LY #82 Fired!

Ha ha.  Not now.

Kakie Hanson 1970

Then.  I was fired from my first job as  teacher.

It was 1970 and I was a senior at Los Gatos High School where I was the editor of El Gato, the school newspaper.  There, with the very mild direction of the late Ambrose Haggard, I directed my motley crew in the biweekly construction of a newspaper.

For some reason I also got a job that fall teaching 4th Grade CCD (Roman Catholic Catechism) at St. Mary's School.  The class met for about an hour every Monday around 4:00 pm.    I don't remember how I got the job or why I thought I wanted to do it.  Nor do I remember all that much about my experiences in the classroom or what passed for my "pedagogy."  I probably was  bossy. (My hero teachers at the time were men and women who said things like, "Who told you this classroom was a democracy?")  What I do remember is that I procrastinated terribly in preparing my lessons, usually reading the chapter in the little book an hour before class started.  I also remember one little girl who spent the class reading books that sat on her lap below the desk.  I was pulled between wanting to engage her attention especially and wanting to leave her alone (I saw myself as a 4th grader in her behaviors.)

So, how did I get fired?

Well, I got a call one weekend at this time of year.  I was told that my services would no longer be required.  I wasn't told why.  I felt terrible.  I cried and begged and said that I'd been doing my best and what had happened?

At last I found out that someone, perhaps a parent of one of the children in the class, had not liked what I'd written for my holiday "Edi-Taurial" for the El Gato.  My schtick was to write a lead up into a punchline I'd stolen -- something I'd heard somewhere else.  So, for example, I'd ended my first "Edi-taurial" with the stolen punchline, "We must grab the bull by the horns and face the situation."  Stolen from where?  I forget.  It's been 43 years!

El Gato Edi-taurial, Kakie Hanson, 12/18/70

Anyway, the punchline I stole for the December 18, 1970 El Gato, was "Keep the Satyr in Saturnalia."  I talked about myself as a pagan.  So, clearly, I could not be the same person as the high school student teaching 4th grade CCD.  One was committed Roman Catholic, one was a self-confessed "pagan."   Could they share the same room at the same time?

Well, they couldn't share the same job.  Not in 1970.  What's interesting to me now is that I was so stunned that the behavior in one life, my life at school, and my behavior in another life, my life in church, had any influence on each other.  I've learned, through very helpful therapy, that this ability to believe that the separate areas of my life, like home and church, church and work, work and home -- are truly separate from each other -- is really a sign of an un-individuated self.

So.  That's the story about my first time teaching and my first time getting fired.  Not an auspicious start to a long career that will soon be ending.