Saturday, August 17, 2013

Mr. Grandone is a Grand One




                Mr. Grandone was an incredible teacher. He was coming off the time when it was okay to hit kids and since most of the children in my class had parents who were former students of Mr. Grandone, he got away with the occasional slap. He swore. He told inappropriate jokes. He yelled. He showed some boys how to play games for money. He turned over a desk. He also introduced us to Edgar Allan Poe. He taught us the numbers 1-20 in Spanish and French. He made us write and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, a portion of the Gettysburg Address, and the Preamble. We had to memorize who the first 16 presidents were, and choose three to define aspects of their lives. We read plays. We memorized all of the American League and National League baseball teams and he wore a different team’s hat each day. We watched WWII movies. He organized intramural kickball, basketball, and softball teams. He used our names in word problems. He gave us nicknames. Mine was Salami because I am Italian. He made us tow the line because he didn’t tolerate mediocrity. He knew we were capable of more. He fostered more knowledge in our 11 year old minds than any other teacher in my life. Learning was fun because we were engaged and weren’t pressured to take a test on all we had learned just to learn.
                He is always my go to example of what a teacher should be;( him and my junior year American History teacher Mr. Walker. ) When I had to take a mandatory new teacher introduction course at one of the high schools I was working at, our instructor asked us about the best teacher we ever had. Without a thought I chose Mr. Grandone. I retained so much of what he taught us that at 34 years old I can still recite portions of the Gettysburg Address and the Preamble. His introduction to Edgar Allan Poe led to a life long love of the prince of macabre. When I went home and told my parents about what we were learning there were no phone calls to the school that the content was not relevant. They didn’t complain that we had an extra recess or free time. Sure, he taught us math and various other pieces of information but more importantly he instilled in us a love for learning regardless of specific relevance in life; it was learning for the sake of learning. We were more knowledgeable and well-rounded thanks to his breadth of chosen topics. A testament to how attractive his teaching was is an individual experience I had with him.
                I had been caught, by my mother, cheating on a social studies test in 5th grade. I had written some answers on my jeans, she found the jeans, and brought me back to school the next day to tell my teacher and the principal (not something you would find a parent doing today). My social studies teacher Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Grandone had their classrooms connected by a door. Certain times during the day, recess or free time, they might open the door and talk. They probably talked at recess and ate lunch together. Mr. Sweeney must have made mention of my cheating to Mr. Grandone because Mr. Grandone made mention of my cheating to me. Our school was an old building and the desks were probably just as old. They were wooden with ink wells and the wood was soft enough that it could be easily carved with a pencil. Everyone wrote on them from time to time. A desk I was sitting at in Mr. Grandone’s room happened to have some silver stickers on it that I was tracing with a pink pen. Mr. Grandone saw me as he was handing out a quiz and said in front of the class,
     “You better not be writing on that desk young lady. I heard about you.”
     I was mortified and angry but not so much at Mr. Grandone, but Mr. Sweeney. Had Mr. Sweeney not opened his mouth, Mr. Grandone wouldn’t have a clue about the incident. With this mentality I went to my mother in hopes that Mr. Sweeney would be spoken to and get in trouble. Even then, I believed in repercussion in a very specific manner. My mother and the principal however believed in the opposite and Mr. Grandone was called to her office. It was during my class with Mr. Grandone and when he came back he had this look on his face of complete shock. He looked at me and was attempting to find his words to continue on the lesson.
     Earlier in the day I had been called to the principal’s office. She spoke to me about the incident and her primary question for me was my choice for a 6th grade teacher; who would choose. Naturally I chose Mr. Grandone. Having lived in a time and a home when you couldn’t hide from wrong doing,        
     Mr. Grandone wasn’t any worse than my mother talking about my misbehaving in front of me to a relative and being embarrassed that I may have disappointed him or her. I didn’t care if Mr. Sweeney liked me or not. I was fairly certain he hated me. Mr. Grandone was someone I respected and wanted to like me. I was embarrassed but nervous that I had disappointed him, which of course I didn’t want. My principal nearly fell out of her chair. When I went home that afternoon I told my mother what happened and how upset I was that Mr. Grandone, not Mr. Sweeney, had been reprimanded, at least to my knowledge.
      The only reason my mother had gone to the school with this was because she was a Nazi and took pride in knowing that her punishment was effective and got the point across. Anyone else who thought they needed to enhance her repercussions was obviously crossing the line. She could embarrass me just fine on her own. However, somewhere inside her she no doubt felt that this was the type of universal justice one receives for misbehaving in order to learn the lesson. It worked. I never cheated again.
     My request for Mr. Grandone the following year also worked. I had a fabulous 6th grade learning experience and hold fast to Mr. Grandone being one of if not THE best teacher I ever had. I learned a lesson, loud and clear, from those who weren’t even involved. I got what I deserved for being dishonest. My ego and sense of self-worth wasn’t damaged because I knew I did something wrong and that I was not above the law not matter how wonderful my parents thought I was, which they did not, just for the record. I was like every other kid if not worse, because I was mouthy and had been sneaky. None of the adults in my world believed that cheating was an excusable offense. They were not wrong. Like I said, I learned my lesson, I never cheated again.
     And Mr. Grandone? He retired that year. We were his last class and I took immense pride in knowing that I didn’t have to share him with any other kids in the future. He had been ours until the end. I wrote to him after the course for new teachers and he wrote back, including two scratch tickets for me. It is because of him that I refuse to teach in a setting where learning and knowledge for their own sake are not encouraged.

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