conversation hearts in a china dish on the kitchen counter. My mother's china has no better purpose. He doesn't need an 'I 💜 you' to remind him he's loved. He'll be just fine. Closing my laptop I remind myself, it's only 3rd grade hugging him tight.