Catholic Schoolteacher

Fbailey story number 179


Catholic Schoolteacher


I had been a schoolteacher for quite awhile and had even retired after thirty years of service but when Father Tom asked me to join the staff at the Catholic High School I did. He asked me to do so as a personal favor to him. He was not in the habit of asking me personal favors so I knew that he needed my help desperately.

I soon realized why he was so desperate in the first place. The money was ridiculous, the classrooms were only half full, and they were short of teachers. There were not enough nuns, helpful parents, or even cleaning staff.

The week before school started I took in some cleaning supplies and swept the floor, emptied the trash, and washed the windows in my assigned classroom. I scrubbed the desks, washed the blackboard, and even brought in a box of chalk and two erasers. With the help of another teacher I found a ladder and changed the blown out light bulbs in my classroom too.

The school taught the basics such as reading, writing, and arithmetic but Father Tom wanted me to ‘inspire’ the students. Students had been transferring to the public school system to fill their other needs.

So I decided to diversify and teach poetry, art appreciation, and music appreciation. Of course none of the boys signed up for my class, however I had girls from freshmen to seniors in my class that very first day. I touched on everything that we would be doing that year in class. The girls were very impressed with me and my mannerism.

I on the other hand was equally impressed with them. In all of my years as a teacher I had never seen every girl in class in a skirt and blouse before. I must admit that I also never saw a girl in a skirt that long before in many years either, as mini skirts were the rule in public school not the exception.

As I looked around the classroom the girls were mostly attractive in a plain way since makeup was frowned upon too. The girls could not were jewelry except for a wristwatch and simple pierced earrings. Otherwise they were all dressed in white blouses with white bras underneath that show quite nicely in the sunlight. They wore those nice pleated skirts but in this case they were solid black in color. A tie in the school design, white ankle socks, and black patent leather shoes rounded out the school uniform. Ribbons and simple hair clips were allowed to help keep their hair out of their eyes.

So that first day I read a poem of love, played a concerto, and showed them a few slides of some famous artwork. The girls laughed at “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2,” that was painted by Duchamp in 1912. They agreed with the critic that called it “an explosion in a shingle factory.” They enjoyed Michelangelo’s “Nude Woman on her Knees” but when they saw Edouard Manet’s masterpiece “Olympia” that was first unveiled in Paris in 1865 that sparked a whole conversation about the reclining nude woman being attended by a maid and a black cat while gazing mysteriously at the viewer. The young students were actually excited about art. I couldn’t believe that I had inspired them on the very first day of school.

The very next day however my bubble was burst when I was called into Father Tom’s office. He had received several complaints from irate parents about me showing their daughters pornography. As a way of investigating the incident Father Tom accompanied me to my first class where he had me display the painting again and listened to the girls discuss it. He was quite aware of the prudishness of some parents but he said that since it was art it was not pornography and that he would deal with the parents. However he also asked the students to curtail their discussions at home with their parents if they didn’t want to be sent to public school.

Well after that things settled down but the girls had a yearning for more, more nude paintings that is.