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Played
by Laura Robb Paula could smell the outdoors in her office. It made her giddy, the scent of summer lingering around her computer screen. It reminded her of when she first understood the idea of sin, something heady and dangerous but tempting. She closed the window. The Dean of Students should be the last person to contemplate summer and all its liberties. Yet her inner secretary, heedless of propriety, reminded her that only one more PTA meeting, one more Evaluations meeting, and one more state report on attendance remained before school closed for the longest vacation of the year. First things first. Tonight was the open house for new parents, the crop of parents who would present a freshman next September– or in some cases, two, as Paula had noted that no less than three sets of twins were registered. Tonight would be so sweet an occasion. The new principal, Bradley Hilken, would have his first chance to preside over bringing in new blood, and the lucky man would do so without the influence of Her Excellency, the unconscionable H.E. Paula and a few of her best pals (only three really) referred to the head of Advanced Learning as H.E., and they enjoyed a silent cheer when H.E. announced her retirement the week before. Bradley’s announcing her successor this evening would mean placing his brand on the faculty. Bradley, Paula thought fondly, might be headed in the right direction but still had so much to learn. True, he was unimpressed by H.E., rarely sought out her advice, and seemed almost relieved that she was retiring. He listened when Paula explained staff politics to him and let him know that H.E., though she certainly had had some successes, was terribly overrated and frankly, not a staff favorite. No one, but no one, (Paula had rolled her eyes when she told this to Bradley) was going to miss her pronouncements at Teacher Leader meetings. (No one would miss Teacher Leader meetings, Paula thought, harking back to the great days when staff expected to be told what to teach to whom.) Who had died and made H.E. the Queen? Everyone noticed that she sat at the corner table and waited patiently as each department head weighed in on the issue of the moment. Only then would she deign to make a comment, and lo and behold the others would line up behind her as if POTUS had phoned in. Of course, she was meticulous about not appearing to be self-serving. Her ideas were always couched in terms of what the students needed, what was best for the students. If things were up to her, the students would run the frigging building. Unbelievable. And what did she gain by influencing school policy to such an unbearable degree? Paula knew she had an ego as big as a house and would not be satisfied until every student and every parent had heard of her programs. She had, as Paula had documented some time before, actually approached students in the Special Education department to suggest to them that they take an Advanced Learning course. Art, she said, might be a place for these students to start. Even students who can’t read can sometimes do fine art work, she mewed at Paula. H.E. thought she was purring, but Paula heard it as the mewing it was, her undying efforts to have her program front and center. Always. Nearly every teacher worked unstintingly for the students; there was no question about that fact. Paula counted herself among the most ambitious cheerleaders for the motley group of society’s backwash who landed upon the shores of this high school. They were immigrant children, or poor children, or the wrong color children, or, as in many cases, all three. Where to begin with this group? Certainly not with Advanced Learning. Some of the school’s students naturally had it in them, it was true, but you could spot them a mile off. Their parents attended the PTA meetings, and they had been taken to libraries, and museums and parks and theaters from the moment they could toddle. They mixed with grace among the rest of the students but they were easy to identify and Paula didn’t begrudge them their Trigonometry and Creative Writing. But, because of H.E.’s efforts to mesmerize the parents and staff into her magical thinking, Paula had to energetically inform Bradley and others that more than half of the students were in such a pathetic academic state that they had no business learning to run before they could walk. Hello! Advanced Learning has that name because it is advanced – not everyone can do it. Not as if Paula hadn’t herself attempted some remedial programs for this lower half of the school population. She had organized a film discussion club after school and on her own time to help the students grasp some of the history and culture that had, due to their immersion in poverty, eluded them. She lined up great American classics like the Wizard of Oz and Little Women. A few students straggled into the brand new school theater with its impressive large screen and asked if they could get credit for staying to watch. When Paula said no, that wasn’t the point, they straggled right out again and that was that. The disappearance of the film discussion club marked the beginning of Paula’s use of H.E. to refer to the Advanced Learning chief. Paula had overheard her comment to another staff member that the film discussion group had collapsed “of its own weight.” What a simpering, sniggling comment. That’s what passes for constructive criticism in her universe? She, who speaks so convincingly of collaboration any time she can gather an audience of one or more, collaborates only on her ideas, her woolly-brained ideas of a “curriculum for all.” All what? All pop culture fanatics? Meet them on their own ground, H.E. brays. Mix in