A Yeshiva in Queens
After a year or two of substitute teaching, I finally got my first “real” job in the education field, at an Orthodox Boys’ Yeshiva in Queens. I was desperate for work, and I guess they were desperate too, since they hired me in August, just a few weeks before the school year was to begin. My assignment was to teach the entire 2nd grade curriculum to 18 little boys, between 12:15 and 4:00, after their morning was spent on religious instruction. I was given no guidance, no mentor, and the other 2nd grade teacher was out sick for the first part of the year, so I was completely on my own. It was, “Here’s the room, the books, the kids. Now-Teach!”
I shared the room and the desk with a 300 lb. Rabbi who spent the mornings rewarding the boys with candy for their correct answers. The desk drawers were sticky from Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers, the boys wound up from a sugar high that had them crashing right about the time I was trying to teach. There were also additional Hebrew lessons a couple of times a week that further reduced my instructional time, and everyone left early on Fridays.
One of the things I didn’t know about 2nd grade was how much of 1st grade children forget over the summer; I had to teach some of them to read all over again. This was something I felt unqualified to do, except in the most theoretical way. I’d done all my student teaching in the sixth grade and had thought I had been clever to get out of doing the required Primary placement, but that experience might have helped. As it was, I just tried not to ruin anybody’s life. I’d been deeply traumatized by a bad 2nd grade teacher, so I was very sensitive to their self-esteem issues and gave them plenty of praise, and discovered that I hated doing assessment. Poor little Eliezer did poorly in science because I did it at the end of the day, and for a seven year old, it was a very long day, and he would fall asleep. How could I give him a bad grade when it wasn’t his fault? This sort of question kept me awake at night.
The only reason that I was allowed to teach at a boys’ Yeshiva was that there weren’t enough male teachers, and it was kosher because the boys hadn’t had their Bar Mitzvahs yet. There was so much I didn’t know about Judaism; I was lucky to have an observant friend who tried to keep me informed about the various rules, observances and holidays. We tried to keep me out of trouble, but it was hard for me to find and wear skirts that went down to the floor, and when I saw another teacher in ¾ sleeves, I figured that it was okay. It may have been for her, but probably wasn’t for me, because she was an established teacher and I was a floundering novice.
On the very last day of the school year, the principal called me into his office and told me that the person who had filled my position before me would be returning, and that I was being let go. I was nearly knocked over by my mixed feelings: Shock- Fired from my first teaching job! Relief- I don’t have to drive to Queens or dress like an Amish woman anymore! Resentment: with the lack of support I got, I felt that I had been set up for failure.
I never taught in an Elementary classroom again. Elementary Libraries, yes, but not the classroom.
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