as though programmed to the same seat each day.
I hesitated inside the doorway for a minute. Maybe I should take another seat. Maybe I couldn’t resist looking at his paper, with the problems worked so simply, so elegantly, so clearly once I saw him do it Ian, I thought, whatever I have learned in this class, I’ve learned from you.
I sat down in my regular seat next to him. He opened his eyes to half-mast and winked at me.
“Listen,” I said, the wink catapulting nervousness into annoyance. “Keep your answers to yourself. I can do this on my own.”
The eyelids lowered. “Sure, lady.”
Thirty minutes later, Ian had handed in his paper and was gone. Forty-five minutes later, everybody was gone but me. On the hour, Dr. Kaiser announced, “Time’s up. Pass the papers to the front, please.” There was no one there to pass to. I carried my paper to her desk.
A week later, Dr. Kaiser stood in front of us. “I will announce both your exam grade and your final grade. Anyone who wishes to see his paper may request it after class. Barker, Frank – exam eighty-six, final grade eighty-two. Cavaluso, Florence – exam sixty-five, final grade seventy-eight.”
I studied my notebook, wondering how far Dr. Kaiser would go. Would she read the failures?
“Mann, Anita – exam forty-eight, final grade fifty-two.”
She would. She was – and she was already to the M’s. Could my stomach really churn like this over a math grade?
“Michaels, Ian – exam ninety-eight. Congratulations, Mr. Michaels. Final grade ninety-six.”
What was the matter? Where was MacCracken? MacCracken came before both Mann and Michaels.
“MacCracken, Mary. I always leave the Mc’s and Mac’s till the end of the M’s.”
She pinned me with her eyes. The others turned to look. Ian Michaels’s eyes were closed. My stomach rumbled beneath my jeans. Say it. Would you just say it and get it over with?
“MacCracken, Mary – exam eighty-eight, final grade, eighty.”
I passed! I not only passed, but a B! Exultation flooded through me. How could I care so much about a math grade? I felt foolish, but anyway, I wouldn’t have to take this course again. I did it! We did it!
Ian Michaels’s boot nudged my sneakers. Eyes half-opened, he gave me his accolade before lowering his lids once more. “Way to go, MacCracken.”
The second half of my junior year was still filled with required courses, but the ordeal of scheduling and registration was a little easier the second time around. I was getting to know most of the professors in the special ed department by name and/or reputation and that helped.
“Have you had Bernstein yet? Well, don’t if you can help it. He’s a pig.”
“Jones? A good lady. Marks hard, but knows her stuff.”
“Telker? Terrific if you need an easy B. Never gives anything lower.”
I wondered if the teachers knew their reputations were graven into oral history and available to anyone who listened.
Still, registration was always tedious, sometimes traumatic. We were classified like so many potatoes. With us, the identifying characteristic was the first initial of our last names. On the first day of registration names beginning with A through F were admitted; on the second day, G through L; on the third, M through R; and on the fourth, S through Z. The following semester the order would be reversed. Patiently we lined the walks and stairs and halls of the student union, where various rooms and floors had been partitioned into cubicles representing different courses. The faculty took turns at the adviser’s desk.
To actually get in the front door, an hour process in itself, took two things, your student identification card and your social security number. Nobody cared what your name was, only what letter it began with, to make sure you were with the right potatoes. After that you were known by your social security number. I wondered, as I stood waiting in boredom, if I could find my numerical relatives by adding up my digits and matching the total results. If I was a 46, who were the other members of my clan? Were there 42’s and 48’s around me? I contemplated the girl ahead of me, her hair combed into a high Afro; maybe she was a generic 40.
Behind me a red-haired woman in her twenties shifted from foot to foot. “What’s taking so long? Christ! If Statistics is filled by the time I get there, I’ll kill myself. I only need six more credits, but that one’s required. I’ll have to come back to this hole again next semester if I can’t get that course.” I understood. I had some required courses myself. If I didn’t get them I could quit, I told myself. I could stop taking these inane courses … but what about teaching? What about the children?
Inside, we raced frantically from booth to booth, checking our catalogs against our schedules.
Working with schedule sheets and catalog in hand, I was trying to keep to my plan of double certification (in both elementary and special ed), which meant I had a lot of courses to fit in. Trouble came when the course planned for 10:40 or 11:40 turned out to be filled; then there was a scramble for the catalog. What else have they got at that hour that’s required? Teaching math. Great. Nope – turned out it wasn’t allowed.
“You don’t have the prerequisite. You have to complete Background of Math Two first. Sorry, it’s the rule,” said the graduate student manning the booth.
The rules! I was beginning to understand the frustrations of some of my natural-born children and their friends. It had been different in a small private college like Wellesley, where students were honestly seen as individuals, or at least they had been twenty years ago. But in a state college like the one I was attending, there were no exceptions. As long as it came out right on the computer, it was okay. (Computers don’t make exceptions.)
Well, Statistics and Orientation to Psychological Testing didn’t have a prerequisite – and what’s more, it was required and met only once a week, on Thursdays from 4:00 to 6:30. I signed up. Finally, my spring schedule was complete: Counseling and Guidance for the Handicapped; Current Methods of Teaching Mentally Challenged Adolescents; History of Education in the United States; Background of Mathematics II; Statistics and Orientation to Psychological Testing; and a Practicum in Teaching Reading to the Mentally Chalenged. All required courses.
Schedule and course sheet in hand, I headed for Professor Foster’s office. I had discovered at registration that he had been assigned as my adviser and his signature was required on my completed course schedule. A stroke of luck to get him, I was told. He was considered one of the best.
Foster’s office door stood open and he sat with his feet on the desk, chair tipped back against the wall.
“Professor Foster?” I asked from the hall. “I’m Mary MacCracken. Could I see you for a minute about signing my course schedule?”
“Mary MacCracken? Where the hell do you keep yourself? I’ve been trying to locate you for weeks. Ever since I discovered you’d been a teacher at Doris Fleming’s school and have over six years’ experience with emotionally disturbed kids. Is that right?”
I nodded.
“Well, come in. Sit down.” He lifted a pile of journals from a chair beside the desk. “Do you
