I first met Jimmy Haynes when he came down the school hallway on battered crutches in January, 1980. Jimmy wore a broad smile punctuated by a couple of bad teeth and navigated minus one real leg. Since he was never too careful attaching his prostheses, his right foot commonly angled 45 degrees opposite of his left one.
“Jimmy Haaaaynes,” he drawled in Mississippi English. “Welcome to Grand Caillou School. If you need any hep, come see me.”
I thought Jimmy would be more in place standing next to a rusty pickup filled with chickens, and while I verbally welcomed his offer, I decided silently on the spot not to take him up on it. But he also wanted a favor. Jimmy needed someone to officiate the intramural program he organized and directed, a program refereed by my predecessor. “Ahhed do it myself, but I don’t git aroun’ so fast,” he explained, gesturing to his false leg, as if I hadn’t noticed. “Beeen like thet since I was born,” he added. Saying no to a cripple I found unwise for a guy in my position, so I reluctantly accepted the new duty. I soon found out which one of us was really crippled.
I’m certain now that Jimmy was all too aware of my misgivings, and wasn’t about to allow my prejudices from getting in the way of his dual pronged plan of operating a worthwhile program while he guided a weak teacher. By now most people in the building who had any idea of what went on in my class knew I didn’t know diddly squat about education and had no business calling myself a teacher, and more obscenely, drawing a paycheck as one. Jimmy, with Emma’s help, began to build one from scratch. A lot of teacher building went on at Grand Caillou, usually at the kids’ expense. This is a well established American tradition and not just local custom, training teachers in challenging schools serving a community too poor to object.
Jimmy was in reality a stealth intellectual and outstanding teacher. He’d complete the New York Times crossword puzzle faster than most English professors and had math skills engineers would find impressive. He was one of the most intelligent men I ever knew, and I’ve been surrounded by people with PhDs my entire life. Dr. Lesh, who I call Aunt Ethel, is one of them, and she also did much to lead me into the teaching light, but had to do so at a distance where Jimmy was right down the hall. We became close friends. I had the far better part of that exchange.
Considering its remote location and poor reputation, Grand Caillou was staffed by an interesting assortment of people. A good number of teachers, and many times the best ones, were natives to the Dulac/Grand Caillou area and worked at the school out of a combination of community service and convenience. Jimmy lived in a small house about two miles north of our school. A second faction included people like me, either completely inexperienced, uncertified, or both. Unquestionably, the school served as a proving grounds for new teachers. “If you can teach here,” my predecessor told me, “You can teach anywhere.”
But I’d yet to do any real teaching and it was Jimmy’s self-appointed mission to get me on track. Like any master teacher, he knew how frightened and consequently defensive I would be as a struggling teacher. So instead of direct instruction, he’d invite me to have lunch with him in his classroom as often as he could swing it. Jimmy’s classroom served as detention during the lunch break, and our lunches together gave me an opportunity to observe him interact with our kids, especially the ones currently driving me nuts.
I first started to understand Jimmy’s relationship to our students by seeing how whatever he said was accepted gospel to the masses. If Jimmy told his classes the school would flood the following day, one could expect to see pirogues, a small canoe like boat with a flat bottom, lined up along the bayou the following morning, irrespective of messages otherwise from TV weathermen, the principal, or the Pope. Jimmy was closer, better understood, and definitely trusted far more than most so-called authoritative sources.
Having been at the school for over two decades, Jimmy knew more about family histories, customs, problems, and solutions than just about anyone else on the faculty, although there definitely were others who had deep understanding and passion for the school and its people.
Jimmy showed his love by action. He was the one who started and directed the intramural program. He organized and chaperoned fun field trips on weekends, and paid out of his own pocket for any kid who was unable to swing admission price or bus fare, and that was lots of them. He remembered every kid’s birthday with a card and gift, same deal with Christmas. On the other hand, he was tough as a drill sergeant academically and verbally, demanding respect and getting it almost universally from student and staff alike.
Jimmy’s primary role was seventh and eighth grade math instruction, but he also was in charge of the detention hall run before school and during part of the lunch recess. While his disability landed him the job because of mobility problems, it’s doubtful anyone could have done better with his recess clientele.
Gradually, I began to absorb some of Jimmy’s indirect lessons by watching him interact with kids. Simultaneously, another one of Jimmy’s missions on my behalf was to give me greater authority over my students, as only he could.
