The Teacher Phenomenon: Pregnant, Sick, or Away?
How do I begin to frame such a strange post? Why did the question of another Twitter user spark my interest back to the 90s and 2000s? Ahh yes, that special time in my life when the Fruitopia flowed and the Tamagotchis cried for my love. A time long before I had Internet access, and I was madly in love (with all my plain girl audacity) for an LL Cool J knockoff who had all the appeal of a very cool 13-year-old heart-throb. My goodness, what a time to be alive. This was the question:
I mean…sure, anyone can find examples of this. It’s not exactly uncommon. There are also people who can’t find any. Yet for yours truly, it made me think about all the times it happened to me. Why were my math teachers so resilient? How did my English teachers always end up pregnant? When the two collided, what did it all mean? Probably nothing, but again…nostalgia. Sweet, sweet nostalgia.
The Wonder Years
I can’t really count that last year of pre-school in 1989, despite one of my teachers being pregnant. 1989–1990 is where the journey begins. My Kindergarten teacher: Miss Lisa Rounds of St. Killian, Chicago, IL. A beautiful, earthy teacher with a fashionable bob, soft voice, and impeccable shadow-box tracing skills. She was Math, English, and other subjects combined. I don’t recall her ever getting sick, but rather just having to be elsewhere from time-to-time. We once had a super mean sub who smacked my thighs for doodling on my paper (yay Catholic school corporal punishment!), but other than that Miss Rounds was definitely there.
1991–1992 featured the same thing with Mrs. Olga Anne Bailey, my fabulous and full-figured queen of a teacher with the taffy apple sellin’ husband and the reddest acrylics I’d ever seen. She was nice but fierce with her taped up paddles. They stung. She was always in class and as animated as ever, rain or shine. I still have half most of her Phonics Song stuck in my head. “-ing, -ang, -ong, as we learn our phonics song…”
By the Fall of 1992, I was at another school altogether. After my final stint at St. Killian, my dad had seen enough. My second-grade teacher at that school — Miss Kill — had no control over us. We annoyed that poor woman to no end, causing her to walk out. We were rowdy, rude, and hanging out of windows waving to our parents below. We were little freaks acting up in the coatroom, disrupting her lessons, and traumatizing her for life. She only missed one class prior to the final tiny tyrant uprising, and I’m sure she took her time deciding if she really wanted to come back. After that, I transferred to Vanderpoel Magnet. My teacher was the sharp-witted Mrs. Murray, a no-nonsense older woman whom I despised and resisted at first because she critiqued the crap outta me and thought I was a little slow. She put me on the System-80 to “catch up”, and I was absolutely insulted. She wasn’t all bad and had impeccable taste in chunky necklace jewelry and low-heeled shoes.
The Phenomenon Takes Flight
My first example of the hybrid of pregnant-away would be my third-grade teacher, Mrs. O’Malley. Ahh, Mrs. O’Malley. She was gorgeous! Soft orange-red hair, soft voice, pretty eyes, and the reason why I still peek at the forecast to check the phases of the Moon. At the start of her year, she was Ms. Sheehan the bright bachelorette with a spring in her step. Barely missing a day, things shifted quickly once she became engaged and married. It was wild to see her visit us on her off time in her stunning 90s casual wear: brown velvet fringe jacket, matching brown cowgirl boots, and even funkier cowboy hat. When she came back, even that was temporary. She was pregnant and soon off on maternity leave. She covered every subject but Social Studies. If I can recall correctly, she had twins with her super-handsome husband. (He was definitely 90s hunk foiine.)
My fourth-grade teacher was made of steel. Mrs. Prunckle. Tough as nails, very suburban, and her son wrestled at Mt. Caramel. Every-thing about her kid was Mt. Caramel this, Mt. Caramel that. But I can tell you this — she was no-nonsense about us knowing our states. That was the pride of her curriculum as our Social Studies teacher. I hated the way she called milk “malk”. She was always on time, on the ball, and there were no off days. What was sickness when there was work to be done? With a sip of her coffee and a hard grip on her planner, she got to work teaching us until her chalk was a white little nub in her hands. I remember standing at the chalkboard and freezing when she assigned chosen students to draw geometric examples on the board. I couldn’t remember what a ray was. The embarrassment I felt as she made the dot, line, and arrow ate at my pathetic little soul.
My fifth-grade teacher was yet another hybrid of the pregnant-away model. Mrs. Bulger, the bright-eyed lady whom I probably traumatized with my vulgar drawings about Angie the fabulous prostitute-secretary who married an R. Kelly knockoff, but got murdered by her jealous ex-boyfriend. Inspired by the faceless figures on the bathroom doors (yes, THOSE figures), a schoolmate and I created a sordid, yet very 90s universe featuring the buxom bombshell that Mrs. Bulger would snatch and read with horror in her eyes. The poor lady was just trying to do her job and collect her check. She worse sensible attire that screamed 90s K-Mart and JC Penney, with a hint of Sears and Venture, but she made it work. Add a functional scrunchie and white sneakers, and you were good to go.
