Of Life and Times

Since I come from another century, I laugh when I think about how I was taught compared to how people are taught today. My days in high school seemed to be at the crossroads of the old school of “shut up, sit down, listen up” and today’s efforts to be creative, build autonomy in the learner, and inclusion of those with special needs and disabilities.

I don’t know if I can call her my favorite teacher, but Betty Zumo was probably the most powerful teacher I have ever had. She was an amazing mix of dispenser of knowledge, motivator, drill sergeant, scientist, and intimidation specialist. I don’t believe there was any student in my high school who was not deathly afraid of Mrs. Zumo. She was all of 4’ 11” standing tall. She had short cropped jet black hair, a sharp hawk-like nose that could have sliced bread, beady black eyes, and a pinched expression on her face that froze you in your tracks.

Mrs. Zumo taught biology. Her rules were the strictest in the school, and no one was exempt from her punishments, which were meted out with universal fairness. When she said that you had to be in your seat when the bell rang, you still got detention if you were in the act of lowering yourself onto your chair when the bell stopped ringing. She demanded exactness, and she got it. When she lectured she wrote on the board. We were expected to copy onto our paper everything she wrote. There were no handouts (took too much time to mimeograph). As short as she was she could fill two full chalkboards from top to bottom and from side to side before we could finish copying one of them. There was a constant barrage of needling from her about how in years past the students were so much faster, so much smarter and intelligent, etc. That was life in her classroom. She brooked no interruption and took no guff from anyone.

Then it started, we had a bomb threat in the school. Every day we had more of them. Someone even threw a Molotov cocktail onto our old wooden gymnasium floor. Fortunately it didn’t explode, but the upshot was that the whole high school building was condemned by the fire Marshall and we had to start attending school in shifts so that only half the school was in the building at any one time. This doubled the workload for all the teachers.

As I went past Mrs. Zumo’s room one day I saw her standing at the sink cleaning stacks of Petri dishes that each had to be three feet high. I felt really sorry for her having to clean them out all by herself, so I went in and volunteered to help her clean. During the course of the conversation that ensued I learned that she, like my mother, had attended this same high school 20+ years before, and that she even knew my mother. We talked about class and what was happening to the school, and many other things during the hour or so I was helping out. What stunned me was that she was a really nice person. She had an infectious laugh, and was even capable of getting a sparkle in her eye. I got brave and asked her why she felt she needed to be so strict in class. The answer was astonishing to a high school boy. She said that because of her size the bigger boys, especially those on the football team, felt like they could just walk all over her. The only way she could protect herself and keep any sanity in the classroom was to make them so afraid of her that just coming into class made them tremble. And it was true, they did. She explained many of her methods to me that day. I left the room feeling so blessed. I had made a friend of the meanest, most ornery teacher in the school, and I was no longer afraid of her.

For the rest of the school year we had an understanding. She wouldn’t be harder on me than anyone else, but only if I didn’t let on that I knew her secrets. I gladly agreed. From then on when she was brow beating a defensive tackle, I would occasionally spot this twinkle in her eye, and would get a half a wink as she turned and laid into the football player for not having done his homework. The textbook says that teachers “have the power to create a community of learners within their own classroom every day” (Diaz 38) As I have thought about this statement it occurred to me that Mrs. Zumo did, in fact, create a community of learners each day, though I don’t think it was done as our textbook authors intended. The class came each day, united in their fear of this little spitfire of a teacher. We all worked hard and tried our best, because we knew what would happen if we were lazy. Mrs. Zumo was never mean or hurtful in what she said, but she was very direct and let you know exactly what she expected out of you. She always pushed us to be better than we were at that moment, to rise to the challenge.

Our textbook says that “good teaching is about caring, nurturing and developing minds and talents. It is about devoting time, often invisible, to every student.” (Diaz 18) Betty Zumo was not your nurturing kindergarten teacher. She wasn’t one you thought of first to go to when you had a problem you needed to talk about. But Betty Zumo was devoted to her students. Even through the thankless hours of cleaning up from the experiments by herself, sometimes late into the night, she kept doing it year after year. She believed in our abilities and saw our capabilities even when we had no clue, and if she had to drag it out of us (sometimes with us kicking and screaming the whole way) then so be it. Surprisingly enough, I am probably more proud of what I learned in her class than in any other subject I ever took in high school, and I’m terrible in the sciences. But I still have a soft spot for biology.

Diaz, Carlos, Carol Pelletier, and Eugene Provenzo. Touch the Future... Teach!. Boston: Pearson      Education, 2006.