have you met Miss Jones?

Listening to the song "You're So Vain" recently, thought of my eighth grade English teacher, Miss Jones. She mentioned that song once -- I didn't hear it until years later when I was in college and listened to an AOR radio station: they were playing it as an "oldie."
-------------------------
Miss Jones didn't have conversations with us, usually -- she kept on-track with all this grammar -- diagramming sentences, worksheets, etc. I seem to remember, she worked "You're So Vain" into a grammar exercise -- it was part of the sentence.
----------Miss Jones was young and pretty. She had long, blonde hair -- parted in the middle and hanging down straight, and she wore short skirts. Not "inappropriate," but -- above the knee, because that was the style. Sometimes she wore blazers.

Some of the other girls in the class would try to engage Miss Jones in conversation, as if they were contemporaries -- someone found out what her first name was, & they would sometimes call her that. And she would say, "No, you're in school now, and I'm your teacher -- you have to call me Miss Jones."
And the girls would ask her who her boyfriend was, and if he was cute, and where was he taking her out to, on Saturday night?

I would not have asked the teacher those questions, but when the other girls did, I listened carefully to see if there would be any information forthcoming about these glamorous Saturday Night Dates.
(There wasn't.)
--------------------------- Miss Jones didn't have discipline problems in that class, that I can recall: we students did our "work" and behaved. But there was one day when something happened which I didn't think of for many years and then a while ago after I began writing more, it came back to me, very clearly.

We were in the "English Room," it was the beginning of the class period, and kids were not "settling down" and "getting quiet" the way teachers always want you to. I think it was spring -- warm and green, and people had energy and exuberance.

There was a general humm - buzz - giggle of conversation and banter -- very typical for that age group, and Miss Jones was admonishing us, nicely and politely as always, to
settle down
quiet now, people
time to get going with your worksheets,
sit down now, & listen...

and these two boys in the class, Gary and Dan, were calling back and forth to each other -- their seats were about four rows apart and at opposite ends -- one toward front, the other toward back -- and so, to keep their communication going, they had to practically shout --
and that was part of the problem, why Miss Jones was becoming a little more toward the realm of ticked-off; she always had good control, she didn't "yell at" us,
but that day
it was both
that students weren't settling down for school-work,
AND an actual noise factor

...so she's working on that, and Gary and Dan's thing was -- basically informal insults -- like, for practice. You know how kids that age, some of them, want to act tough.
Well their competitive rhetoric had gone from tough-sounding to rude, and was cruising toward crude: Gary responded to something Dan said with a derisive comment that ended with the phrase "...my lips."

And Dan gamely shot back, "Lips on my zipper!"

Sound and time stopped.

Miss Jones whirled around, her hair flying -- oh man, was she mad.

Or -- maybe "mad" isn't the right --

she was incensed.

[Inside my mind: "Lips on -- what?

Why would--

Why would anyone's lips be --

Why would the --

What?"]

{Where does an eighth grade boy learn a phrase like that? From

an older brother with a tattoo?

From a magazine under a mattress?}

Everybody in the whole class, including Dan and Gary, got real quiet and sat still like we were frozen while she talked to us -- loudly and firmly and strongly.

I mean to tell you, she read us the riot act.

I cannot remember what she said, except for the phrase, "You never say a thing like that!"

Never!

Like -- not just that day, but ANY day.

Not just in her classroom -- but out there in the whole World.

As she spoke, it was like, she owned her power and expanded it!

Not just today, or this year in eighth grade, but -- forever! You will behave and be your best self.

(I think she spoke for about three minutes -- and outside, birds flying in the sky were paralyzed in place, just for those three minutes -- and ocean waves were suspended, their motion arrested and held fast, until Miss Jones finished speaking.)

E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g

stopped.

It was the Gettysburg Address of No Dirty Talk and You Will Behave.

It was the Sermon On The Mount of You Never Say A Thing Like That and You Are Gentlemen and Ladies.

(something like that)

A person could make the argument of, Why was she lecturing the whole class, only two guys were doing that -- and only one of them said the -- you know, the real offending phrase.

But I've got to say, What Miss Jones did -- worked.

She did not punish or humiliate individuals.

She didn't drag anyone to the principal's office.

There was no calling of parents. (She didn't need any other adult, or authority figure!)

There were no papers to write it down & tell them, "This is going on your record!" and then put in a folder.

Miss Jones did not want to attach those guys to that behavior;

she wanted to separate them from it.

------------------------

I mean to tell you,

that young woman with the

long straight hair

and the short straight skirts

laid down the law

and it stayed laid down.

------------

Rest of that school year: [in a whisper] -- (pretty much problem-free)!

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