When you were good in her class, she took note. She had the best prize snacks for the occasion: Blue Razz Blow Pops and an arrangement of full-sized Airheads. The kid loved herself a good Blow Pop. I could not get enough of Airheads either. Mix that with a Cherry Coke and it was the best weekend ever. Mrs. Bulger was all right. She was encouraging, engaging, and her classroom was a nice and neat space full of teaching store goodies. When she got pregnant and left on maternity leave, we had some months of learning with a variety of teachers. My favorite was one Mrs. Ogundipe, a tall and slim older woman with a short natural and a structured schedule. We were rowdy little jerks to her at first, with yours truly being told to “be a leader and not a follower” in the comments section of my report card. I can remember misreading the comment and feeling good about myself until I took a second look. I thought it said I WAS a leader among followers and should continue to do so. Ouch, lady.
Mrs. Bulger would return for the remainder of the school year, chattering about her new baby girl Megan. I liked the name and gushed with pride when I found a baby doll at Toys R Us for ten dollars with her name. What I liked about her was that she didn’t yell or lose her cool. “You guys…”, she’d say in a soft, yet annoyed tone before letting us know what was up. I truly hope she’s doing well.
Junior High (Fall 1996-Spring 1999): Hardly Gone At All
Most of the teachers I had in Junior high were either older and single or older and already up to their necks with kids. They were interested in getting things done and getting closer to retirement. I pray and hope all of them are living comfortably and drinking their cocktails of choice in their yards. My sixth-grade teacher was the straight-laced Ms. Smith, and she was yet another teacher interested in results and not the puberty-ridden nonsense we were on. She never missed a day, opting to pop a cough drop and some cough medicine than to deprive us of her presence. The one time she was away, it was for a conference. There wasn’t anything that significant about my time in her class, save for the etiquette club she led during Electives. The trip we went on featured my first (and last) black and white baby doll dress with a matching leather bag.
My English teacher during those junior high years was Mrs. Turner. Tough, yet animated. Hair slicked back into a neat ponytail, lips fashionably dark, voice steely and volume be damned: you were going to diagram sentences and like it. You were going to listen about prepositional phrases and dig it. If she didn’t like that poem and thought you could do better, then sweetness you were going to hear about it. Don’t let her catch you saying something under your breath — she would embarrass the hell out of you. Her comments on my work were direct and often very helpful. Her methods kept a tight grammar ship intact. Not once was she absent, and her kids were already thriving in the world. Her retirement, friends, was well-deserved. Her calling card was how to break down subject diagrams by using a McDonald’s Big Mac:
“Two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, pickles, cheese, onions on sesame seed bun: hamburger.”
She said it over and over in every English class we had with her. Since some of us were that bad at doing sentence diagrams, we needed it! When she was done, however, I just really wanted a Big Mac. The diagramming part was always rather questionable.
My seventh-grade teacher was my sixth-grade reading teacher. His name: Mr. Robert Cunningham. His look was simple: a white dress shirt, black tie, black dress pants, and shoes. He was hardly absent back then, wanted our work headed a certain way, expected full reports on what we read, and made my stomach turn and flutter when he called on us randomly in class. This was not any different when I became one of his students the following year. “Ver-ohn-ica!”, he’d call, making me burn up from head to toe. It wasn’t quite yelling, but it was just enough to make me jump. It was loud enough to make any of us beg in our heads for him not to call on us. I knew the answers (most of the time), but the terror of having my name called the way he’d do it was absolutely unnerving. He wasn’t a mean person at all, just a tight one when it came to learning. Heaven help us all if nobody was engaging in the lesson. His observatory snipes on the matter would make you feel super small. Seeing his lean, medium height body glide down the aisles of desks made you want to hide. Yet when he was outside of teaching mode, he was as cool as a Miles Davis album on a rainy Autumn night.
My eighth-grade teacher was by far my favorite of them all. Granted I still suck at Mathematics, he gave me the power to suck less at it. He believed in my ability and worked with me until my Iowa scores skyrocketed to where they needed to be. He is part of the reason why I like PC games like The Sims, and why computers, in general, have become friends and research tools, not intimidating pieces of metal and plastic. There was little to no off time with him, aside from a trip or two for the many things he was into outside the classroom. He made dad jokes on purpose but made Mathematics accessible and interesting. He played a mean rendition of Monster Mash on his guitar.
I had a completely different teacher for my eighth-grade reading classes, a librarian by the name of Mrs. Cox-Gray. I saw her as the essential 90s woman because she was always fabulously dressed to the 9s. Specifically, it was the kind of looks you’d see on Living Single or Martin but on a school-appropriate level. She was a pretty chill teacher and yet another who was pretty much there for the whole middle school experience.
