For High School Teachers Only, a Story (Side A)
By: Klaus P. Michelsen
No more putting students’ mental health and well-being first at the expense of mine.
For the first time in my two-decade teaching career, I plucked up the courage to call in sick. No part of my teacher training had ever taught me that it was me, not the dysfunctional school system quietly walking all over me, who had to set the boundaries. Non-negotiable boundaries. After calling in sick, I rode my second-hand black bike to the nearest GP practice. It was just around the corner from the small apartment that Jacqueline and I rented in Findorff, a family-friendly district in Bremen, Germany. I booked an appointment to see my family doctor later the same day. She immediately granted me two weeks of paid sick leave.
Best part of downtime: I don’t have to wear my school hero hat or self-sacrifice for two weeks, I thought on my way out of her office. I knew exactly what I wanted to get done during my recovery time: sit down and write a poem, get back to doing sports, and kick the habit of sleeping for fewer than five hours at a stretch. Maybe these were not lofty goals to most people. But then again, most people were completely unaware of the brutal, hidden reality of high school teaching. In my case, years of working in a broken school system had finally taken a heavy toll on my mental health. Chronic stress. Anxiety. Neurological fatigue.
In the weeks before I finally hit a brick wall, riding my second-hand black bike home every day from my high-school teaching job, I felt so empty inside that I didn’t recognize myself anymore. Emotionally numb, I barely registered that I was pedalling along a winding park trail flanked by rows of tall, lush green trees interspersed with bracken. Instead, I felt as though I were passing through a dimly lit, freezing-cold dungeon. Was I one of the prisoners or one of the keepers? I didn’t know up from down.
The nausea stayed with me all the way home.
I remember one day in particular. Jacqueline and Alma, our teenage daughter, weren’t home yet.
I got off my bike, removed my heavy backpack from the rear rack, and flung it over my stiff shoulders. Holding the bike against my right hip, I struggled up the five concrete steps from the sidewalk to the concrete front porch. The almost supernatural effort it took made me think of “The Blizzard” scene from Kurosawa’s Dreams. Once I reached the porch, I plunked down my ‘wheels’ near the yellow, brown, and blue recycling bins used in Germany. I fished around in my pockets for my keys. After locking the bike, I forgot to remove the key. I then fumbled with the lock of the building’s Eingangstür—German for the main entrance. I pushed the heavy door open with my left shoulder. It didn’t close properly behind me.
I gripped the white wooden handrail with my left hand and climbed the steep, narrow wooden staircase to the second floor, already running on empty. With difficulty, I inserted the key into the apartment door lock and turned it. Almost there, I thought. Just one last flight of stairs to go. I felt for the light switch at the bottom of the stairs and groped my way upstairs.
At the upstairs landing, Alma’s slippers tripped me up. I got back up and dragged myself to the kitchen to get a glass of tap water. Damn, Jacqueline forgot to put the motor base of our Braun blender away, I thought. I grabbed the thing, opened the fridge, and, God knows why, made space for it on one of the shelves. I then shuffled to the bathroom. I didn’t recognize the sleepy-looking man in the medicine cabinet mirror. He wasn’t really me. His skin was pale. He looked like someone who had survived twelve different levels of hell on earth. I suddenly remembered the boundless energy and natural curiosity I had felt when I started out as a high school teacher in one of the most —if not the most—unequal and disadvantaged regions in the world.
I somehow managed to stagger to my bedroom doorframe, the main entrance to my private listening bar. Heck, Berlin was home to Unkompress. Tokyo offered Prez Jazz Bar. Nothing was stopping me from putting my own spin on it. Shuffling forward, I pressed my right hand against the matte-white wall to steady myself. My blue backpack fell unheeded onto the wooden floor. Using the last ounce of my energy, I dived headfirst onto our rumpled bed. I was still fully clothed, with my black Dr. Martens and bike helmet still on. Half alive, slowly dying, I took off my helmet and dropped it on the floor. I placed my smartphone and glasses on the bedside table and propped my tense back against the pillow. “Ahhh,” I sighed. Well, I’d survived another day in the hellhole, I thought. And in one piece.
I stared absently at the bare, matte-white bedroom wall opposite the wooden bed frame. It reminded me of the projection screen in Cinema Paradiso, one of my favorite Italian movies. The air was a melancholy blue, my longtime favorite color. To my left, two large tilt-and-turn patio doors separated me from the balcony. One remained tilted open. I groped for my glasses on the bedside table and put them on. Then I slowly turned my head to the left, toward the balcony. I peered out through the patio doors.
“Oh, hi there, little fella,” I murmured to a cute sparrow perched on the iron railing outside. I gave him a little wave from the bed. He seemed to have come back for more.
“Guess someone came back for more of that yummy lobster, huh?” I mumbled to myself. During our last listening bar party, I had played him one of my own YouTube playlists. I had titled it Refined Sugar & Prozac, and it included a song by the B-52s called Rock Lobster.
Instead of escaping into one of the books stacked on my bedside table, I had gotten into the habit of losing myself in music right after Feierabend—German for the end of the working day and the leisure time that follows. Before teaching had become my bread and butter, music had been my lifeblood. What had happened to me? Now my stress-addled mind was talking nonsense to a bird. I must be going nuts, I thought. And I wasn’t even wearing a straitjacket. At least not yet.
“Sorry, buddy. We’ve run out of lobster,” I mumbled to my tiny VIP guest waiting outside, completely out of character. “You’re gonna love what’s on the menu today, though: only instrumental music.”
No empty beer bottles or beer caps next to the stack of books on my bedside table—the habit of keeping books close at hand, inherited from my mom.
No smell of cigarette butts.
No staring at a peeling or crumbling wall.
I turned on a high-quality wireless loudspeaker that fit in the palm of my hand. Already paired with my phone, it was ready to go. With shuffle mode on, I opened YouTube and clicked on another of my playlists, Useless Turntable Blue. Unlike Refined Sugar & Prozac, this one was entirely instrumental. I hit Play, cranked up the volume, and let the music rip. Imaginary music notes started to trickle down the bare, matte-white bedroom walls. I felt the nausea drain away. Soaking up the music brought me back to life. My little feathered companion seemed to enjoy the music, too. Well, that made two of us. Perhaps I wasn’t turning into a life-sized, McDonaldized droid after all.
***
I must be dreaming. It’s Monday, and I’m not at work, I thought. My two weeks of sick leave began that very day. Later that day, as I was putting on my indoor soccer shoes, getting ready to play the first half of our match, I bumped into William. He was a public school teacher and friend. He taught English and physical education—two seemingly unrelated subjects, something that was not unusual in German public schools. Will was also one of the main editors of a bilingual magazine published in multicultural Berlin. I thought it’d be cool to offer him the poem I was working on for publication.
“Hey, Will. I’m working on a piece for your mag,” I said.
“Sure. What’s it about?”
“Al.”
“Al? What do you mean?”
“Well, can’t really tell you much about it now. Still working on it, you see.”
“Just send it my way when it’s done,” he said as we were about to start playing.
That’s what I did—except I emailed him the wrong attachment! I had accidentally forwarded him a poem I had meant to send to my trash folder.
INTERMISSION
…to be continued next month in Chapter II (Side B).
Klaus P. Michelsen has worked on four continents and completed his graduate studies in education in the UK. His professional interests centre on the use of creativity and imagination in L2 learning, with a focus on fostering learner engagement through a range of formats and delivery modes, including music, drama, pencil-and-paper activities, and digital platforms. He is currently based in Bremen, Germany.