The villain in the Teacher's Lounge

Y'ever see that movie, Dangerous Minds? It's a good movie. It's about this teacher and how she takes these hopeless dead-end teens and convinces them to be good students and learn and better themselves.

There's lots of movies like this. Whole genre. A Super Teacher takes a bunch of hopeless losers, some of whom are violent and evil, and turns 'em into Good Students. Some of them are quite good. Some are classics -- Blackboard Jungle, anyone? To Sir, With Love?

There are so many of these movies, they have their own set of stock characters. The Inept But Well Meaning Teacher Down The Hall, the "Realistic" Principal Who's Lost Sight Of Educational Ethics, the Evil Unrepentant Punk Who Doesn't Straighten Out In The End... and my personal favorite, the Villain In The Teacher's Lounge.

Oh, yes, the Villain. He is a teacher, usually male, but not always. He invariably has many more years experience than our hero. He is a cynic, somewhat tired, but still more than able to keep doing his job. But that's all he's doing... his job.



You see, he has come to realize the TRUTH about teaching. We find this out during a scene in the teacher's lounge, in which our protagonist is railing about how hard teaching is, and how is one supposed to give these kids hope, make them believe in themselves, invest in themselves and their future?


And the Villain? He smiles and says, "You can't. You've been lied to. It is not possible for this job to be what you believe it is."


Our protagonist looks up, shocked. At this point, a debate begins. The protagonist, being noble and heroic, holds forth that EVERY child can be a winner. The Villain smiles sadly and says that the Protagonist is not being realistic. You can't save them all. You can only do what you can do, and if you push yourself too hard and too far, you'll burn out and not be able to do ANYTHING for ANY of them. Our protagonist rejects this heresy. Dammit, there has to be SOME way to SOMEHOW make this work... and sure enough, by the end of the movie, our hero is successful. All the kids rally in support. Hope is alive. The Villain has been proven wrong.

I do not know if it is because of movies like this... or because of politicians... or because teachers are supposed to be strange magical beings.... but people seem to believe this crap.

I see a lot of stereotypes about teaching; you can't escape them in education. Teachers are magic. Teachers rearrange children's worlds. Teachers are people who failed in their career fields, and now they teach instead of playing pro football or writing novels or being college professors. Teachers mostly just want to screw their hardbodied young proteges. Teachers are called to this profession by their saintliness and willingness to sacrifice their lifetimes in the interests of the Youth of Tomorrow.

Like I said, crap.

I have known many teachers. A few were the scum of the earth. A few were truly saintly people. But most of them were no better or worse than most folks -- just better educated, and just as likely to gripe and bitch and be snarlish during standardized testing week. But the public luuuuvs those stereotypes, and they won't let them go, and the politicians luuuuv to ride the teachers into office by "fixing education," and the stereotypes are most handy for that. And so sometimes I actually encounter this crap coming out of people who should know better.

Like teachers, for example.

The trope that set me off? "A REAL teacher wouldn't give up on ANY child, no matter WHAT the circumstances."

Ooooh, I felt like letting someone have it, right then. But I did not. Because I am a professional. More than that, I am a professional whose main focus lies on keeping one's temper and being patient. Admittedly, I was hired to do this with STUDENTS, not idiot adults who should know better... but, hey, that's education.

So let's kick the tropes around:

A REAL teacher wouldn't give up on ANY child, no matter WHAT the circumstances!

Every child can learn.

Every child has a right to an education.

A teacher should be a learner, and should take training and classes every year to stay current.

The school's job is not only to teach, but to socialize.

Schools must keep the kids safe.

We don't need more money for education -- we need more education for our money!

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by cutting their funding.

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by firing all the teachers and administrators.

These are just some of the major beliefs about education, and there is some truth in each of them. To regard them as absolutes, though -- as so many folks seem to -- is a towering mistake. I've tried explaining this before, only to be poo-poohed, and placed in the same bracket with the Villain in the Teacher's Lounge: "What kind of teacher are you, to have so little faith, so little hope, so little motivation? Do you have some kind of an attitude problem?"


