When last we left my rocky career path, I was working at WKRW, the radio station owned by the couple that helped found the community theatre I participated in, The Pumphouse Players.
As detailed in last week's blog, WKRW in Cartersville, this was an interesting position but not one that was financially lucrative for myself or the owners. In addition, there were some harrowing experiences within my marriage, above and beyond money considerations, that made it difficult for me to stay.
One of those was a miscarriage. Anyone who thinks that is not a significant life event - well, you're wrong. It was devasting to Retta and me. It led to anguish and depression.
I needed to get out and have something more solid we could rely on.
Retta was a special education teacher with the Bartow County Schools. She had a great rapport with her staff and administrators.
When an opening came up for a teacher in their Gifted program, I used those connections to help me get the job. This was sometime in the early Fall of 1980. I was replacing somebody who left unexpectedly.
I was excited. I never thought I would get a chance to teach again, And having networked connections saved me the embarrassment of cold interviews.
The position was for an itinerant teacher, traveling between several schools and teaching different groups of gifted students, ranging from Kindergarten to Eighth Grade.
Like the first time I taught, I started out like gangbusters. They let me organize a Presidential debate and mock Electoral College convention. It crossed the whole system, and every gifted student participated. The director of the Gifted Program and Special Education Director were very impressed.
After that, I was significantly less impressive to them. I tried, but there was no actual assigned curriculum, and I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. So I did the best I could.
The students seemed to like me. We did a good number of games that involved thinking and strategic skills.
In the Spring, the Special Educator Director said I wouldn't be back the next year because I didn't have the proper courses to remain certified. I don't know how they didn't know this as soon as they hired me, but c'est la vie. I told him I could get the coursework over the summer if he would give me a chance. He reluctantly agreed.
I can't remember where I got the coursework. It was not a school close by. It might have been West Georgia. I'm just not sure. It took a lot of travel, that's all I remember.
I did several things to try to make it work. I donated many children's books to their libraries, using them as books that the Gifted kids could read and take out. I'm not sure that would go over today, what with all the careful censorship and control taking place. Kids might accidentally learn slavery is terrible or something.
I created a fantasy game for the middle school students, dungeon and dragon style games for them to explore mazes and mythology and utilize their thinking and creative skills. This was interesting because I had never played Dungeons and Dragons before. It was my spin on what I thought it was like.
We created TV schedules with program descriptions, and then other classes would pick which ones they wanted to watch. Then they would refine their schedule to improve their ratings for the next time.
I did not just have them play games willy-nilly. There were points and standings, depending on how well the kids did. And that is where I got in trouble.
A parent complained, and the Gifted Program Director reamed me for it. I learned my lesson. No more competitions.
The Gifted Program Director took more rigid control over what the students did. For example, she thought it was a great idea to have kids contribute a square to a quilt, one depicting Bartow County history. Not every kid thought this was the best idea on Earth, and I certainly had no skill. Nevertheless, I learned cross-stitch and depicted part of a county power plant.
The final straw for the Directors involved a student coming over from a different school system. He was in a gifted program at his prior school, and they put him in one of my classes. He was a behavior problem, but I gradually learned to work with him.
They decided they wanted to test him. However, they assured the parent this was for internal purposes only, and they would keep him in the program regardless of the results.
They lied. He fell short in their testing, and they decided to boot him from the program. To add to the anguish, he was black. The only black student in the county's Gifted Program.
When the parent challenged it, they wanted me to lie and say that we did not assure the parent that the child would stay in the program. I refused to lie about it.
Early in the Spring, the Special Education Director decided I would not be back for the next school year. This time, there was no talking my way out of it.
It is a point of pride that I stuck with the job for the next couple of months and did the best that I could. I hate rejection. I can't stand it when I know people don't like me. Staying there was one of the hardest things I've ever done. But I saw it through.
I had tried to be a teacher twice, and I had struck out twice. I was not going to get a third swing of the bat. It was over.
I was lost. I was depressed. I had some serious thinking to do.
I did not want to disrupt the flow of the story, but I think it important to note that we did try again after the miscarriage, and proud to have our son, Gregory Rountree Strait, born October 23, 1981.
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