A Coon-Huntin' Story / First-Year Reflection

“My friend John Eubanks was a great American.  He always said, ‘Give everything a sporting chance.  When you go coon huntin’, either take a cross cut saw with you so that you can cut down the tree the coon is in, or climb up the tree and punch him out and make him jump in among the dogs.  Give him a sporting chance.’  Many times my brother Sonny and I would make a coon jump in amongst twenty or thirty dogs.  But at least that coon had the option of whuppin’ all them dogs and walkin’ off if he wanted to.”
-Jerry Clower

It’s funny; my principal is a big coon hunter.  The teachers tell me that every year he shows up to school one day with a new pickup truck because he stuck his old one in an impossible bog the previous night trying to chase a coon down.  When the year began, I sympathized like never before with the coon in Jerry Clower’s story.  Somehow I’d gotten myself up in a tree and here came my principal to punch me out.  The year’s start was rough: many a time I jumped out of the tree and was torn up by those hounds.  Eventually, though, I realized that I had the option of whoopin’ the dogs, and even later on in the year I learned how to.  Granted, the odds are always against the coon—and I’m not by any means a prodigiously successful teacher—but every now and then the coon steals one.

As the coon jumps, one of two thoughts can cross his mind:

1.    it’s really not fair that I got punched out.  I should be able to stay in this tree and live my life the way I want to.  AND, even if the hunter had to punch me out, he could have given me a stick or a knife or SOMETHING to fight off these dogs with.  And why are the dogs so mean anyways?  Are they bred for this sort of thing?  They’re certainly ill-bred, I know that much.  The daddy hound probably left home when they were a little litter of pups.

2.    These dogs don’t know what’s about to hit them.  They’d better be in their seats and working on the bellringer when I hit the ground or I’m gonna whup ‘em all.

My first year has been a lesson in stoical responsibility.  My dad used to say of me that I had a “justice problem” because I’d get myself in trouble whenever I perceived some unfair treatment of me (and of other people too, but to a lesser extent.  It can’t be unusual that many of the most selfish people are also the most concerned about “fair” treatment).  Throughout high school and college I was—well, to be honest—monumentally irresponsible, and always ready to solipsize away any criticism of it.

The Teacher Corps certainly hasn’t entirely cured me: far too often I leave assignments ungraded; I fall asleep at 5pm after a tough day; I eat at Sonic, unhealthily and expensively; I exercise about never; hardly ever do I return phone messages and emails; and I don’t push my students as hard or as far as they should be pushed.

Nevertheless, while my first year may have been a failure on many fronts (can you only have a Maginot Line if you also have some well-guarded borders?  Or can your defenses be a series of Maginot Lines?), I am proud to have finally given up on the idea of faulting the whole world for my problems.

Certainly our students could be better parented, they could be more interested in school, the administration could be more supportive, the bell schedule could be regular, the secretaries could speak proper English, etc. etc. etc.

Ultimately, I am responsible for how my class is conducted.  If the class is derailed, I did not take appropriate preventative action.  If I’m going to teach my kids anything, I’m going to have to fight them and outsmart them and win them over WHILE holding them to a high standard.  I’m going to have to whup ‘em all, one way or another.

What I’ve mentioned isn’t what I’ve accomplished, but thinking any other way—or blaming anyone else—is more destructive.  I overheard another teacher defend his disciplinary stance towards his kids (they were overrunning him) by saying, “When they get bad, I say to myself ‘The meek shall inherit the earth,’ and then I just don’t bother with them.’”  I didn’t say anything at the time (I also developed a shrewd politicism this year), but I cannot imagine a more malignant, a more cankerous attitude than this.  Is this the role of a teacher, to feel uniquely persecuted and to withdraw in a monastic non-resistance?  You certainly have to ENDURE, almost endlessly, as a teacher, but your justification comes not in a pious acceptance of an unbridled fate, but comes instead through wrestling oppositely-running horses into harnesses and cracking the whip.

Or it comes from whuppin’ all them dogs and walkin’ off.

Editorial Note:  I realize the danger that comes with comparing students to dogs.  I love my kids to death and was merely working out a metaphor.  And maybe 15 of them will take Latin with me next year, which is something ANY dog is incapable of.