A REAL teacher wouldn't give up on ANY child, no matter WHAT the circumstances! Crap. A REAL teacher picks his battles, and takes care of herself, because if she burns out or goes crazy trying to accomplish the improbable, this benefits no one.

Every child can learn. This is true. But not every child wants to, and some children will resist learning, and some will fight like hell for their right to ignorance, and of these, some will have parents who don't give a fart in a high wind, and some have parents who will actively assist the children in counteracting their education. I see it every year. Rotsa ruck, there, Mr. Chips.

Every child has a right to an education. Whether they want it or need it or use it or not. In other countries and other cultures, if you aren't doing jack with your education, they kick you the fuck out and let the educators concentrate on the ones who can and will. Meanwhile, our politicians measure our numbers against the Japanese (who do exactly this) and proclaim "something is wrong with education! Elect me, so I can fix it!" And the cycle begins anew. We can't do what the Japanese do, of course. It ain't democratic. We have to force ALL our kids to be rocket scientists. Or try, anyway.

A teacher should be a learner, and should take training and classes every year to stay current. At their own expense, it seems. And while I'm out learning all the newest trends in education, who's gonna teach my damn classes?

The school's job is not only to teach, but to socialize. And if parents were truly held accountable for this, the school could do their end quite effectively.

Schools must keep the kids safe. I agree with this, mostly. However, schools are not jails, nor are they bunkers. Their job is to educate kids. The more extra jobs we stick in there, the less effective the education part will be. Where does the accountability begin and end? Keep 'em safe from what? Each other? Pedophile teachers? Random loonies on the streets?

We don't need more money for education -- we need more education for our money! Whenever I hear some kind of cockeyed politician buzzphrase like this, I think, "Education's too important to be left in the hands of politicians."

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by cutting their funding. Y'know what? You can't punish an organization. You can't. You can punish individuals, but an organization will simply disintegrate into its components if you hit it too hard. You'd think the recent financial institution disasters would have taught the politicians this. And yet they seem to think that if you treat an institution like a person, it will react like a person. I can treat my hamster like a rocket scientist, but I don't think it'll be taking over the world anytime soon. When has any expensive situation ever benefited from having money taken away from it? And how has this improved anything?

If schools are not doing well, this can be fixed by firing all the teachers and administrators. See above -- if you fire all the personnel, they will run out and find new jobs, and then you will have a whole new school with all new people... who are brand new and will take a year or two to get the ball rolling... and may not be any better than the old ones... particularly when the problem wasn't the teachers or administrators to begin with! Empty headed thinking from politicians, again. ALL PROBLEMS DO NOT HAVE SIMPLE SOLUTIONS, ASSHEADS! Except, of course, if you are selling a product or running for office.

Let's try some different tropes:

"If you were a real doctor, none of your patients would die. Real doctors never give up. From now on, when your patients die, you will not be paid for your work on those particular patients. If more than a certain number of your patients die, your hospital will be shut down while the state fires all the doctors and nurses and replaces them with new ones."

"If you were a real soldier, none of your enemies would survive, and all your battles would be victories, because real soldiers never give up. From now on, if you lose a battle, you will not be paid -- oh, wait, soldiers already get the crappiest pay there is. From now on, if you lose a battle, you will not be permitted to leave the service or go home until that battle has been refought and won properly."

"If you were a real cop, all criminals would be arrested, jailed, tried, convicted, and imprisoned, because real cops never give up, never make mistakes, and always find the one piece of evidence that will put the crook away. From now on, failure to arrest all criminals and solve all crimes will result in cutting of your pay. Further failure will result in the firing of all law enforcement in the area, and their replacement with new cops who don't know the area, the people, the local hangouts, or much of anything, because this will improve things."

"If you were a real politician, all social problems would be solved, and there would be no crime. Real leaders always solve all problems with simple answers. From now on, any crime or social problems in your bailiwick will result in loss of tax revenue, requiring you to do more with less as penance. Continued failure will result in your impeachment and replacement by a politician from the other political party."

