Diverging From Expectations

I'VE NEVER BEEN very good at conforming. I became a Yankee (the baseball team) fan in first grade because, and only because, everyone else in my life, for some reason, despised them, and I felt sorry for them. Like my hero Davy Crockett wrote, or had someone write for him, in the preface of his best selling autobiography: "Fashion is a thing I care mighty little about, except when it happesn to run just exactly according to my own notion". In high school I listened to classical music in an era of rock n roll supremacy. Granted, I listened to rock and pop when in the company of my friends, but that was their choice, not mine. I would have gladly broken out the Beethoven. My noncomformist ways often got me in trouble during my surprisingly long, turbulent teaching career. It began in my mmid twenties, when I taught freshman level history courses at a university while studying for a doctorate. On spring days I took my classes outside and lectured in an open air ampitheatre which was within easy walking distance. I never got hauled into the dean's office for reproach, but fully expected to. I recall the first day I ever taught a class, anywhere. It was a ninety eight degree day in late August, and the building in which my class was located was not air conditioned. I exchewed the traditional academic suit and tie, and strode into the room waering short shorts, blue jean cutoffs. I still can't believe I had the audacity to do that; honestly, I don't know what I was thinking, except maybe about comfort over style. Nobody reprimanded me for it, and I spent my entire tenure teaching college dressed exactly how I wished. Teaching high school was a different matter. I developed a habit of strumming a guitar in the student lobby before school. Nobody tried to stop me from doing that, partly because I was able to play well enough to make passable noise, soft, gentle chords which invited relaxation. The students, passing through on their way to lockers and then to class, seemed to enjoy it. They started to think of me as that "cool teacher". The trouble started when seniors began asking favors, such as: "Why don't yout let me slide out the back door, hop in my car, and go grab some donuts. Nobody'll ever know?" And, well..I let 'em. I got away with it, incredibly. During the years I spent as a substitute teacher, I became the most popular, and most requested sub in the district, especially amog gthe high schoolers. Amazing to think that the students I had back then now have their own children, in high school. I once got called into the principal's office, and the big man asked me: "Why are you teaching your classes that Thomas Jefferson waS an athiest?" "Why don't you take a wild guess?", was my response. that oNE nearly got me fired. I was gone the next year. Actually, Jefferson didn't call himself an "atheist", although his political enemies did. he called himself a "primitive Christian", by whICh HE meaNT that he accepted tHE teachings of the Christian faith in general, but disavowed all claims to the miraculous, including the resurrection, which unto itself was enough to disqualify Jefferson from inclusion in the community of "believers". Fondly I recall the time I was strolling down the hall during lunch break, and came upon a group of about five girls, attractive upperclasspeople, standing in a circle, having a group conversation. I joined the circle, at which time they all fell silent, and looked troubled, at first. Nobody else would have done that, but I did. As I explained to them, cultural inclusion is paramount. From first grade until my retirement, I never got along well with administrators, and tended to avoid them. The primary job of administrators is the protection of their well paid positions, and for that reason they tend to be intolerant of any creativit or behavior divergent from the normal, the conformist. At least I can proudly and truthfully say that I only helped a high school student buy beer, once.