Skip to main content

Indianola

     The only reason I went to Indianola was because it was the first job available after Pat and I tied the knot in June 2005. The only good thing about teaching there IMHO was getting paid twice a month. Transitioning from Arkansas to Mississippi was rough, as was transitioning from high school to middle school. Rev Wilson and Coach Taylor were alike in that they were very intimidating and angry all the time. Where they contrasted was in Rev Wilson believing in keeping students in class to achieve higher test scores, with Coach Taylor wanting to physically beat troublemakers into submission. I had to leave due to lack of support after being assaulted twice by students within three days. I am still kind of surprised that Rev Wilson didn't physically hit me the way he did students.
     The long commute each day, the pressure to get my marriage off on the right foot, and struggling to finish my MAEd at Union also led to the physical and emotional pressure I was feeling.

     NOTEWORTHY:  Some time after 2010, the district in Indianola would be consolidated into one school district covering all of Sunflower County

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hidden Lake

     I felt that I let emotion guide me to Hidden Lake. All that mattered was being much closer to Karyn than I had been for a year after she moved to Alabama. If only I knew about the special needs of those students (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and the stress they endured. Given that my engagement ended nine months after settling in what I thought was going to be my long term home, I wonder if I should have stayed in San Antonio a little longer and waited for a better overall opportunity. But maybe this was a part of the journey I had to take to where I am in the late summer/early fall of 2018.      NOTEWORTHY:  A year after breaking up with Karyn, I reconnected with her and was hoping that we would have another opportunity to share our lives with each other--especially as she was moving to North Carolina (and she was settling down about two hours east of where I was living). I later found out she got married; at the time I was bitter about it. L...

Strider 2.0

     About a week after Kelvin was named Headmaster at Strider, he was itching to get me there to teach. At first he said that I would be unable to live on campus, but I didn't know that in a few weeks Pat and I had to return to Grenada. As she resigned from Sitel, I also had to keep working at Sprint Mart once we moved. I thought this would work out, but how things ended up at Strider and the attitudes of Sprint Mart management in Grenada put a quick end to that.      The only apprehension I felt after talking to Kelvin was that there were still board members still present from the Bradshaw regime that would veto my return. However, that was not the case. It was also good to know that the Board in place was wanting a more intentional Christian emphasis this time around. But there were still traces of the long-time "Free State" mentality such as teachers and parents smoking within plain view of students. By Christmas I was more concerened that there were f...