Does it sound like crap to you? Then why are we inflicting it on the teachers?

On a completely unrelated note, you know what happens when you go on Google Images to get pictures by using words like "teachers?"
...you get an AMAZING amount of porn! I wonder if this is part of the problem?

Boss-Bitch-O-Matic

The school district I work for has a bad policy about personnel management. Near as I can tell, the object is to motivate their people by kicking them in the ass. I'm not sure if they're trying to scare people into fearing for their jobs, or if the Superintendent just thinks that constant criticism causes people to work harder, but they do regular walkthroughs and inspections, and they NEVER have anything good to say, and they will pounce on ANY little thing that gives them an excuse to be critical. They gave one of the best math teachers I've ever seen a faceful because his room was "messy and unclean." *

Sigh.

Anyway, they've apparently programmed the main computer servers along these lines. When I checked my work email this morning, I had a snippy automated note from the computer, stating that I had fallen below the number of grades dictated by District policy, and that I was expected to correct this dereliction of my duty as soon as possible.

I was confused for a moment. What? Ohh, wait, Spring Break! I didn't enter any grades for Spring Break. That's why the computer's bitching at me.

At first, I thought about doing nothing, until I thought about it for a moment. Everyone else in the building probably got the same snippy email. Surely, administration would look into it... realize what the problem was... and ignore it.

Until I remembered what happened last time I ignored one of those snippy automatic notes. The following week I got another one that said, "Your failure to correct your dereliction has been noted. Your principal has been notified. Please note that you are in dereliction of your duty to comply with District policy."

Yeah, like my principal has nothing better to do than come down to my room and beef at me about my number of grades in the gradebook. But when I thought about it, I realized that he was probably going to have to investigate half the teachers in the building next week... because THEY would all ignore the snippy email.

So I said the hell with it, opened up my gradebook, and entered three grades for all my kids for all my classes for Spring Break. That week, none of them showed up, and I gave them all "EXCUSED" grades for all three assignments. This will bring me up to the minimum number of grades, and the machine will quit bitching at me.

So... my upper echelon bosses programmed a MACHINE to bitch at me, and I did what it wanted, for no other reason than to spare my LOWER echelon bosses the hassle of coming and checking into my grades for reasons they'd already know by the time they got to me.

Man, I work for some weird people...

*They checked his room between third and fourth period... after several herds of seventh and eighth graders had stampeded in and out. They didn't have time to actually watch him TEACH, so they bitched him out for ... apparently... not leaping forth and picking up all the litter the kids left. Apparently, math teachers should also be part-time custodians...

Christmas Spiders (from CLASSICS)

I can't believe I wrote this more than six years ago. Seems like only yesterday...

I am in my last week of student teaching. I'll be certified, soon, to teach in our public schools... but I found another reason yesterday that I don't wanna teach elementary school.

You see... there are four men in this particular school building, most school days. Me, an elderly math teacher, and two custodians.

Yesterday, during my lunch hour, I'm settin' up the next week's materials, surfing CNN, and bitterly cursing the District Computer Nazi, who feels that access to message boards and outside email sources should be blocked, right?

And a woman I barely recognize bursts into the classroom, jabbering and gibbering. I vaguely remembered her from the last faculty meeting; she was a teacher there. She knew ME, though, as my own last name was the only thing she was saying that made any sense. It seemed extremely important that I should go with her, though.

As we hustled through the empty halls -- all the children were at lunch -- I wondered what could be so screwy as to drive this poor woman into hysteria. Fire? Terrorists? Bomb threats?

Hmmph. Shooda known.

We arrive at her gaily decorated classroom. Sitting in the large open area towards the front... maybe fifteen feet away from where I stood in the hall... was a large cardboard carton marked XMAS.

The woman, whom I will call "Mrs. Tulip," became even more incoherent at this point, but pointed furiously at the box, and indicated that I should go and do something with or to the box.

