The Edge of the Hallways

By Jeff Santy

A teaching day in a small northern Wisconsin high school starts with drums exploding, guitars screaming, keyboards accenting, and vocals harmonizing. The class, Pop Band, is an inspirational idea to get students involved in music. This story details not only the teaching of grammar, freshman English, and creative writing, but also describes conflicts with administration. Long before the rise of High School Musical and Glee, the author successfully creates a music class where students are molded into an unique group of performers. This books chronicles one term in the lives of these students.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456794712

Jeff Santy

After having taught high school English to nine thousand students during his thirty year career, Jeff Santy is now retired. During those years, he enhanced many of his teaching lessons with music. Music is still a central part of his life as he continues to teach rock and roll bands. When time allows, he fishes his favorite Northern Wisconsin lake.

Book preview

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I hated every school I ever attended. It’s amazing I’ve been a teacher for over twenty five years. Don’t get me wrong—I love learning—I just hated school: the bells, the boredom, the conformity, jamming thirty students in one class, learning one thing all at the same pace. I wish learning and school were synonymous. They’re not.

I have often said, I used to be a Catholic; now I’m a teacher. In my life, teaching is a religion. It’s not just a job; it’s not just an adventure; it’s a calling, in the true Latin sense of the word: a vocation.

Great teachers are worth their weight in gold and I believe they are born, not made. My family has always teased me that even if I were not an English teacher, I would still stop the movie we’re watching to discuss the symbolism therein. I have always loved literature just as I have always loved music. When I became a teacher, I would intertwine music within my lessons. My students knew of my love for guitar and would test me by asking if, in another life, I’d prefer to be Mark Twain or Eric Clapton. Always a tough decision, but in my adult life my priorities have been clear to me: number one, family; number two, teaching; and number three, music. In that order.

Of course, when I was in grade school, that order was far from being set. I was in the seventh grade and had been watching too many cowboy movies when I decided I wanted two things out of life. I wanted to ride a horse and play guitar. I promptly told my mother my goals. She brought me to reality by reminding me our home in the suburbs in the 1960’s was not going to accommodate equestrian interests, but she did rent a guitar from the nuns at the Catholic grade school I attended. I figured a fifty per cent success rate would not be bad.

My first guitar lesson was at the church rectory, a crowded little room with acoustic tiles on the ceiling, and an upright piano against one wall, opposite a framed picture of the Sacred Heart of the child Jesus. Sister Mary Urinal had her back to me as I picked up a guitar for the first time in my life. Not knowing any better, I laid that old wooden Tennessee flat top box across my lap with the neck pointed towards my right. I didn’t know I was holding it wrong until the good Sister turned around and almost fell out of her habit. What are you doing? she nearly screamed in her one hundred and ten year old voice. You’ve got the thing upside-down!

I begged for forgiveness and told her I was left-handed. Been that way all my life, I explained. My mother suffers from the same disease.

I asked Sister if I should play left or right-handed? Only one thing could solve this conundrum. She said she had to consult with God. So, Sister Mary Urinal told me to wait as she slipped quietly through the door to the church. I heard muffled voices through the door. Sister Mary Urinal slid back inside the music room and breathed a sigh of relief. God says to play it like normal people, she announced, her rosary rattling as she crossed herself. He says since you’ve never played before, you’ll never know the difference.

Thus, according to God’s commandment, I turned the guitar over in my lap and learned to play right handed, against what some would say were my natural instincts. Years later, a guitarist buddy of mine who plays left handed said they took away half of my natural ability at that moment. Just think, he told me, you could be twice the guitarist you are now if you had not listened to that nun. But God was on her side.

Apparently, God never talked to Paul McCartney or Jimi Hendrix because, throughout their careers, they always played left handed.

*

Playing guitar and being in rock and roll garage bands since eighth grade helped me survive formal education until high school graduation. My high school graduating class adopted as our unofficial theme song the hit, We Gotta Get Outta This Place. Paul Simon reflected my high school career when he wrote, When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.

I survived high school and had high hopes that college would provide me with guidance and a career; however, I dropped out of college after a number of years of frustrating classes and no direction. No one said I had to continue, so I didn’t. I quit school and got married to my teenage sweetheart, Joan, and started the first full time job of my life. I was delivering automotive supplies to cars that couldn’t get gasoline due to the Arab oil embargo. I was making two dollars and fifty cents an hour and dreaming of some day starting a family. It took me about a year to see what was wrong with that picture. I didn’t say I was a fast learner.

I knew I had to go back to school. If I worked half as hard at college as I was working at that warehouse, I could maybe make something of myself.

Walking into my local college guidance counselor’s office was perhaps the hardest thing I’d ever done. It was the first time in my life I’d ever been in to see a guidance counselor in any school. I expected there’d be trays of crow served in the outer waiting area. There was not. Instead, I read title after title of books called How To choose A Career and What Education Can Do For You. If I bolt now, I thought, they’d never miss me.

