Parenting Without A License

Old Home Week

Posted by Kimberly on November 17th, 2007 — Posted in Kipple, No Pudding Until You Finish Your Meat, NaBloPoMo

It seems to be one of those weeks when your past and your present overlap, giving you new insights into yourself and your own life in the process. I guess the odds on that are increased when you’re a substitute teacher in the town where you grew up, but it’s still a bit odd to keep running into these people. Tuesday it was a former student; today it’s an old teacher who has me reexamining my perceptions.

Everyone has had at least one of those teachers who really stand out–who, for whatever reason, make such an impression that their memory stays with you long after you’ve left your school days behind you. Mr. Stracuzzi was one of these–a quirky looking man with an odd name and an intellect ill suited to highschool kids, he probably would have stood out even without the antics that defined his tenure. I don’t think anyone who had Mr. Stracuzzi for Grade 11 English ever forgot the experience.

When I think back on high school (an exercise I generally try to avoid at all costs), I think of Grade 11 English as “My Lost Year” because I really couldn’t tell you what I learned semester.I remember the class vividly–I remember a brutally boring novel told from the perspective of a bird (I never read it), a seemingly endless epic poem that sucked every bit of excitement out of the story of the Titanic (I read about half of it), and not being aware that Lady Macbeth had died (you do the math)–but I don’t remember actually learning anything. What I do remember is the out of control chaos that was Mr. Stracuzzi’s room. I remember the nervous tick (um, like, you know) that punctuated his speech to such an extent–even when reading aloud–that we used to bet on the number of utterances per class, the game we made out of seeing how long we could keep him going defining a string of words, and, my personal favourite, The All Annoying Noise Band. We weren’t quite as bad as the other class, who used to turn out the lights and mug him for his chalk when he walked in, but we were close.

As you’ve probably guessed, Mr. Stracuzzi was no Mr. Chips. Well, maybe Mr. Chips in the early years would be a better description, since he never had time to grow into a beloved eccentric old teacher; in the year and a half he was at my high school, he earned a solid reputation as the least respected teacher ever. Which is saying something given that our principal was getting arrested for hanging out in public washrooms long before George Michael and Larry Craig made it cool, another English teacher was dating a student, the head of the History Department was having a “clandestine” affair with the Girls Gym teacher that everyone in school knew about, and the French teacher was a flamboyantly gay man long before that became socially acceptable.

When Mr. Stracuzzi was fired over Christmas break in his third semester we all thought that he’d left teaching forever. If we’d thought of him as real person at all, that is, and not as a caricature. He didn’t though; apparently he’s spent the last twenty years as a substitute teacher. As I found out today, when I ran into him in the staffroom of the school where we were both supplying.

I have to confess I was shocked, and not just because I’d never expected to be haunted by this particular ghost from my misspent youth. My first thought was to rather arrogantly wonder, “If he couldn’t hack it as a regular teacher (and I should know), how on earth can he function as a sub?” Colouring that surprise was a sense of embarrassment because, even though I never expected to ever meet Mr. Stracuzzi again, I’ve thought about him more than once since I became a teacher myself. I’ve always regretted the way we treated him; even if the books were awful, even though he completely destroyed Macbeth, we had no right to treat Mr. Stracuzzi with such a total lack of respect, or to steal his dignity at every opportunity.

I could have just kept my head down and pretended that I didn’t know him. I’ve changed a lot since I was 16 and I doubt he would have recognized me. Instead, I gathered up my courage and apologized for my teenage self. It was strange and more than a little bit awkward, dredging up the sins of the past, but in the end I was glad that I’d done it–and not just because confession was good for my Catholic soul.

In stepping out of my caricatured perception of Mr. Stracuzzi, the teacher for whom I’d had neither empathy or respect, I got to meet John, a colleague for whom I have both.  Sitting next to him in the staffroom was an incredible eyeopener as I discovered that this man–the butt of so many of our jokes–has a sly wit and a quick sense of humour.  It was a bit of a headspin to realize that the man who had so often bored me to tears (and new heights in bad classroom behaviour) was actually interesting. I liked talking to him. In fact, I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to do so again.
Now, that’s something I never would have predicted in a million years–wanting to be in the same room as Mr. Stracuzzi. Maybe he did grow into a slightly quirkier Mr. Chips after all.