When Educators Behave Badly
It’s a shame that educators do not receive deportment grades. Sometimes, educators are unaware that they are the only representation of a college education that students may see. They do not understand how their disrespectful, unprofessional behavior misrepresents their respective schools and sours future students on a college education.
I am from the small town above. Centreville, Mississippi — walking distance away from East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. While many people that close to Louisiana claim Baton Rouge as their home, I do not. I am proud to be a small town girl. Centreville is the size of a postage stamp, but it’s home. And for the good and the bad, it made me who I am.
But let me tell you, dear reader, that I COULD NOT WAIT to graduate from high school. I went to an all-Black high school in the next town, Woodville, Mississippi — which happens to be the county seat. I was off to college before my high school diploma could get warm in my hand without giving it a second thought.
My grandmother was a teacher for almost 50 years, I have a great-aunt who was a Ph.D.-level professor at Jackson State University for over 40 years, and a host of cousins who were also in education. And while my mother did not attend college, she was pro-education. In my house, it was never: “If you go to college.” It was always: “When you go to college.”
For a girl in a teeny-tiny town, I was fortunate. Many people’s parents were not college-educated in our town, nor were they pro-college. In many small municipalities like mine, teachers and other educators are the only representation of a college-educated workforce that students may ever encounter. When educators live in individualized, cliquish, condescending bubbles, they misrepresent what a college education looks like to students like us. I sometimes wish that educators could receive deportment grades from the respective communities. Many of them would be surprised to find that their behavior is “Unsatisfactory.”
To say the least, not every teacher is inspiring. But let’s face it, some teachers are immature and disrespectful. While we occasionally see the shocking story of a mature female teacher sleeping with one of her students, there are many, many cases of daily immaturity and childish behavior that fly under the radar. And this is not limited to low-income districts, either. I’ve witnessed behavior in upper-middle class private school teachers that was just appalling. I could not believe that adults, let alone college-educated ones, would behave that way.
Personally, if I had a quarter for every time some teacher in my all-Black district said, “I got mine, you got to get yours,” while they sat on their behinds collecting paychecks, I’d be a wealthy woman. Some of our teachers had retired from Louisiana and made it blatantly clear that the job was just extra income over their retirement or they were just putting in the years to retire from another state. Mississippi does have better state retirement benefits than many of its neighbors, believe it or not. They taught us nothing, but expected pay checks all the same. And since we were a small community and the educational system run by a “who-you-know” hiring system, they were never in any danger of losing their jobs. So, they were allowed to undereducate and/or discourage students for generations with no consequences.
Seeing as how my community was so small, our educators were also visible in our every day lives. Many of them, because they had a college education, a stable salary, and benefits were condescending and downright arrogant. They destroyed the schools with their attitudes, then move on to the church youth department. I laugh at these people, who claim that the young folk don’t respect the Lord any more and have suddenly stopped attending church. I wat to tell them, “No, the young people are sick of you and your attitude.” But of course I’m too polite to say that out loud.
For many students in rural districts, immature, arrogant, and lazy teachers negatively influence college attendance choice. For example, our neck of the woods, the Pine Belt, is populated by skilled laborers. Many people without a college education provided beautiful livings for their families. Also, the skilled laborers tended to just be nicer and if a young person wanted to learn from them, they taught. I never saw a brick mason or a logger sit on his haunches and say, “I got mine. You got to get yours.” With work that dangerous and taxing, they couldn’t afford to. Second, since this person made money and were nicer, a seamstress garnered as much respect (and certainly more love) as a high school principal. In turn, many students opted not to attend college. Put yourselves in their shoes for a second: if my dad were a skilled laborer, respected, well-mannered, and beloved by his neighbors because he IS NOT a condescending jerk, what promise would a college education hold for me? My dad is richer in money and love than any teacher at school with a bad attitude. Why go to college? Why not apprentice with my dad?
Personally, not going to college was never an option for me, but my choice in college was directly influenced by the behavior that I witnessed every day in school and in the community. I chose not to attend a Historically Black College & University because of the behavior of SOME (by no means all) of my HBCU-educated teachers. Though it pained me to my very soul (and still does) to walk away from the magic of an HBCU band (okay, I was the biggest band geek in high school), I wanted something different. Over-emphasizing clothes and looks, trying hard to carve out “elite” Black people when we were all really on the same economic scale, and just being rude because I would obtain a degree WERE NOT things I wanted in my future. I chose not to attend an HBCU and became the first person in my district to graduate from the college I chose.
As an educator — and I have taught at Predominantly White Institutions and Historically Black Colleges & Universities — I have learned to be careful of my demeanor. I have learned to carefully choose my words. I have learned that as far as attitudes are concerned, we win more flies with honey than vinegar. For my models, I have taken the many, many teachers (yes, they were also Black) who saw something in me and tried to nurture that as my role models. They were not arrogant, they did not judge others based on clothes, and they certainly did not have nasty attitudes. They treated and loved every student the same, and from my second grade teacher to my freshman chemistry professor, those are the educators who I can say are a direct influence on me as an educator and woman. Every day, though they were overworked, underpaid, and certainly underappreciated, they came to school and taught their hearts out. And that’s the legacy I want to leave behind.
As a professor, I certainly enjoy more leeway than grade level teachers, but I am still careful of how I treat my adult students. If I see them in the community, we’re talking. If I see their parents or grandparents, I give them the same respect that I would give my own. Here in the deepest of the Deep South, there are still many, many first generation college students. I do not want it said of me that my nasty attitude turned a promising student away from an education. I don’t want it said of me that my lack of concern about a student’s development while my over-emphasis on his/her clothes and looks influenced him/her not to drop out. Just like my dedicated teachers, I want my behavior and attitude to help students succeed in life, and hopefully, just as I have done, they will forget the names and faces of those bad actors who prophesied over them that they would never be anything or would amount to nothing. Just like my dedicated teachers, I want my students to remember something of my lectures and take it with them, and they will NEVER hear me say, “I got mine, you got to get yours.” We will be too busy conversing about the world around us. I will teach them and they will teach me, too. And if I could receive a deportment grade, I hope to make it an “S” for “Satisfactory.”
If you don’t like this article, I don’t care. Some of us need to do better, educators. This is not coming from my class, but from my professor’s diary. If you loved this article and you can remember the teacher who inspired you, leave a comment! We educators sometimes take love as fair payment for the work we do.