Too late! A woman ushered me into her office, looked at my former transcripts containing everything from A’s to F’s, and proclaimed I had enough credits to possibly graduate in two more years.

But what would your major be? the counselor asked me.

I don’t know, I replied. What have you got?

Well, she frowned at my scholastic record. You seem to be good at English. You could be an English major.

Ok, I said. So, what does that make me?

A good conversationalist, she responded.

But—I’m already that!

Ok—well, you could be a teacher.

A teacher? I felt ill. I pictured my high school English teacher with his dandruff and history of mental illness. Whatever, I said. I just wanted that damn degree.

So, I re-entered college. But a funny thing happened on my way to my first education class. I loved it. It happened to be taught by the dean of education at my university. I moved from my desk where I was hiding in the back of the room to a seat in the front row.

The dean looked surprised. Students will stake out a territory in the classroom and never move—unless they feel comfortable in that class, he said. I didn’t have to take notes on that one.

At the end of the semester I wrote a paper for that class entitled Teacher Expectation and Student Achievement. The dean was very impressed and I received an A in his class. He was living proof that really good teachers inspire students.

The other professors of education were not so inspiring and I struggled in their classes. Two years later, at the end of my studies, it came time for me to begin my practice teaching. The education department at the university was able to recommend one student for an internship. The dean was the only one to vote for me.

What’s an internship? I asked stupidly.

You teach an entire semester and the class is totally your responsibility. You do everything a classroom teacher does but you have a cooperating teacher to help when needed. It’s practice teaching, the dean replied, but you also get paid.

Yes! He could talk me into that one all right. But why didn’t the other professors vote for me?

They know, he paused, "that being a teacher takes a very special something.

And they don’t think you have that something."

But, he continued, I think you do. So, your senior year you’ll be interning as an English teacher at a nearby high school.

I was ecstatic and couldn’t wait to begin educating eager young minds. I was bit by some sort of a teaching bug and have never been the same since.

*

When I started my practice teaching, I hadn’t been back to a high school since I’d graduated high school and nothing could’ve prepared me for that baptism of fire. Back then I was twenty-five years old, so I showed up at the high school office in my best blue jeans, new bow tie, and mink-oiled red boots. My beard and mustache were trimmed: I was ready for anything. The office was extremely busy, so a secretary simply handed me a red covered grade book that had Mr. Santy hand lettered on the front. I looked around for my dad and then realized it was for me. No one had ever referred to me as Mr. Santy before.

I wasn’t moving so the secretary harrumphed, There’s a schedule inside. If you have any questions, ask. Have a nice semester. We’ll see you again in June.

Wait! I pleaded. Isn’t there some sort of training or preparation or things I need to know?

Oh, yes, she continued as an after-thought, it is true the judge said one of your students must return to school because he’s too unruly for jail.

An alarm sounded in my ears and I realized it was a school bell. Time to go to class. I looked inside the dreaded red book and found a list of names and a room number. The halls were a seething mass of adolescent flesh. My nose detected cigarettes and hair spray. I was shocked to see every girl’s hair looked the same. Someone later told me it was the effect of television.

I walked into the scheduled classroom, Conflicts in Literature, to find all the students seated facing the blackboard as I stood facing the opposite direction. It felt like the major difference between me and them. The room was clearly a 1930’s hangover: huge chalkboards on three walls, with the fourth wall comprised of towering ten foot high windows streaming in morning sunlight in dusty fashion.

Going to the blackboard, I grabbed a newly minted piece of chalk and squeaked out my name. My name is Jeff Santy, I quipped, but my friends call me Jeff. I found out later that was my first mistake. The other teachers were quick to inform me that they felt that familiarity breeds contempt. I never did agree with that mindset.

On the desk I found a list of possible novels to be used in that course. There were fourteen good titles by some great authors, some of which I was familiar with already, others I had not read. I had just finished many college literature courses, so fourteen novels did not surprise me. I did not realize these were suggestions only, that I would only be able to choose and finish a few of the fourteen.

Like a novice idiot, I proceeded to list all fourteen novels on the board with a scheduled breakdown of what one hundred pages or so we’d read each day.

The classroom was silent and the air was thick with anticipation. One student finally broke the silence. In all my years here, I ain’t never seen a list like that!

Those sorts of mindsets were not my only surprises that day. I found out later I was teaching a grammar class that semester. I panicked. I hadn’t studied grammar since the nuns beat it into me in grade school. And that was traditional grammar. I learned I’d be teaching transformational and structural grammar, whatever that was. I arranged to sit in on another teacher’s grammar class first hour every day and then teach my own class at the end of each day. That first hour grammar teacher never had a better grammar student than I and any questions in my class had to wait until I could consult back with him.

