Pastiche

Salinger Pastiche/Job Application

by Ayshea Wild

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing I’ll have to tell you about is old Dawn Yardley at Potter Street Infant School. I made her this little red flipbook to keep her spelling words in. And I used to copy them out for her when she was having trouble with making the sounds in her head. Old Dawn. She was sad when I moved away from Potter Street. I’ve still got one of her letters, too. She called me Ayshea Hug Hes because she couldn’t pronounce Hughes. That’s probably my earliest memory of wanting to become a teacher. 

Then, in Forres Junior School, old Mr. Martin made us draw ourselves all grown up, and I made a picture of a woman with braids made out of yarn called Lindsay Jones and she was an English teacher. And that must have given my mother kittens because she was having an affair with an American called Jones and no-one was supposed to know about it. Then later I just wanted to be a poet and not teach anyone anything. But marriage put a stop to that, the way it does. Babies though, they’re something else. When I had babies I fell in love with the learning process all over again, especially language acquisition an’ all. And my interest kind of grew from there. It started with volunteering at Whole Child Montessori Center, then working part-time at the Waldorf School while my babies grew up. And then one day I got bored and thought it would be good to stop being a phoney substitute teacher and get my own class. 

So I enrolled at Clarkson and told about old Mrs. Sutcliffe, from Presdales Senior School for Girls, with her impartiality, and her wiggly bun on top of her head, and her passion for Hardy. And anyway my supervisor, Penny Brand, she used to work at Siskiyou CSD and she says it’s the place to be. Hands down. National Board Certified Teachers everywhere. NYSEC award-winners. Professional development for teachers. Authentic learning for students, too. So I figured I’d apply. ‘Cause you know with students, you’ve got to meet them where they’re at. And not ask them to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself. Like this pastiche for instance. ‘Cause it really gives me a pain when students don’t reach their full potential. And you never really know what else they’ve got going on. So you have to just get to know them, and give them opportunities to let them find out for themselves what they can do. And Siskiyou CSD, I keep hearing, that’s the place for it. 

©Ayshea Wild 2019