I ambled into the room, glancing around for bombs or Satan or Alan Rickman with a machine gun, or something. Nothing was on fire. The box was open. I sidled up to it and glanced inside.

Ah. Christmas decorations. Atop it all were three large stuffed toys -- a bear, a penguin, and Santa.

And perched atop the bear's belly was a spider. A HUGE friggin' spider.

Dawn broke over marble head. Ah. THIS is the emergency. But... something didn't look quite right. The spider was posed rather oddly, legs bunched together, front and back, instead of legs spread around her, ready to leap or run. And... her abdomen. Spider that big should have a butt the size of my pinky tip... but... it looked... scooped out, somehow.

That's when I realized that this was not a spider. This was a molt, a shed skin left behind as a spider grows. The spider had shed its exoskeleton in the process of getting bigger... and was, possibly, still in the box somewhere. Furthermore, the only non-tarantula spiders in this hemisphere that get THAT big are female. A female spider in a cardboard box in someone's shed or garage has only one reason for being there: it laid eggs. Spiders' eggs hatch between September and late November. It was now December. There were potentially hundreds of spiders in there.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of saying all this out loud.

Mrs. Tulip's reaction was kind of interesting. She, like wriggled, and kind of looked like she wanted to turn herself inside out, then and there. She jabbered some more, and indicated that I should do something about it.

"What do you want ME to do about it?" I said.

"Uggh," she replied. "Eeegh...yecch... you're a MAN," she gagged. "Do SOMETHING!"

I turned back to the box. Carefully, I fished Bear, Penguin and Santa out, one by one, and flicked them to the floor. They did not erupt in a seething mass of arachnoid horror. The dead molt fell to pieces with the impact. Mrs. Tulip wriggled and vibrated.

Beneath the stuffed toys was a mass of plastic pine needles. The rest of the box contained a disassembled artificial Christmas tree.

Ghod only knew what might be hiding in there.

Mrs. Tulip sat and stared at me, chewing her nails. I looked at her. She looked at me. I sighed and turned back to the box. I COULD simply refuse to do it. It wasn't MY classroom, or my Christmas tree, or my problem. On the other hand, I'm still a student teacher, and I'm going to be DONE with this in a week. All I have to do to get my certification is not screw up or piss anyone off...

...and it occurred to me that as wacko as this woman was acting, there was no way she was setting foot in this room until all materials in this box had been examined for spiderlike presences... and, considering where my classroom was and where Mrs. Tulip's was, she had probably gone rampaging all over the school looking for custodians before finally remembering that I existed.

It was noon. The custodians were across the street at Fatso's Barbecue, having lunch. They wouldn't be back any time soon. If I didn't do something, this woman was going to be standing in the hall gibbering when her children returned from lunch. And how would my evaluation go if I went on record as saying, "Hell with you, lady, this ain't my problem?"

Steeling myself, I fished one of the tree stand's legs out... and carefully picked out one of the branches. I whacked the branch a few times with the tree stand leg. Three dead crickets fell out of it.

I did it again with another branch. Nothing happened.

I did it again.

And again.

And again.

I noticed that about every third or fourth branch had a dead cricket or two in it. Each seventh branch seemed to have a LIVE cricket in it, which always evoked a horrified ejaculation from Mrs. Tulip, still in the hallway.

...and the eighteenth branch had a live SPIDER in it, a good-sized specimen, who came scuttling up the branch to rip my hand off. I flicked him off the branch with the tree stand leg and stomped on him. Mrs. Tulip immediately did this... amazing... thing... with her whole body ... that would have done any contortionist proud, except that Mrs. Tulip did it out of sheer horror.

I was not happy. That spider was nowhere near big enough to be the one who'd left that molt on top. That was one of the kids.

The twenty-ninth branch had ANOTHER molt on it. An even bigger one. How long had that mama spider been IN this box? And was she still HERE?

Mrs. Tulip wobbled and writhed and made weird noises some more, by way of assistance and moral support.

I kept plucking branches out. More dead crickets. A few live ones. Jeez, there'd been a whole ecosystem going on in this woman's Christmas decorations...