High School: Return of The Phenomenon
Freshman year: My algebra teacher was never out. I mean…ever. Her classes were structured, her tests were direct, and she could smell Doritos from a mile away. She did not like it when people ate in her class. My English teacher was Ms. Steele: spirited, critical, and animated. She marked the hell out of all my papers, took no stuff, but made reading fun. She is the reason that I began writing more in high school. I can admit that she made my heart stop several times in class, especially if we weren’t prepared. It was okay to be wrong, but it felt like you were being sent to literary hell if you weren’t prepared for her classes. I was intrigued by her analysis of The Cask of Amontillado. She brought flavor to Romeo and Juliet and made it abundantly clear that we were to read All But My Life from cover to cover or fail her course. Her brand of fear and lack of absence was my introduction to adulthood: we were being treated like young ladies who were responsible for our own grades, no excuses.
Sophomore year: My math teacher was tall, lean, and I believe used to be in the Navy. He was a dude who said “let’s get serious” like crazy because we weren’t getting serious, I guess. The way he so clearly pronounced his “Cs”, “Ss”, and “Fs” is forever burnt into my mind. I sucked at proofs, had a crush on this super cute girl (whom I refuse to name but holy macaroni she was a babe back in the day.), and no — he did not miss a day ever. If it was time for class, then he was going to be there. No time for foolishness. (A running theme for most teachers, but it seemed like the ones in my life all fueled themselves on that motto.) I fought with my then-new scientific calculator for ages to try and figure out how to set up those math problems about time or degrees (I really don’t remember what they’re called), only to barely pass his class. I took my D (dad was not happy…)and sat down somewhere.
My English teacher was a former radio DJ/model by the name of Mrs. Smith. No relation to my sixth-grade teacher, I’m sure. I loved her sophisticated plus-sized looks. Reminded me of Phyllis Hyman with the cool hats, dramatic capes, fabulous blouses, and tasteful shoes. Her lipstick was always on point, her hair was flawless, and she had the best stickers. She was already with child when we started her class and was soon to be out the door on maternity leave. We absorbed the Three Theban Plays in her midst, In The Time of The Butterflies, and House on Mango Street. I ate up the amazing selections in her class, loving every second of what she had to offer. It was weird having another teacher in her place. Her baby, however, was absolutely beautiful. A little girl with chunky li’l legs, soft hair, and pretty, bright eyes.
Junior year: Absolute blur. I blame all that rotten Pepsi Blue and Fruitopia I kept drinking. All I can remember is making super-crappy catgirl OCs and naming them after incredibly bad things like…well….Pepsi Blu and characters from Dragon Ball Z. Cringeworthy anecdotes from this period include: having an Internet boyfriend, creating a female version of Wolverine in my head, who did everything but have adamantium claws, and writing sad poems about imaginary men — in baby blue, shimmery gel pen ink. Yikes, younger me, what the whole hell?
I took a Math class with a teacher who was on time, calm and lectured in a very well-structured pattern. It was a pretty typical class where we had to work out examples and prove we understood each lesson. The only thing that sucked was that the teacher had a way of handing back papers. If you did fairly well, he’d place the paper on your desk normally. If you didn’t do so hot, aka below average, he would sigh a bit and place the paper down in a lingering and careful way. The disappointment would eat me up when he did that. I guess it was an inspiration to study more? He was yet another teacher who never missed a day.
Senior year: What math classes? I got better grades because I chose not to have a fourth year of math. My English teacher was the super cool Mr. Ira Abrhams, a lean and proper fellow who made my final year feel like a college class. I wanted all he could give me, but cringed when he called us all “Dr. [insert a last name here]”! Yikes, dude — I was going to be a super sophisticated writer, not a doctor, my guy. Absent? Hardly. When he gave each student to teach the class, I felt sort of cool for about six seconds. Was this my calling? It sure as heck did feel like it at that moment. His required word counts drove me crazy but proved to be easy once I got lost in the project and not the technicals.
I suppose that in looking back, I realized that my Math teachers had the strongest track record. Where there was Math to be taught, there they were. If they could help it, it was easier to pop a cough drop or an OTC remedy than to call in sick. If they did call in sick, something had to be very wrong like a burning house or a rabid pet rhinoceros charging through the town. Come rain, shine, or Midwestern weather, they were going to be at their desks with lesson planners in hand, making sure we knew how to solve equations and plug-in formulas. Their dedication helps those of us who struggle, inspires those of us who are naturals, and protects a mathematical legacy worldwide so that we aren’t completely in the dark ages of living. Their work is hard, and I salute their efforts.
My English teachers fought hard in the hopes that we would become literate, cultured folks who understood that no two people live the same lives. As a child, my imagination was taken to places where kids ate fried worms, little boys lived under the subway platforms, and young Asian boys watched their mentors take flight on gliding machines. Amelia Bedelia screwed something up, and a princess in space learned of her fate through the wisdom of her trusted protector. In high school, I went to Rome, Greece, Mexico, Italy, Africa, and the Carolinas all in 4 years on the wings of well-worn pages and an open mind. I tested fate, pulled marigolds from the garden, searched for the Fountain of Youth, and shed tears learning about the ugliness of war on the human spirit. I was challenged to write college-grade papers and critically think beyond the limits of my young mind. While all of my teachers weren’t pregnant and away, all of them did leave an impact on the mind of this aspiring writer.
For that, I am forever thankful.
