Where The Crows Are

When I was in high school I had favorite teachers. There was the one who was also my track coach who cheered me on through the pentathlons and heptathlons I did, who constantly pushed me to improve but still enjoy the sport while I was doing it. There was the one who caught me crying in the bathroom after my boyfriend broke up with me then proceeded to make out with his new girlfriend in every hallway at all times. The teacher walked in, caught me and asked “Why are you crying over him? Just look at what a jerk he’s being to you. Why are you wasting another second on him?” That was an excellent question. As an adult that makes complete sense. As a heartbroken teenager that made zero sense, and she knew that.  It was also that moment I came to the realization that teachers were actually aware of what was going on with the students. Until that moment I just thought there was an invisible wall between the students and the teachers and they didn’t notice what was happening on the student side of the wall. This teacher knew what he was doing and witnessed my heartbreak over it, but also really wanted me to dry my eyes and move the hell on. 

Even after that exchange I didn’t really realize how much wisdom there was at the desks in the front of those classrooms at East Windsor High. So much wisdom that I didn’t tap at the time. I was absorbed in my own thing: maintaining my grades, having fun with my friends, dealing with boy drama, band, field hockey, basketball, track, student government, college applications, family and figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be. When I think about it now, I was doing a lot and dealing with a lot of different things. But I really missed out on the army of mentors I had available to me, the ones I dismissed because I was so focused on doing things my way. 

The one I really regret not getting to know better was Mr. Soutra. At age 51, I still cannot bring myself to address any of my teachers by their first names. It’s completely weird to do that, right?  Mr. Soutra was the super cool teacher that had a literal waiting list for his class. He was the one who busted me and my boyfriend making out in a back corner of a hallway at a dance once, which was super embarrassing. But seriously, imagine being that teacher who had a waiting list to get into his class. East Windsor was a very small school, there were only 71 kids in my graduating class. To even have enough kids to fill a class, let alone waitlist to get into the class, seems insane. But he was THAT teacher. 

I took his psychology and sociology classes my junior and senior years. Everyone raved about his Anthropology class, but I wasn’t interested enough in it to try to fit it into my schedule. Junior and senior year I was on a mission to check off all the boxes, graduate and get into college. Can’t be smelling the roses in Anthropology class, I had shit to do. But I really enjoyed the classes that I took with him, honestly I did enjoy psychology more than sociology.

I think I enjoyed psychology more because the mind is such a mystery, and his class was just a tiny little peek into that mystery. As an adult I did once buy a dream analysis book because dreams have always been such a fascination to me. A friend once saw the book on my shelf, I forget the title but it was something along the lines of “Zohan’s Dream Analyzer.” My friend laughed, “And who the hell is Zohan?” Good question. I threw the book away in a move at some point. But of course in Mr. Soutra’s class we talked about dreams.

He had a room full of teenagers who were asking “Why are my dreams so weird? Am I normal?” Because that was always the question we asked when we were teenagers. Are we normal?  He said something that I still think about to this day, that dreams are a socially acceptable way to go insane for a little while and that most of the time dreams make no sense because your brain has a lot of information in there to sort through. But then he went on to tell us about a recurring dream he had in college when he worked at a company loading boxes in the truck. In the dream he kept boxing himself in. So, maybe our dreams are also instructive? (If that is the case then can someone explain to me why I dream about sailing my boat through city streets and into buildings? Like, is the dream I am sailing through a marketplace just a reminder that I need to shop the next day and I should bring my coupons and my reusable bags?) 

I checked all the boxes and graduated. I went on to college. Sophomore year I took another Sociology class, and I admit I still wasn’t super into it. I also had a lot going on in college: maintaining grades, social life, boyfriend, my timeslot at the campus radio station, field hockey, track, figuring out who I was, who I wanted to be, and applying for my study abroad. So, I admit I kinda BSed my way through the class. Still, his psychology class is a standout in my high school memories. 

But Mr. Soutra, here’s something interesting about my college Sociology class. My senior year of high school that movie Dances with Wolves came out, and he took us all on a field trip to go see it. The leading actress was named Annie McDonnell. My college sociology professor was named Judi McDonnell. She is the actress’ sister! I mean, how cool is that? I remember seeing the resemblance once she mentioned it in class. Their faces were nearly identical but my professor was blonde and the actress was brunette. 

Not long ago I learned that Mr. Soutra wrote a memoir about his 40 some odd years of teaching in a small town high school in Connecticut. He started teaching there in the 70s. Imagine all the social change he saw in that time, the technological change, and having to keep up with all of that. Because he was known as the cool teacher, he did keep up with all of it. He was the one who routinely broke through the invisible wall between the students and the teachers. Over all those years that concerned look on his face was 100% real, and we all knew it. 

Though I wasn’t a standout student in his classes, the thing I learned the most from him was that I needed to smell the roses and not just blast through life and check off my boxes all the time. He had pictures of his race car up in his classroom, because he was into driving race cars. Those pictures on his wall were his smelling the roses moment. 

The other thing I learned in his class is that there is no normal. All we wanted to be as teenagers was normal, and one day he was like “and what is normal?” None of us knew, of course. But normal was some goal we all had, I guess normal meant fitting in with everyone else. But the problem was that everyone else was also trying to fit in too. So, what were we really all trying to fit in to? He posed that question and blew all the minds in the room. I am weird. You’re weird. Everyone is weird. In a way he told us that weird actually is normal because that’s what we all have in common. 

What I got from his book was the behind the scenes view. He stood up in front of us every single day to tell us what he knew. What we didn’t know was the thought process behind it all. What we didn’t know was the constant striving to make the content relevant. What we didn’t know was the constant effort to change with the students year in and year out to make sure that not only were we getting the lessons correctly, but that we were also having a meaningful experience. As the students changed year to year, what qualifies as meaningful also changed. He didn’t want to be that stodgy teacher that just spat out the content, wrote the grades in the book and moved on. His book showed me how he wanted the students to be part of the community in the school and to be heard. Sure, he got into “trouble” with administration here and there. But his ultimate goal seemed to be that the students learn the content but also learn how to use that content to be good people who understand things about the world.  

When you’re a high school student, all you know about your teacher is that they are the person who stands in front of the classroom. At the time I knew that he was a father to young children. But it never really occurred to me how exhausting it must have been to guide hundreds of kids all day and then go home and parent. Back when I was in school, in the 80s-90s, nobody really thought of the dads as actual parents. They were, of course. But the onus seemed to fall on the moms more than the dads. To this day, people still ask working mothers how they balance career and parenting but rarely ask the working fathers that same question. Mr. Soutra was there crushing it at school and parenting at home like his mind wasn’t divided in half all the time, though I am sure it really was. 

This is what I loved about this book. We know our teachers as only our teachers, and we remember then that way. But we got to see him as more than a teacher. I got to see more of him as a race car driver, a father, a correctional officer, a college professor, and all the other things he did when he drove his car out of the high school parking lot. 

If you’re looking for that perspective about the cool teacher in your school, then you definitely need to read The Crows of Bennett Road by Marcus Soutra. (And this is the only time I will use his first name. Because he didn’t author it as Mr. Soutra. **you kinda should have**)

Remember: smell the roses and weird is normal. Check out his book here.