I'm Gonna Teach

As I let myself into the apartment I shared with my mother, all I could think of was the "cold one" waiting for me in the fridge. Opening the apartment door, there stood my mother with a smile and at the same time a look that bespoke her disappointment. After all, I had graduated college just three months earlier, and truck driving was not what she had envisioned as a career for her son. To make matters worse, when speaking to family relatives who were all too eager to inform her that their college grads were either involved in or pursuing careers in such esteemed fields as medicine, law or business, in answer to their queries about me she would say that I was examining various possibilities.

Not having a family business to join or an aptitude for figures or an inclination to practice law or medicine, I began to look at the various civil service fields. I continued truck driving while informing my boss Mr. Hersh of my plans. He gave me his blessing and asked only that I give him a week’s notice prior to my leaving. Mr. Hersh, who had hired me as a part-time driver during my college days, had been a lifelong friend to my mother. He knew how desperately she wanted me to become a "white shirt and tie" professional.

Gaining entrée into a civil service field was dependent upon test taking, pass ranking, and appointment lists. Of course, where there were high demand, lists would continuously be promulgated and tests given on a more frequent rate. The city would pay for this folly during the 1975 budget crunch and near bankrupt condition brought about by the negotiations of the inexperienced Lindsay Administration with the various civil service labor unions. Contracts given out to the uniform service providers, and the teacher’s unions in 1968/69 would contain benefits and salary increases that previously and afterward would take the expiration and renegotiation of at least two contracts to achieve.

One agency, which seemed to constantly announce exams, was the Department of Social Services. I took their exam in September 1965. True to present day form, when people contact this agency I never heard from them again. Of course I did re-contact them after a month, so as to ascertain my pass/fail status. I was informed that there was no record of my having taken the exam. The clerk went on to tell me that I was welcome to file an application and pay a fee for the next test offering in two weeks. I informed him that I was looking at my cancelled check used for the fee charges for the test I had taken. Later that day I told my mother of the test-taking fiasco conversation I had had with social services. Nonplussed, she asked me if I’d given thought to teaching as a career pursuit. I asked her how she could think that I could be a teacher. Had she forgotten the math and science tutors? Had she forgotten the four year 75% overall academic average? Had she forgotten the college "C" cumulative average? Her response was that she believed that more important than all that I had mentioned was the fact that I had a big heart. Of course, she went on to explain how noble and proud the teaching profession was. After all, she reasoned, some of our greatest thinkers, men like Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, all the prophets, Ghandi, Confucious, and of late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were all teachers, and now you! You should know my mother said, teachers have excellent health coverage and dental plans, two month summer vacations, not to mention a fine pension to look forward to in their retirement years. As she spoke, I conjured up an image, featuring myself in the front of a classroom and speaking to a group of youngsters who were literally hanging on my every word. What a power trip. It was quite a rush! Right then I decided to go for it. The very next day I trekked down to the NYC Board of Education and filed to take the Substitute Teacher’s Exam. As luck would have it I would be able to take the test the next day. I was "pumped." To my further astonishment, I received a telegram within two weeks advising me that I had passed the exam and was to report to the Medical Division for a physical, as soon as possible upon receipt of the Pass Notification I was holding. This series of rapid responses from the Board of Education would be the first and last time over the next thirty-two years that I would ever be so favorably impressed with any aspect of their modus operandi. The next day I went to see Mr. Hersh. As soon as I did, I exclaimed excitedly, "Mr. Hersh, I’m gonna teach!" He put both his hands around me, gave me the "Russian" bear hug, and with a tear in his eye and slight hesitation in his voice, told me that he would miss me.