And in time, I came to the bottom of the box. Well, almost. The only thing left was the top of the Christmas tree, a largish cone of stiff wire and fake plastic pine needles. There was no way in hell I was sticking my hands in THAT thing. I could beat it with the tree stand leg until the toads came home, and the entire Bolivian army could still be hiding in there.

Perhaps jostling it would provide some information. I carefully knocked the box over. The tree top rattled and rolled out.

And Mama Spider came out, erupting from between the branches like a little snake monster ripping through a spaceman's sternum in a horror movie.

Now, in truth, that spider wasn't THAT big. This is Texas, after all. I've certainly seen tarantulas that were bigger. On the other hand, I've also seen tarantulas that were SMALLER, which gives you some clue as to how fraggin' BIG this thing was. I raised a foot to step on it, and hesitated. Man, this thing was BIG! What if it... didn't... DIE? What if it grabbed my foot and threw me across the ROOM, or something?

And then, Mrs. Tulip screamed, a sound like a fire engine might make if it were giving birth to a Toyota.

I leaped on the spider with both feet. It crunched surprisingly loudly. For a horrible moment, I thought I felt it moving beneath my shoe soles. You shouldn't be able to feel a bug moving beneath your shoe soles when you're standing on it with both feet.

Mrs. Tulip had very good lungs, though, and continued. The same scream, too. She only screamed once, but it went on for a while. I heard the patter of feet, as people came running to investigate.

Many of them were children. Fourth graders, as I recall.

...and abruptly, Mrs. Tulip snapped. It was amazing. One second, she is in the grip of total pantswetting hysteria, and the next, she's perfectly calm, and herding children around. It was like someone had found and pressed her RESET button, right there in front of ghod and everybody.

I casually cleaned up the dead spiders and the scattering of cricket husks, and tossed 'em in the garbage. I then checked the tree top. It was clean. Not that anything alive would have willingly shared quarters with Mama, anyway. Upon erasing the remnants of madness, I strolled away back to my classroom. Mrs. Tulip smiled and gave me a nod, still herding her students, as I passed.

And I betcha my certification won't even have any mention of my heroism or my goin' the extra mile, here....

And it didn't. *sigh*

SCALAWAGGERS!

“Battle of Bull Run?” tried Bud, nervously.

“Sorry,” said Mr. L. “Question goes to team two. What was Sherman’s movement through Georgia called?”

“Um... march to the sea?” asked Fleur.

“Got it,” said Mr. L, with some satisfaction. “Team two advances by one.” With that, Mr. L moved the little magnetic marker up the board.

Tension was thick. Today, the American History class’s last exam of the year was taking the form of a competition between two teams... and the winning team was going to get the higher grade of the two. It’s a handy trick for getting otherwise bored kids to focus and engage, you know?

“Fleur, you got it, so you pick the next question,” said Mr. L, gesturing at the numbered slips of paper taped to the board.

“Um... number eleven.”

“Number eleven: who instigated violence before elections in the South during reconstruction?” recited Mr. L. “Charlie?”

“The bags. I mean, the baggers. The moneybaggers. I mean, the teabaggers. The whatever-bagger-people.”

“Nope,” said Mr. L. “Question goes back to team one. Who instigated violence before elections in the south during Reconstruction?”

“Battle of Bull Run?” said Bud, with some trepidation.

“NO!” cried Bunny. “Sir, that doesn’t count. It wasn’t his turn!”

“All right,” said Mr. L, reasonably. “Bunny, can you answer the question?”

“It was the CARPETbaggers!”

“I’m sorry, but no. That’s a fumble, so it goes back on the board. Team one will choose the next question. Lite?”

“Um... 23,” said Lite.

“What did the Southerners call other Southerners who supported Reconstruction and the Union government?”

“Carpetbaggers!” shouted Charlie.
“NO, you dumbass!” cried Bunny in agony. “Carpetbaggers were from the NORTH, not the south!”

