The Uzomah show or classroom
Umm, I was in the band in the sixth grade, and I don’t know whether it was me watching the Tracy Ullman show to get to the Simpsons, and it all made sense to me. I mean this world stuff at that tender age of innocence I still strive to maintain for sanity or the intro to the Simpsons when they got their own show. I mirrored the opening with Lisa in band class on purpose, or it was a natural progression foreshadowing what would come in all aspects of my life. Each day in class I would improv like I heard by the jazz greats. My teacher would stop the whole class and stop me. I have no idea to this day what I did wrong; I was finding my groove, echoing my notes, playing my song, and composing my keys in life well of my life. I was really making a jazz cocktail from my mom’s influence with jazz on me. Heck, I played the same instrument as she did when she was my age, every beat to that of my drum or clarinet was of her doing, and there was no undoing that devotion. I stand by it to this day.
Here is how the cocktail goes to this day a little bit of Alice Coltrane, some Sonny Rollins, of course Miles, some JJ Johnson, and Wes Montgomery when I am on the guitar. You know, I wanted to take it all down like a nice cold drink of water and blow out my voice in a way that I am heard by my soul and says ok, you got this life. You got it, kid. This is your song, too(phish reference). My teacher was not having, and I was not having a say in how my musical rebellion should be played out. I did not have dreams or goals with this instrument, the clarinet. I had a destiny and still find it when I hear Pharaoh Sanders or Sidney Bechet. Anyway, I quit. My soul is not to this day for sale or to be comprised. I couldn’t at that moment lose my way, I had to seize it. Sound, I found another way to find a platform for my song to roam, grow, and expand.
The light beckoned me to return to some type of entertainment, some type of music where self-expression could gel with others and be united in harmony. I said I was going to be a producer like Mel Brooks ( great book, by the way, and film), so I joined the chorus, and it is still up for debate if I can actually sing. I was going to plan, write, direct, star , and produce my show the way I felt, the way I heard it, and no one was going to disturb my groove. This was going to be the Uzomah Show, and a Ugwu production. This is where the Bart Simpson in me comes in. I didn’t know what the teacher was talking about; he always had sweaty pits, and his name rhymed with that. Yeah, I mentioned that like a girl Bart Simpson, I gave him a nickname. We had strife. I made jokes, I had funny jazz hands. We had conflict with heights that made mountains look small in comparison. The class laughed. I took bows, and the curtain was called, but it played out that my show was never over. At the end of the year, he told me he was quitting teaching. I asked why, and he told me I knew why. He said he had enough of me and having me as a student. I was like, fair. I told him at least he was the only teacher that told the truth. So I decided to give him a stroke and say I was going to join the cross country team, and he said he would quit that too if I joined.
My dear neighbor was a teacher, and she never understood why the teachers prayed each year in the teachers’ room that I would not be in their class. She saw the good in everybody, so much so that she couldn’t find the bad, even if it were staring at her. She only brought out the good in people, like she did in me. Maybe she didn’t get she let me be and those teachers did not let me be, or maybe she did because I would go visit her and her husband after they moved. Where her family welcomed me like I was not welcomed in the classroom; she was like my mom in every sense of the word.
All jokes aside, when they showed Bart taking ADHD medication, I felt for the first time without my mom like I was quote quote normal in representation. It was more than a cartoon and still is.
For all the teachers out there who give up on kids who learn differently, no matter how much that challenges you and the order in your classroom when they are simply trying to hear their voice at the same time. Shame on you. Happy teacher’s week. And to the teachers who give a blank, I see you and implore you to never give up on the little me that is in your classroom. I promise it will pay off. Most of us grow up and change the world for the better with our unique lenses looking in and on life.
Fun fact for those who do not get those who learn differently. We are not acting out; we are merely trying to find and secure our place in this world and make it a better place. Our voice is valid and needed, dear teachers, help us find it, not hide it and mute it. Not in the classroom, don’t let society come into a beautiful place where ideas can be free to wander and these little desks where we sit behind in hopes our minds can be expanded and our imagination land at a safe place which the classroom is supposed to be and a place to protect that space in our mind no different than at our home. Dear teachers, I thank you.
I told a professor that I never had in the classroom, but he used the world as the classroom with what he taught me and continues to teach me even after his passing, and that is why I called him my professor of life. I told him that the best thing a pupil can do to honor his or her teacher is to become a teacher themselves. It appeared as if his soul smiled, and that light guides me to this day. All the great teachers I have had I am guided by their light.
I had two teachers in my family, and I hope their classroom was the one I described, for they have taught me lessons that I carry with me. Just remember again, teachers, a child’s mind is the richest and most enduring time of a human being’s life. You hold the key to molding little people who grow up to either change or destroy the world. One great lesson plan can rewrite history in one little vital mind destined to not just read history but make it. End rant or whatever this is. Teachers, I love you, just know that.