I somehow blindly blundered my way through that semester. I had months of mind numbing preparation, lesson delivery, and paper grading but somehow I made it through. I loved every minute of the experience and realized I had found my profession. This was 1976 and the last day of my internship I had planned a student bicentennial celebration. The students had practiced songs and readings for weeks. I had not seen anyone from my university during the entire semester, but I simply assumed that the university education department was aware of my trials and tribulations and I was on track to graduate in about a week.

I was walking up the steps to my classroom for the bicentennial program with my guitar in hand, attired in my red, white, and blue Uncle Sam costume Joanie had so lovingly sewn for me weeks before when I noticed a man standing at the top of the stairs. The dean of education from my university had chosen that day to observe my teaching. The dean had probably been tipped off. I stopped in the middle of the staircase, shocked to see him.

The dean scanned my guitar case, my red and white striped pants, my blue waistcoat and tails, my top hat, and the white powder in my hair and beard and slowly asked, Do you always dress like this for teaching, Mr. Santy?

Sure, I replied. You should see my 1890’s outfit.

The day went very well and the dean was impressed. He took me aside later and said, Do you remember when the other professors would not vote for you for this internship because they thought you lacked that special something to be a teacher?

I lowered my powdered head and said yes.

Well, the dean continued, looking at my clothes and guitar, you have proven you do have that special something. And now, tell me, what have you gathered from all of this teaching experience?

I looked the dean in the eye and told him what I had learned just the other day. One of my students told me that not wanting to learn may be the ultimate sign of ignorance. I have come to believe that’s very true.

The dean smiled and said that I had come a long way. Then he asked if I had had any administrative problems with the end of the semester.

Yes, I stated. I know that public high schools must accept any and all kinds of students. But the girlfriend of one of my students called and asked if I could hold that boy’s final exam until he gets out of jail.

*

When I graduated from college with my degree for teaching high school English, there were one hundred fifty applicants for every job opening in the state. I had applied everywhere, so when a Mr. Don Fogarty called me from a high school a hundred and thirty miles to the north, I was both flabbergasted and flattered.

We read the letter from your cooperating teacher at your internship and anyone who is as creative and imaginative and recommended the way you are, we want to talk to right away, boomed Don Fogarty’s giant voice over the phone. Can you interview with me next Tuesday at my high school, say five o’clock? Bring your wife with you, if you like.

My wife Joanie and I were ecstatic. We checked a map and headed out that following Tuesday. We had never traveled that far north in the state before but we arrived early, anxious for the interview. I asked my wife to check the only address we had, a place on Wilson Street. A local gas station attendant pointed the way.

We turned the corner onto Wilson and there before us squatted the oldest, ugliest school building we had ever seen. I could tell it dated back to before the turn of the 20th century. Some of the old, red brick had fallen away and a few of the second floor windows were boarded over. Rusty playground swings dangled from iron scaffolds.

Well, I smiled weakly to my wife, I suppose I’ve seen worse. I could teach here if the job looks good.

Joanie brushed back her long raven hair and patted my hand. Her emerald eyes gleamed as she said, The job is bound to look better than this building.

We tried all the doors. Every one was locked. It was after school hours and we were over an hour early for the interview so I decided to telephone Mr. Fogarty. We found a public phone and Mr. Don Fogarty’s phone number. You’re in town early? that big voice reverberated. That’s good. I’ll meet you in ten minutes behind the school.

Joanie and I returned to Wilson Street and waited. And waited. We discussed how the interview might go and we waited. We talked about the possible future in that town and waited. We got out of the car and peered inside that old, dilapidated building and waited. I noticed the cryptic student artwork on the windows: birds traced from children’s hands with names hand printed in crayon. We had been waiting well over an hour. Where was this Don Fogarty? He had said ten minutes, behind the school. I began to get a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. This artwork, this old building, this wasn’t it!

Jump in the car! I shouted to Joanie. As I started to peel out of that parking lot, I nearly ran over an elderly lady walking her dog.

Is this the high school? I leaned out my window.

The woman pulled her poodle near her. Oh, no, she replied. This is now only used as school district offices and special education. The new high school is down a few blocks and to the right.

When Joanie and I both careened around the corner and laid eyes on the shiny, new, sprawling facility, we both almost cried. I’d love to teach here, I sighed, but now I’m over an hour late for my interview and I’ve kept Mr. Fogarty waiting. He’s probably not even around. Some first impression I’m making!

But Mr. Fogarty was around, waiting behind the school as he had promised. He was a short man with a scraggly beard and horn rimmed glasses dressed in khaki pants, white shirt, and tie. When he heard our story he laughed and his voice bounced off the building. I figured something like that had happened, he cackled. But let’s start over; come to my office and we’ll talk.

He led Joan and me to his second floor English department chair office. He sat behind his huge metal desk with his back to the window and ushered us to two chairs across from him. I sat bolt upright, holding Joanie’s hand next to me for moral support. Mr. Fogarty had my resume and transcripts in hand; but