In Honor of Banned Books Week
Don't Sing Gay
I love my 4th graders. They’re old enough to have fun with and young enough to try anything. They’re into The Beatles right now, and Imagine sounds so sweet with their young voices tinged with 27 different accents. We could be an advertisement for world peace. I’m not kidding, tears well up pretty frequently, listening to them.
I’m teaching at an international school with students from (at least) 27 countries. We’ve been doing a fun unit on folk music, with the kids bringing in songs from their home countries. So far, there have been songs in Spanish, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese, French and of course, English. We’ve come up with some cool rhythmic patterns to accompany Kookaburra, brought in by the twins from Brisbane. My 4th graders are doing polyrhythms! They don’t know this and I don’t tell them, but I’m proud. We also try out laughing like kookaburras and end up laughing (and laughing) at ourselves. If you want to hear a real kookaburra, go here:
The classroom door squeaks open, ever so slowly. A white-haired head peeks in. “In my office, immediately after school,” says Miss Daphne Peterson.* It sounds like imm-EEE-dee-ate-ly. She’s looking at me. I’m the one receiving the summons.
“Oooooooooooh!” says the class in unison. They know what it means to be called to the principal’s office. I have to wonder for the rest of the afternoon what it could be about.
I sit down across from her at a vast expanse of a desk. A very large, empty, stark desk. This desk could be in a magazine photograph, it’s not a busy principal’s desk. There is a calendar blotter, one pen, and a telephone, way over there. She peers at me over her reading glasses which are perched on her pointy nose. Miss Daphne Peterson – MISS, not Mrs. Or MIZ, not that for sure – is British. Flowery, button-up blouses. Glasses on a chain around her neck. Wool skirts. We are in the tropics, by the way.
“I’ll get right to the point. There is a song you are teaching which is quite inappropriate.” In-a-PRO-pree-ate. She almost but not quite looks me in the eye.
What? I mentally run through my elementary school song repertoire. I am baffled.
“You know what I am referring to.”
No, actually I don’t. I look from her lone pen to her pinched face.
She sighs. “That Australian one. You cannot allow our students to sing this song any longer. You will remove it from any teaching plans you may have.” She more than implies that I have no lesson plans. And she says this in a way that clearly demonstrates her feelings for the former penal colony.
I’m still baffled.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he!
Laugh, kookaburra, laugh kookaburra!
Oh.
Gay your life must be!
“You must not use that word. You will perhaps substitute Waltzing Matilda for that Kooka-something song moving forward.”
She has no idea what Waltzing Matilda is about, obviously. I will not ever be teaching that song to my 4th graders.
I’m incredulous, and then terrified. She’s looking at me in a way that suggests that I am actually inappropriate, and that she’s found out about me. Being - you know. And that she’d like to banish me to Australia with all the other British criminals.
I, of course, don’t argue. I am a twenty-something teacher afraid of losing my job. I agree to pull the song from our class repertoire. What am I going to tell the kids?
“You have to realize that there are inappropriate songs just as there are inappropriate words, books, plays, and music. We must protect our children from such inappropriateness. I’m sure you understand. Young teachers need to understand these things and be more judicious in their choices of teaching material.” She doesn’t say “that is all,” but I feel it. It is clear that I am dismissed, so I push away from her boat of a desk. She picks up the phone and I’m out the door.
Now, several decades later, I wish (hindsight and all) that I’d stood up to her. The now-me would have laughed (like a kookaburra, maybe). Or at the very least called her on her bigotry.
In searching the lyrics to be sure I remembered them right, I did. But this came up on one site:
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry, merry king of the bush is he!
Laugh, kookaburra, laugh, kookaburra!
Happy your life must be!
Let’s all sing gay, though!
*not her real name, of course
And of course, this could happen today, almost 50 years later. I am rolling my eyes and searching my house for chocolate. It's a good thing I don't drink.
This is a lovely, sweet piece, Kathy, and so vivid. I love how the little kids are in sympathy with you when you are called into the principal's office. They are wonderful and wise; she is ignorant and self-important. And you are still a brilliant teacher. Thank you too much for this post.