“Any of these knot-haids,” he said, sweeping an arm in the general direction of Marvin and crew in detention for another offense, “gives you the leeeest bit of trouble Mr. Brown, I want to know about it eeemediately.” Marvin squirmed as if his chair had been momentarily electrified, but remained completely silent, rule number one in Jimmy’s detention hall.
Also by virtue of my new status as chief intramural official, Jimmy empowered me with my strongest discipline tool to date, the ability to disqualify any player from participation if I decided either academic or behavioral problems justified the suspension. There were no appeals. “If Mr. Brown sez you caint play, boy, you cain jest fergit about playin’, and don’t come aroun’ here annoyin’ me about it,” Jimmy explained to the first few, and subsequently last, appeals for his divine intervention.
One might mistakenly equate this power of intramural suspension as being a major source of my improving classroom discipline, but this is only partially correct.
Jimmy brought to bear his authority in a full-blown public relations campaign for my benefit, frequently lobbying both teachers and students. He’d tell his classes, and he taught the same groups of kids I did, that they were lucky to have me as a teacher, and wouldn’t have the intramural program without my volunteer help.
“You better behave for Mr. Brown, or he’ll quit just like Mr. Pitre did,” he’d remind them, consciously transferring some of his good will and reputation to me, and while I sure didn’t deserve it, having his blessings began to make my job progressively more manageable.
The fringe benefits were valuable in many ways. One morning between the change of classes, I busily erased my chalk scribbling in preparation for the next onslaught while my door stood open out into the narrow hallway. A surprise smash tinkle brought me whirling about to observe my door no longer had a pane of glass in it. I was more than mildly distressed, as just the day before the assistant principal gave me my third stapler, the other two mysteriously vanishing.
“This, Mr. Brown,” the assistant principal said angrily, “is the last stapler I’ll give you for the rest of your teaching career.” I took it to mean that my teaching career might be more limited than the supply of staplers, and humbly shuffled off in deep thought of more ardent stapler security and my precarious position as an uncertified, untenured faculty member.
Viewing the broken glass representative of my shattered reputation, and not having any way to tell who was responsible, I started to resign myself to another uncomfortable administrative blistering when I happened on an idea. I wrote a quick announcement: “There will be no more intramural games until the person responsible for breaking Mr. Brown’s window admits to it and pays for the damage.”
Checking to see if it was OK with Jimmy and getting both support and encouragement, I walked the announcement down to the office and had it broadcast throughout the school before recess ended.
I hadn’t returned to my classroom door when I caught activity heading my way from two different directions. About six boys clutched Larry Parfait in a variety of head and arm locks, sometimes pushing and alternately dragging him in my direction. And to my left came the assistant principal, having heard the same announcement as he pulled duty during the 15-minute morning recess when all this took place.
“Tell him, Larry, tell him dammit, or we’ll break your arm,” the biggest of the six demanded.
“I didn’t mean it Mr. Brown,” Larry began. “I meant to hit Speedy with a marble but he ducked. I’ll pay for the window.”
“That’s no excuse,” I answered, “but I appreciate your honesty.” I conveniently didn’t address the situations surrounding his confession.
“What’s going on here?” the assistant principal said on joining our little gathering. I explained the situation, proudly detailing how I handled the crisis and captured the offender.
“Well that’s an improvement for you,” he acknowledged. “Next time get yourself out in the hall during the change of classes so you can prevent this stuff from happening in the first place. Somebody could have been seriously hurt.”
That sunk me deeply into the bayou mud, but Larry did come back the next day with the assessed six-dollar damage charge, more than likely figuring it was a small price to pay for avoiding at least one black eye.
Even with a lot of Jimmy and Emma’s help, I still did profoundly dumb things about every hour on average, deliberately dropping a shotput on a kid’s big toe the worst in my entire career. Believe it or not, I never intended to hurt anybody, and certainly would change the event if I could.
Back then we triple tripped all of our buses, meaning that each bus was used three times to transport kids in separate loads. This meant teachers had to supervise students after school until all three loads were finished, and that’s where this story begins.
I wasn’t experienced enough to know what was going on around me, and the consequence was I had a dozen eighth graders in my homeroom who were forced to sit idly for 30 minutes with nothing to do. And given that equation, they did what adolescents often do when the system pushes them unfairly, they act out. In this case, it was just general misbehavior, paper airplanes and that sort of thing. Also popular was trying to hit the wastepaper basket with wadded up balls of paper. I wasn’t smart enough to realize the need to provide fun activities, but in a way I guess I did, accidentally.
