School Tryouts

By Elias Sassoon

Interesting collection of poems. Autobiographical in nature, arising from the time I made the decision to switch careers from writer to full-time teacher. I was burned out writing for major corporations. There was too much politics and aggravation. I had a license to teach Social Studies earned years before in college as a backup. Why not switch careers! But, making the switch was not easy. The change in job environments made my head spin. One major obstacles was that no school would hire me, the middle aged writer to be a regular teacher. Districts were looking for the young and not the old and bearded. How to break in? I took a job a substitute teacher for a pittance, trying to make contacts to help unearth a regular Social Studies position. I took a job working in a suburban Long Island, NY high school and began my second career. The only problem with that, the writer in me would not disappear while the teacher in me never could rise from the depths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781304918048

Elias Sassoon

Elias Sassoon is the author of approximately, roughly, terminally twenty-five works that include short story collections, novels, poetry collections and non-fiction, essay collections. While producing his writing by night, he has earned his daily wage in honest labor that ranges from professions like teacher/bathroom attendant to a door-to-door bible salesman/fish cleaner and everything in between. Elias continues to work hard, grinding out the words and turning them into literary gems, or if you prefer, literary pearls of wisdom. He lives with his wife, two children and a dog-named Brandon in a suburban area in the vicinity of the great Metropolis known as New York City. There he prepares barbecue dinners for neighbors and friends, roams the area for yard sales, watches flies and other moving insect life die in his backward where he also sits on a metal beach chair deciding on the future of the world as we know it.

Book preview

School Tryouts

School Tryouts

by

Elias Sassoon

School Tryouts

ISBN: 978-1-304-91804-8

Copyright © 2014  by Elias Sassoon

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or, other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage  or retrieval systems, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of any of the characters to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

First Printing: May 2014

Dedication

To all the students of the world who are put upon, pressured, corrupted, pummeled into submission, broken by educational systems that do not build moral character, to all of you, I understand. You are good people trapped in rotting structures.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

A SUBSTITUTE IS DUE

CHAPTER THE FIRST

KIDS CALLED STUDENTS IN A SCHOOL CALLED HIGH

CHAPTER THE SECOND

PHILOSOPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO SCHOOL INTRODUCTIONS

CHAPTER THE THIRD

SURROUNDINGS, SETTINGS, ENVIRONS, ALL TOGETHER NOW

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

SCHOOL SELF, PIECES IN MY EYE

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

THE MECHANICS OF TEACHING

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

CLASSES, CLASSROOMS & OTHER RECTANGULAR OBJECTS

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

TEACHERS & OTHERS, THE ART OF HIGH SOCIETY

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

TESTING FOR TESTING PURPOSES OF GIVING A TEST

CHAPTER THE NINTH

REFLECTIONS ON NEARING SOME END OF IT

CHAPTER THE TENTH

EVENTS AND OTHER HAIRY THINGS

School Tryouts

PROLOGUE - A SUBSTITUTE IS DUE

Subbing as in flubbing as in rubbing,

not making sense sometimes.

Subbing as in substituting as in substitute teaching.

You walk in,

you are teaching or proposed to teach,

teach what?

math, science, gym, social studies, shop, etc.,

teach that.

Proposed to teach,

like proposed to be married,

substituting or subbing or something of that nature,

proposed as in proposition.

Confused,

subbing as in flubbing,

always confused, day after day,

not knowing,

students changing,

subjects changing,

confused,

propositions absorbing,

subjects confused,

students confused,

subbing, flubbing, that’s it.

CHAPTER THE FIRST - KIDS CALLED STUDENTS IN A SCHOOL CALLED HIGH

Kids Fooling, Goofing Around

Teacher, teacher, kids, Johnny, kids, faces of kids, all over,

school kids, kids in school,

kids in class, in classrooms, in a single classroom,

kids not seeking to listen to the facts,

kids rejecting facts.

Kids, just want to play and laugh,

Kids.

Kids, school, classroom, playing,

between the facts,

playing,

between learning the facts,

playing.

Kids, humans but in smaller forms, playing,

kids, defined as semi-developed minds, playing,

between the facts, between learning.

Kids, these smaller vessels, these miniaturized world figures,

kids, school, wanting to exist only,

that’s all, exist, exist beyond the mainstream.

Kids, existence, breathing in and out,

wanted,

learning, facts, taking it in, classroom, classrooms,

wanted - not really,

exist, laugh, play, important,

kids, wanting, to clutch at life.

Kids, miniature humans.

Just the facts, sir and madam, just the facts.

*   *    *

Element Effected

Kids, old people, kids, old people, kids, old people,

youth, age, youth, age,

babies, seniors, babies, seniors, babies, seniors,

diversity in time makes nine,

diversity in time makes for a time warp.

Kids, old people,

sharing the link,

sharing commonality of being common,

sharing how they are effected by the elements.

Smell, weather, sensory perception, each sensing,

each complaining, whining, perception of the sensory, both.