“I’m sorry, but ‘carpetbaggers’ is the wrong answer,” said Mr. L. “And please, watch your language, Bunny. Question goes to team two. What did the Southerners call other Southerners who supported Reconstruction and the Union government? Schlitz?”

“Be fucked if I know,” said Schlitz.

The room erupted in laughter.

“That’s enough of that, Schlitz,” growled Mr. L. “Any more profanity, and someone’s getting out of school early. Does anyone on team two know?”

“They were called, ah, scallops,” said Heathcliff.

“What?” said Mr. L.

“Ah, um, scallops... scalpers... skateboards... scalpbaggers... um... something LIKE scalpbaggers... “

Mr. L. waited patiently.

“Um...”

“Clock is ticking,” said Mr. L.

“Aaahhh..... scallops... scalar... SCALAWAGGERS!”

“The word is “scalawags,” and it is correct,” said Mr. L., moving another marker on the board. “Heathcliff, it’s your call.”

“Number thirty.”

“What was the importance of the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac? Bud?”

“Battle of Bull Run?” said Bud, brightly. He was met with a collective moan and a smattering of thrown paperwads.

“Nope. Back to team one. Darla? What was the importance of the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac?”

“Ah,” said Darla, who had not been paying the slightest attention, “carpetbaggers?” Another moan, and another few paperwads came her way.

“And no one gets that one, so it goes back on the board,” said Mr. L. “Bud, call me a number.”

“Number nineteen. And it’s Battle of Red Bull!”

“Number nineteen. And the question is ‘at what battle did Stonewall Jackson face off against General Pope at Manassas?’ And what did you say?”

“I said it’s the Battle of Red Bull!”

“And that would be wrong. And the question goes to team two: Stonewall Jackson versus General Pope at Manassas? Anyone?”

“BATTLE OF BULL RUN!” screamed Bunny.

Bud’s jaw dropped several inches. “I SAID THAT!”

“No,” said Mr. L., “you said ‘battle of Red Bull,’ which was incorrect. To my knowledge, there are no American Civil War battles named after popular sports drinks that supposedly give you wings.”

“Aaw, that ain’t RIGHT, man! I had it earlier!”

“And if that had been the question, you would have been right earlier. Bunny, the next question is yours. Number?”

“Number seven!” crowed Bunny.

“Where did General Lee surrender to Northern forces? Trisha?”

“Um... animal house... no... it starts with an A,” said Trisha. “A-house. A-house. A-something-house....”

“I need more than that,” said Mr. L.

“I’m thinking. A-house.... A-house... A-house..... dang, I don’t know. I mean, I know it, but I can’t pronounce it.”

“Try,” said Mr. L.

“Anaphalactic house?” tried Trisha.

“I’m sorry,” said Mr. L. “Charlie?”

“Aaaah,” said Charlie, who’d been paying no attention whatsoever. “What was the question again?”

“Where did General Lee surrender to the Union forces?”

“A-house,” said Trisha, helpfully.

“A-house,” said Charlie thoughtfully. “A... COURT.... house.... a-courthouse, alamo courthouse, android courthouse...” Charlie rose from his chair, and began to pace nervously in the aisle.

“Is that your answer?” asked Mr. L.

“NO, no, no,” muttered Charlie hastily. “A-courthouse... alamo... alcohol... apollo... apple.... approximate... approximate... it was like approximate...”

“Clock’s ticking, Charlie,” said Mr. L.

“I know, I know... Approximate courthouse... approximate courthouse?”

“I need an answer now, Charlie. Is that your answer?”

“No, no,” said Charlie, sweating, and furiously pacing. “It sounded a little like approximate courthouse...”

“NOW, Charlie--“

“APOCALYPTIC COURTHOUSE!” screamed Charlie.

The room erupted in laughter. Charlie realized what he’d said. In a rage of embarrassment, he flung his notebook to the floor and screamed, “Aaaww, SCALAWAGGERS!!!”

I couldn’t teach any more after that. I was laughin’ too hard. The correct answer is “Appomattox Court House,” by the way.