the books and music and movies they know to get to the more complex ideas. Her advanced learning students wouldn’t know a classic if it stood in the doorway and howled. Thank goodness for the likes of Bradley who follows a sane policy of steady-as-you-go management with realistic goals. He was the right replacement for Jim, the last principal. Paula had suffered seven long years under Jim’s direction and still trembled at the thought of the anxious administrative meetings where Jim would examine staff’s projects there, in front of everyone. If she had to attend one more meeting where H.E.’s programs were held up as models and praised for their “vision”, Paula would throw in the towel and go back to classroom teaching. So it wouldn’t be long now. H.E. would be gone and her replacement named. Paula had pointed out that H.E.’s office space was a tad large, and that such an area could be better utilized as a counseling and tutoring center, aka, timeout room. Bradley agreed and carved out a postage stamp space next to the mailboxes for the new head of Advanced Learning. Paula was the first to say that an office does not a program make, and that the real power resides in the halls and classrooms with the students and teachers, but she also did not see the harm in sending a distinct message that Advanced Learning was no longer to be the flagship program of the school. It could take its place among the rank and file. Anyway, it was H.E. that said the best should be in the classroom as she ostentatiously grabbed two classes each semester so that she wouldn’t lose touch with the kids or with teaching. What serious person does that? Paula knew she herself was a better educator since she had begun to focus on the tasks of the Dean’s Office. Let H.E. burn the candle and both ends and look ridiculous. At any rate, the strife, the tension, the sheer unworkability of H.E.’s ideas would be ending soon and as awkwardly as possible for her. H.E.’s attempt to crown her own successor had been rejected by Bradley. Roundly and succinctly rejected. Paula had had no small hand in the humiliation. She and H.E. had been talking, going over paperwork, and H.E. must have been fatigued. She openly wondered if Bradley were accepting personal recommendations for the new Advanced Learning head. Paula knew just what to do. Casually, she asked H.E. if she had a recommendation or two to make to Bradley. H.E. mentioned Matthew, a youngish science teacher who had been teaching Advanced Learning Biology. Paula had smiled conspiratorially with H.E. What a fine idea! Matthew, of course. Bradley heard about H.E.’s campaign to undercut his leadership the next day. Matthew, Paula explained, was a fine teacher but headstrong. Once Paula had happened into his classroom and a student was delivering a presentation while Matthew sat in the back tutoring one of the boys she recognized as a purely vocational student – as apt to go to college as she was to swim the English Channel. Matthew had good academics but bad instincts, and H.E. ‘s wanting to name him the head of Advanced Learning was nothing less than sabotage of all Bradley stood for. Paula made her recommendation to Bradley with confident reasoning. Lillian (one of her three buds but this was of no consequence) had just the profile they needed. Ten years in the classroom with an itch to get out, she was younger than H.E. by twenty years. She got the students much better, could talk to them easily, but had no intention of letting them take over. A pat on the back, a joke at the right time, but the student was a student, and not all of them were pre-ordained to greatness, as H.E. might have you believe. Lillian wouldn’t pretend that Advanced Learning was for everybody. Lillian would not set up a program that jockeyed for dominance. Inclusion of all kinds of kids did not have to mean foolhardiness, no matter what H.E. wanted. That evening, Lillian rose gracefully from her seat and joined Bradley on the auditorium stage when he announced her new role. There had already been a tiresome round of applause for H.E.’s service to the school, led, if you asked Paula, by a bunch of students who clapped simply because it allowed them to jump out of their seats and make noise. Lillian was more than generous when she claimed it would be difficult to fill H.E.’s shoes, but she was determined to try. Parents surrounded Lillian after the program to pepper her with questions, and Paula had to wait at the bar an extra half hour before Lillian arrived to celebrate her new job. “Happy?” Paula asked. “Very,” Lillian answered. “Program management is going to be more fun than teaching, I think. And no papers to correct.” “There is that,” said Paula. “Any blowback?” “What do you mean?” “I saw Matthew moving towards you afterwards. I took off.” “Oh,” said Lillian. “No, he congratulated me. Why?” “He didn’t get it. You know, get the position.” “Did Bradley ask him? I mean did he interview us both?” Lillian asked. “H.E. pushed for him,” Paula smirked. Lillian drank down a mouthful of beer and looked perplexed. “Odd,” Lillian said. “H.E. was the one who told me I’d be good for the job. It shocked me because she never seemed to be a fan. Always babbling about doing projects or some other Holy Grail. I got the feeling she’d rather I didn’t teach in Advanced Learning.” “Who cares?” Paula said. “She’s not the principal.” “Exactly,” said Lillian. “But out of the blue she said I should consider program management. Lots of organizational challenges, she said.” “That’s why you brought it up to me?” asked Paula. “Basically, yeah. Same pay and teaching optional? Sounded like a good deal.” “So it was H.E.’s idea?” asked Paula. “Totally.” |
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