Unwittingly, I largely created a tantalizing gambling game by putting a penalty on anyone who threw paper at the wastebasket but missed. However, if you scored a goal, meaning the paper ball went inside the basket, you had a free ride and put one over on teacher. Later, I organized a game I called “vocabulary basketball” that allowed shooting the same wads of paper, but only if you could use a new vocabulary word in a sentence. It turned out to be a game I played with students for many years, just as popular with high school students as junior high kids. When I dropped the shotput I was still about a year from this discovery.
One boy was particularly bad shot, and like any good Cajun would, he continued to roll dem bones, and I foolishly encouraged him by acceding to his pleas to go “double or nuttin.”
The double referred to the super stupid but most standard punishment of the time, a wonderful system that forced kids to write sentences for punishment. Lots of lessons here, and even then I had serious misgivings about the practice, but had yet to figure out a way around the punitive system. Anyway, if you missed the basket, you drew a 100 sentence punish work assignment writing “I will not throw paper in class.”
I don’t remember the exact number of sentences, but I think we we’re somewhere in the 10,000 category. I never seriously expected Devin to write 10,000 sentences, but like the kid, I found the game did get a lot more fun upon reaching high stakes action.
“Common Mr. Brown, just one more time,” Devin pleaded. “I ain’t never gonna finish that many lines. Gimme a chance!” It would have been an excellent lesson of exponential increments, but, again, this reasoning comes years after the fact.
And this is where lady luck and the shotput come in.
Earlier that day, someone swiped a shotput from our PE teacher and launched it down a crowded muddy hallway after announcing, “Hey, ya’all watch out fo’ the cannon ball.” Fortunately, the boy rolled rather than threw it, but that’s how I happened to be holding a steel shotput at 3:25 on a Thursday afternoon.
“Devin,” I said to the kid, “Since you already admit you won’t ever get the 10,000 sentences done, why should I let you go for 20,000?”
“Mr. Brown, pleeeeze….” Devin begged, “I’ll do anyting. Don’ make me do all dem lines. I’ll take 20 paddles, anyting.”
Getting hit in the rear with a large paddle was a common substitute for punish work, and I’m still not sure which one’s worse, physical abuse or forcing a kid to hate the written word. The paddles plea gave me a comeback line, though, so I used it.
“Nah, 20 paddles are too easy. How’s about you let me drop this shotput on your big toe?”
“OK, OK, that’s a deal,” Devin answered, not getting what I intended to be a joke.
I can still see his broad, pale face today. Hope of escaping 10,000 marching enemy sentences completely obliterated any thoughts of what a shotput could do to a toe only protected by a canvass sneaker. My facial reading however is done retrospectively. I thought the kid was just joking around like me.
“Well, let’s get this over with,” I announced with great formality. “Come on up here.”
Devin complied. I held the shot put at my eye level and he stuck his right foot forward. He was grinning. The class was laughing; I thought we were all playing some sort of charade.
“OK, now I’m gonna count to three and let her go,” I said with as much melodrama I could muster, and did just that.
Not in a million punish work sentences did I expect the boy to do what he did. I thought, no thought is the wrong word, I sure as hell wasn’t thinking; I expected he would pull his foot back when I let the ball drop. Instead, when I let it go, he covered his eyes with his hands and turned his head. By then, it was too quick and too late to change anything.
The ball landed with a dull crunch, bull’s eye on the kid’s right toe. I didn’t even aim the dang thing, but that’s where it hit. Devin’s reaction was equally unpredictable.
“Thank you Mr. Brown, thank you,” he said with perfect sincerity at least ten times as he hopped up and down on one foot while holding the other. Tears ran down both of his cheeks as he continued to thank me for my benevolence. I was horrified.
“Why didn’t you move your foot?” I nearly screamed. “I was only kidding!”
“A deal’s a deal,” Devin answered, checking to be sure I wasn’t about to change my mind. “You can’t go back on your word now.”
Of course I didn’t, and I’m absolutely certain he would have let me drop that shotput on his other toe instead of having to write, had that been part of the original bargain. No one ever complained, either, most likely thinking in the strange bayou ethos I was rapidly learning that justice had been served, even harsh as it was.
While I did get a lot wiser and never again had a student hurt in my class for any reason, teacher stupidity definitely included, I never did get over my wisecracking, that, at times, caused problems too. If you’d like to read about a student I directed to sell a yearbook ad to the state mental hospital using the slogan “We’re nuts for you, Class of 92” click here. Some people are just slow learners and some lessons are never learned, at least by me.