During one of our ever-important department meetings, one of the teachers made the comment, “I’m not here for the students. I’m here for the literature.” I have to admit that it was a bit awkward, given the fact that the topic of discussion was our colored paper supply. Like I said, it was quite a crucial meeting.
Anyway, I consider myself as a guy who gripes about his students like no one has before, yet what she said had to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. She comes to a high school for a proper literary fix? That’s like going to McDonald’s for the fine dining. Does reading analysis from the students like, “Huck’s dad is an ass,” and “Pap does bad stuff because he’s mean; therefore, Pap’s a bad man,” get her juices flowing?
There’s got to be better ways to get a literature fix. You can always just read a book. There are libraries are all over this country. Or if you want to be cool, lounge around in a Barnes & Noble. They have cafes, Ooh-la-la.
“I’m not here for the students. I’m here for the literature.”
I wonder if you can hear stuff just as ridiculous in other lines of work. You know, people doing jobs for the silliest of reasons.
I’m only a coroner because I like tables with wheels.
I’m not at the slaughterhouse to kill cows. I’m here for the industrial aprons.
I clean toilets because porcelain is pretty.
I don’t know. Maybe she has a point. I mean, when’s the last time I ever read a book just to read a book for my own pleasure. When I’m off work I’m always, well, working. All the grading and prepping demands such a schedule. With that said, the only reasonable time to spend with a good book is to assign it as schoolwork. At least that seems like the only reasonable time, unless they invent sleep/reading. What am I saying? This job doesn’t let me sleep either!
This morning a teacher sent an e-mail saying nothing more than this:
Is there anyone who would consider performing with me Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “Rapper's Delight”? I need a couple of people.
I’m going to be honest with you everyone. I would be no less disturbed if she asked, “I need someone to wear a leather outfit during a donkey show.”
Seriously, I can’t feel like a professional if colleagues are asking me to participate in some sort of lip synching/American Idol type thing or whatever. Now if this was common in other fields, then okay. I imagine, though, that e-mails aren’t floating around law firms that say, “We need an Indian to complete our Village People tribute group.” Fighter pilots are probably not passing around pillow fight sign-up sheets either.
Again, I’m not too sure why she needs performers. I’m left guessing because she puts her request in no context, which, by the way, is another culprit in why I’m left disturbed.
Besides, “Rapper’s Delight” is The Sugarhill Gang and not Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. If you don’t even know that then there’s no way I can help you anyway.
You may not believe it, but I am all for students keeping their hands busy while class is going on. For some, they need to fiddle while learning. Somehow it helps them concentrate. I don’t understand the science behind it, but hey, I remember acing a Shakespeare class in college, while sketching out the most bitchin’ rollercoaster design on the back of a legal pad.
And I wish I could let it happen more often in my class, but I can’t. The math just doesn’t work out because for every student it benefits there’s at least a half-dozen kids who are crazy-distracted. Take this one girl, for example. She is very sharp, one of my sharpest students, and is really into knitting. If she could knit all day, then she would. She’s even substituted chopsticks for knitting needles, so as not to be in some sort of violation of school policy. I told you she was sharp.
Shoot, even without the needles, I’ve got boners in the class running up to her and pretending to stab each other with her chopsticks. You know what I’m talking about, where they put the chopstick under their armpit and act like they’re suffering an agonizing death.
This is my point. The knitter can handle the responsibility of doing her hobby and participating in class. She is capable, but I have to ask her to stow her knitting away because others are not. If she isn’t being harassed with requests to make stuff (from caps to a freakin’ magic carpet), then they’re taking her yarn to create/enhance certain body parts.
Yuck, the thought of seeing that again makes me want to shove knitting needles in my eyes.
There’s a basketball pep rally this Friday. Like all pep rallies, we adjust to our “Pep Rally” bell schedule. That means taking a whole hour out of our day to get fired-up. If I thought forty-five minutes wasn’t enough to lead a sufficient lesson, then what the hell am I going to do with thirty-six minutes? Fortunately, if I’m going to stay positive, this also limits the amount of trouble a student of mine can get into by jacking around in my class. Don’t get me wrong; a jack-a-ninny will get himself into something even in a shortened class period. He always does. It’s just that he has nine less minutes to make the most of things. In my book, nine minutes can be the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.
Speaking of schedules, they gave us a very detailed agenda for this pep rally. It’s got like thirteen bullets listing activities and each one has its duration next to it. Let me tell you, these durations are very specific. Only the meticulousness of an educator could create such a document. One activity, a Stomp routine by the sudoku club, is listed at a minute and forty-five seconds. Oh boy….
If you think that’s ridiculous, then you need to know that there will be a Tug-of-War as well. The student council will be pitted against the coaching staff. Thankfully, the English department isn’t involved. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not sure how much restraint I could display when given the opportunity to yank students down to the ground like rag dolls. Have you ever heard of those stories where a frantic mother generates enough strength to lift a car off her child? It would be like that for me, but in a less noble, Hulk Smash! kind of way.
Now that I think about it, there should probably be a bullet that says, “Sign waivers created by the school district’s lawyers (30 sec).”
This green movement has really caught on over the last few years. People are getting serious about reducing their carbon footprint. Even the jack-a-ninnies are doing their part.
There’s this one kid of mine, in my first period, who turns his assignments in on half-sheets of paper. This includes a recently turned-in fifteen hundred word literary analysis on Huck Finn. Let me make this clear: his work was not submitted on multiple half-sheets. The whole thing was on a single half-sheet. He even numbered each word to prove his work.
Granted, he’s using the rest of the paper preparing for “the greatest spitball fight ever,” so his conservation efforts may be flawed. But at least when he guts his pens and stockpiles them as spitball shooters he uses the tube of ink with the head of the pen still attached to do his work.
Yep, he’s just like the Native Americans with the buffalo, if you ask me. No part goes to waste.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. That's our story and we're sticking to it.
