Bachman Turner Overdrive
Brooklyn and Me TCB
“Hey, Mr. B!” students would call out as they came in. “What’s up?!”
“Takin’ care of business,” he’d say with a grin. “Just takin’ care of business.”
That is my first memory of student teaching – watching my primary cooperating teacher, Mr. B, as he greeted students in his 1st period English class. That is just what he did. That was just what he wanted me to do as well – take care of business, the business of teaching young people. The best business there was to be in.
Mr. B was one of three cooperating teachers I had that semester at the Anthracite High School I where I was assigned for my student teaching experience. He was the main one, my teacher of record, as it were. Mr. B taught literature. In addition to him, I also worked under a woman who taught Language Arts writing skills, and another who taught speech. Each subject area was for a different grade level, speech was sophomores, writing was juniors and literature was seniors. Interestingly, the only cooperating teacher whose name I remember is Mr. B. He was a popular teacher who knew his craft well.
There were four of us student teachers at Anthracite that semester, many years ago. The cohort included James K. Cain, better known as ‘Brooklyn’. Once he opened his mouth, it was obvious where he and his name came from. Brad Babcock was another student teacher. Brad was known among our university classmates as “Baseball Brad”. Baseball was his thing. He fancied himself a baseball stud, and he let everyone know it. Finally, our fourth group member was a novice math teacher, Earl Smith. No funky nicknames -no ‘Smitty’, no ‘Early Bird’ – no outstanding features. Nothing. He was Earl, just plain Earl. Mr. Smith to the students.
Student teaching was not just a thing we did early in our last semester in college. It impacted our entire life for 10 weeks. However, the local public school semester and our university semester didn’t quite coincide. As a result, the four of us had to return to the university before our Christmas break was officially over. We had to move into our dorms a couple weeks before anyone else. In the dead of winter! Because students were gone and dorms were empty, the heat was turned way down. But for space heaters, our rooms were pretty cold. Since the cafeteria was closed, we had to fend for ourselves, food-wise. In pre-microwave days, all we had to heat anything were little coils to heat cups of water, one at a time. That meant lots of instant coffee, rips to McDonalds or peanut butter sandwiches. It was tough until our own semester began and other students returned.
As we prepared for student teaching during the previous semester, many of these things had been discussed and somewhat planned for. They were still a surprise in real life, though. On top of that, another issue we faced was transportation. Although our assigned school was only a couple miles from campus, it was still a couple miles – in the middle of winter. Baseball Brad had a car, but it was full of gear, and he had workouts after school. Truth be told, his car situation was fine as none of us really wanted to ride with him anyway. Brooklyn and I decided that we would work something out and carpool together. Just how we would do that, we weren’t sure. But then our answer came.
My brother, who at the time was living in Florida, had connections back home. He was a religious brother who had taken a vow of poverty, and he had no money. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t pull a string or two at home, though. He knew of my predicament; I needed a car to commute to work every day. I will never know just how he did it, but he took care of business and arranged for me to get a car. It was a sky blue, two-door Ford Falcon with a heater and aa AM radio. More functional than cool, the Falcon worked; it drove fine and got the job done. Brooklyn and I had a vehicle; we had taken care of business. (As an aside, I have no idea how Earl got to school. Truth be told, we neither saw much of him or Brad until our 10-week stint was over.)
Brooklyn was a damn cool guy. Along with curly blond hair, and his Brooklyn accent, he was a musician. He played guitar in a campus rock band. Looks-wise, he could have been with Credence, or The Who, Bachman Turner Overdrive, even. Our high school students didn’t know about his band, but his demeanor said it all. I was lucky to have been able to show up at the school and hang with him.
Baseball Brad worked hard at looking the part, the baseball jock part, to be specific. He was buffed up, had close cropped hair, and always wore a serious “I am The Man” expression on his face. He usually had some piece of baseball equipment with him, as well. Nobody forgot what he was in real life.
Earl was Earl. Somewhat short and stocky, Earl knew math. Earl was Earl.
We all wore the uniform of the day. Coats and ties were required of all male teachers; dresses or skirts for all females. Brooklyn and I raised our bar a bit. We wore 3-piece suits with cool ties. We also wore wingtip shoes. Wingtips. Always polished. From what we heard from our students, Baseball Brad tried hard to make his coat and tie into or out of something related to a baseball uniform. We learned that they liked to make fun of him for that. Earl, too, wore a 3-piece suit and nice shoes, but he couldn’t quite pull it all off, they’d tell us. Brooklyn and I told them to be nice and not make fun. Be that as it may, it was a challenge to keep up appearances living in our cold dorms.
