Obedience

The time I spend washing my hair is a time when I do some of my best thinking. It's when I make plans or set goals or consider my opinion on various topics. It's also a time when I will randomly think back to things from my past and I end up wondering why they crossed my mind.

Today during my shampoo and deep conditioning I thought about being in the fourth grade. In my elementary school ninety-odd kids would be divided among three teachers who worked as a team and we'd have one of the three teachers for various subjects. I had the misfortune to have as my fourth grade team teachers three of the biggest bitches I've ever encountered.

It wasn't just that they were abrupt and curt and rarely friendly. It wasn't just that the one who taught me math told me that I was a complete failure at it and was hopeless to teach. It wasn't the fact that they did things like keep kids in from going out at recess if they deemed their jackets or sweaters to not living up to their idea of proper outerwear even when they were perfectly fine articles of clothing. The thing that has stuck in my craw for the past thirty-four years is how they treated us like their personal servants.

About a third of the way into the school year these three got the idea that they were highly allergic to dust, chalk dust in particular. Being around an excess of dust made them terribly sick and they petitioned the principal to have the janitor clean the three classrooms extra well and extra often. I'm sure once the prinicipal stopped laughing hysterically he tactfully explained to them that there was one janitor for the whole school and it was all he could do to sweep and mop the hallways and classrooms, clean the rest rooms and empty the trash.

Not to be deterred in their quest for a chalk dust free working environment they evidently put their heads together and thought "Hey! Who needs an old man to clean our classrooms when we have ninety healthy ten-year-olds to do it!".

So that's what we did. Once a week, sometimes twice, lessons were stopped, cans of Comet and stacks of paper towels were handed out and we cleaned the classroom for a couple of hours. Books were removed from shelves and they were thoroughly washed and rinsed and dried. Desks were emptied and washed inside and out. Blackboards and chalk troughs were scrubbed. Window frames were washed. Window blinds were washed. Little kids who should have been learning about long division and state capitals were on their hands and knees washing the floor with cleanser and paper towels.

And God forbid anyone refused to clean. You'd be told that you were bad and uncaring that the dust made the teachers sick. You were disobedient and you'd be cooling your heels indoors copying a page from the dictionary while the rest of the kids enjoyed recess. I remember the principal finding out about our cleaning chores but that fat bastard didn't stop it. I assume he figured that if none of our parents said anything it was okay. It shut up the three teachers and that's all he wanted.

That's what gets me. That's what I can't to this day figure out. I can't believe none of us - not one student - told our parents about this. None of us liked this - learning about the solar system was much better than getting on your hands and knees and stinking of Comet - but we didn't do anything about it. Somehow those three women got ninety kids so cowed that they'd scrub and not say a word about it at home.

I wonder even now what it was about me that made me not say anything to my mother about this. I knew even then that if I went home and told my mother that at least two hours of class time each week was devoted to all of us scrubbing down three classroom that she would have been down to the principal's office breathing fire. My mother would have seen those three teachers in hell before she'd let her child lose time learning so that she could wash down bookcases. I could have had the whole thing stopped in an instant and yet I didn't.

All I can figure is that I must have been so afraid of stepping out of line. Of not conforming. Of rocking the boat. I didn't want to be the one who had the crazy mother kicking ass over the situation so I kept quiet. I followed the rules. Color within the lines. Color within the lines. Color within the lines.

Sweet Jesus, I must have been crazy.

I think about this now and I'm still angry over it. I'm angry with those idiot teachers who made us lose valuable time for their own benefit. I'm angry that none of us rebelled. And I'm really angry that I chose conformity over what I knew was really right. I had the right to be taught all day every day by those teachers and I gave up that right so that I wouldn't stand out and be the potential subject of ridicule.

Many years later - I believe I was in college - I told my mother about those teachers making us clean the classrooms. I did it in a ha-ha-isn't-this-a-wacky-story sort of way. My mother didn't find it so wacky. Even though ten years had passed my mother was livid. She couldn't believe that those teachers made us clean their classrooms for them and she really couldn't believe that I hadn't told her when it was all going on. She kept saying "Why didn't you tell me? I'd have put a stop to that right away! Why didn't you tell me?" and all I could reply was "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.".

I still don't know. Maybe I never will.