Age over beauty,

it’s a young person’s world,

ideas filtered through what, for what,

old people, kids, united,

neither accepting the world,

both try to affect their world.

Perceptions,

to perceive,

interesting,

unity at the end of the age spectrum.

Unity and unity in lacking power to change,

lacking power to convert perceptions to action,

both powerless,

both laughable in the end.

Kids, old people.

*    *    *

Acting As Monitor In Halls Of Something

Watching kids,

guarding kids,

kids of school age,

ages fourteen to eighteen,

kids, adolescents, retards retarded by civilized society,

guarding kids,

these kids,

the kids of the civilized of civilization,

Kids,

hallways of kids,

hallways of kids heading toward classrooms,

kids toward classrooms in classes,

guarding the hallways leading to the classrooms,

guarding to ward off evil,

guarding, a teacher guarding students guarding,

halls, protecting,

students, halls, schools, protecting,

guarding and protecting the guard,

protecting integrity,

what integrity?

Integrity of education, guarding that.

Me, sitting in chair, guarding,

monitor, me, chair, guard, protect,

guarding,

looking for,

searching for,

hall passes of kids, students, guarding, protecting,

monitoring, being overseer, being authority figure, ,

me, guard, kids, hall, chair, me,

me, me, me, guard as God, God as good.

The protector of the universe of the hall.

*    *    *

Hispanic Brute, Young Man, All

The kid Pedro,

you know him,

the one with the chip on his shoulder,

you know him,

the one always challenging, the student,

Pedro.

Hard Pedro,

ruler of the roost,

handsome Pedro,

chasing the pretty senoritas,

Pedro, not required to do work,

Cool Pedro.

Student, Pedro,

symbolic Pedro.

Pedro, ten years later,

Hispanic Pedro,

Pedro down some drain,

ten years later,

Pedro forgotten,

ten years later,

Pedro, young man Pedro,

handsome Pedro,

cool Pedro,

forgotten Pedro,

down some drain.

*    *    *

Art, Here I Am

So I’m in art,

the kid, the student, I,

drawing,

with these utensils,

drawing something,

drawing but not really thinking,

trying not to be thinking of,

my mother leaving my farther.

In art, making pictures,

thinking, but trying not to think,

thinking, but trying to block thinking out,

thinking about where I’ll be,

my mother,

my father,

no more,

me, and me?

Art class,

drawing stupid pictures.

Mother.

Father.

Me.

Making stupid pictures.

Trying not to think.

Art class.

*    *    *

Good Students Observed In Mind

So they sit there,

the student body of students,

the kids chorus of kids,

sit, reclined on metal chairs,

sit with backs arched properly,

everything properly,

they sit and do work, all the work,

make no sound, do the work.

They sit.

Do not look up.

Do not look down.

Do the work, just do the work.

Question them. They answer.

Test them. They answer.

Good students, good marks,

top marks, hey sit, grades, top,

good, wonderful,

sit, upright, do not look up, top,

the student body of students..

Good students,

I wonder.

Do they get it,

good but not bad.

Do they?

*    *    *

Students, High School, All The Way

What kids,

interesting kids,

music,

hair,

sex,

dating,

views of the world,

placidity,

anger,

rebellion,

acceptance,

all wrapped into a burrito.

Knowledge,

boring,

the basic here,

knowledge of the actual, boring,

sex, hair, dating, views of the world,

the thing,

the real thing,

the thing with the kids.

Knowledge, boring.

Hair, gossip, dating, not being different,

taking in the world, not boring.

Knowledge,

learning,

boring,

school,

boring.

Hair, sex, food, etc.,

not boring.

*    *    *

First Time Met: Clown In Class

Tall, thin, gangly,

he,

student,

sixteen,

in class,

observe, I, he

clown,

but not in circus,

in school, school of learning of facts and figures,

not circus, clown not there,

in school, clown, he.

Clown, he,

student,

funny voice,

him, student, me, teacher,

clown in school that becomes his circus,

me, teacher, me, teacher, clown, circus, I, confused,

student, clown.

Clown, circus, school,

a school that is his circus,

clown, humor, funny faces, odd remarks, he,

everyone laughing, and now,

what, how, why, now what, when, where, he.

Clown in class, not in circus,

clown, he

circus,

circus not in town,

circus in school.

*    *    *

The Waste Effect

Seeing,

visualizing,

noticing bright kids,

seeing them for the first time,

kids,

those that just want to sit there,

who sit unaware of time,

wasting,

they are wasting,

wasting away,

dissolving away,

evaporating away.

Waste.

Kids,

sitting there like dead trees,

kids,

existing as lumber in the lumber yards,

kids,

wasting,

I see the waste,

waste by not trying, not working, not caring, waste.

Doesn’t hurt me,

their waste,

hurts them,

their waste.

They, wasters,

those that waste,

students that sit like dead trees,

later, after graduation if that comes,

afterwards, waste, they wasted,

they evaporated,

afterwards it is there, there for all to see,

the waste, societal waste, it is there for society to see and to cry over.

*    *    *

Learning By Self, Not