My days in the classrooms started with simple observation time. After a day of classes, I’d debrief with one or another of my cooperating teachers. We’d talk about their lesson plans, about what’d I’d seen and heard, and about any questions I had – content or structure-wise. With three separate teachers, it was a bit unusual. Each had a different content area, grade level and personality. Without a doubt, Mr. B was the best.
As it turned out, my 10th grade speech teacher was in the middle of preparing her students for some sort of a speech competition. She worried that I would not be able to bring them along as well as she would. Therefore, I was to observe for my entire 10 weeks rather than try to teach and maybe help them. To cover her bases, every once in a while, she would allow me to demonstrate, to explain or to extemporize, and the class always seemed to love it in the end.
The 11th grade writing class was close to my heart. For all my ‘cool’, I love grammar; I love the play of words. I love language for its own sake. Working with 16 and 17 year-olds as they honed their skills was exciting. Following the curriculum, we would identify a topic or some sort of writing inspiration from the class and begin to write. Watching them play with semantics, and discover the subtleties of syntax was a joy.
But Mr. B’s class was hard work and just plain fun. He allowed me a lot of freedom while following required curriculum. We spent some time with a unit on poetry. Although we did use poetry provided in the textbook, we also looked at contemporary poets. I used the lyrics of Brad Dylan, the Beatles, the Mommas and the Pappas, and others. At times, the words on paper seemed unfamiliar to the students, but we examined and parsed away. Later I would play the same lyrics as performed by the artists and the students would be amazed.
One of the required readings that semester was The Knight’s Tale from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The story of Palamon, Arcite, and Emily was tedious and boring – until we researched, examined, and ultimately translated and “reindividuated” it into modern, conversational English. Love and honor; life and death. Retold by 17 and 18 year-olds, they could relate.
Student teaching did not come without its challenges; however. As university seniors, we were only a few years older than many of the high school students. Some of the girls were really cute. I mean really cute! We knew we had to be very careful what we said and did around them. Things could easily be misconstrued, and that could jeopardize our student teaching, our grades and credits, our futures. Riding back and forth to school with Brooklyn, we did have some serious conversations about this, and wondered what might happen after student teaching was over.
One girl in particular came up in our conversations. Her name was Ellie. She was in Brooklyn’s senior class group. Not mine, fortunately. Ellie was pretty, popular, and bright. She was that year’s Anthracite “Miss Buck”. She represented the school as sort of homecoming, prom and most-likely-to succeed queens all rolled into one. Since neither of us had gone to school in the town we were teaching in, and were not familiar with a lot of school traditions, the concept of someone being called “Miss Buck” of all things seemed wild and crazy. Not only did Miss Buck have to wear a sparkly football helmet with antlers to pep functions, she often had to wear a sash with her title spilling down her front. Our hope was that all of the letter “B” was fully visible to people.
Our 10 weeks went by quickly. At the end, we would return to the university for a modified final 10 weeks of class. Our schedule during that time involved regular classes taught in double sessions. We would squeeze the better part of a full course load into half the time. Before we returned to do that, however, we had our final days with our students.
Those students, as it turned out, had worked with our cooperating teachers to end our stay at the school with a going away party. They took care of business and did it up big! It was, of course, a ‘surprise.’ But it actually was surprising. They’d prepared food and drinks and gotten both Brooklyn and me very thoughtful gifts. After all these years, I still have the gift I received from my students that final day – a beautiful, large beer stein with the picture of a Chaucer-like knight across its front. A permanent reminder of my time with them.
As it turned out, neither Baseball Brad nor Earl had been invited to our party. They hadn’t been deliberately or meanly left out. It had just not occurred to anyone that Earl or Brad might want to come. Nor had their own students or cooperating teachers planned any good-byes for them. That was sad; however, it underscored how much Brooklyn and I had both given and received during our time with the kids.
Years later, well after graduation, I received a letter from one of the writing students. She’d applied to and been accepted into college and was writing to say thank you for the short time I’d had teaching at her school. It’d given her a whole new appreciation for the fun of language, and as a result, she was going to become an English teacher, too. That was more than satisfying; it was one of my first experiences of the quiet joys of teaching.
It would not be the last.
I had apparently taken good care of business.