Role models

Okay, everybody play along. Put yourself back in your high school. (For those of you for whom that is a pleasant thought, you have my sympathy, because your life no doubt sucks more ass than Elton John on Ecstasy. If your high school years were good, if you somehow managed to find happiness in what for most of us was four years of pure hell, then your life has probably spiraled downward since the day you tearfully said goodbye to all the fellow members of all the bullshit clubs and teams you belonged to.)

But back to putting yourself back in school. I don’t want you to think about the other students. Think about your teachers. You probably liked a few, despised a few, and could pretty much take or leave the others. But I’m betting that there wasn’t one of them whom you looked at and thought, “Gee, I’d really like to be like him/her!”

Yet how often are we fed the line that teachers are role models? That’s an even bigger pile of hokum than the myths that we are overworked and underpaid. Teachers are role models? In high school? I guess I can see that if you’re an athlete and you admire your coach. You might aspire to wearing those snazzy snap-on shorts with the elastic waist-band that comes halfway up a stomach the size of a beach ball while you yell, scream and holler boatloads of banal bullshit gleaned from every cheezy sports movie ever made. (And yes, I include the sickeningly overrated Rudy in that group. I wish that punk would have gotten his head knocked off on that play. The little bitch had no business being out there.)

I’ve faked my way through 20 odd years in this profession, and in case anyone thinks we’re worthy of role model status, let me share with you just a few episodes that might make you rethink that well-intentioned belief.

I knew a Spanish teacher who had a kid in her class that was physically slow in every movement he made. If he wanted to sharpen his pencil or throw away a piece of trash, it became a scene reminiscent of those Charlton Heston-led Jews aimlessly wandering around the desert. One day, this teacher, who had a short fuse to begin with and who had already made several sarcastic remarks to this kid about his drag-footed gait, had had enough. She berated him for the way he did everything so slowly, really letting him have it and even breaking into a dead-on imitation of his walk, dragging her feet and trying to affect his pained facial expression. When she ran out of gas and venom, the student calmly asked, “Why are you always making fun of my cerebral palsy?” Yep, the kid has C.P. How do I know the details of all of this? Because the teacher herself told me everything through choking fits of laughter. She found it hilarious. (Hey, so did I!) This is the same teacher who used to occasionally move her lips and not make a sound when talking to a nearly deaf student, just to watch the student fiddle with her apparently defective hearing aid. Role model, indeed!

We have real live actual retarded kids in our school. How retarded? One of them was walking through the hall with an aide on his way to the retard room, and a piece of dry shit dropped out of his pants leg. Yes, THAT retarded. Although they stay in the same little room for almost the entire day (Whoa! There’s a big surprise for ya!), some of them get special gym sessions with the regular P.E. teachers. One morning this year, the P.E. teacher took a few of the retarded kids (Okay, I”ll admit it. We call them ’Tards) out for some exercise on a terribly foggy morning. As he stopped to help one of the kids tie his shoe or drop a piece of shit out of his pants or something, two other ’Tards kept walking toward the track. Before long, they were well out of sight, and the panicked teacher radioed in that he needed help locating the missing ’Tards. And two minutes later there they were, two hardass football coaches running through the fog screaming in panic, hoping the two wayward ’Tards hadn’t yet found their way into the woods. Finally, they heard one of them making some terrible noise in the back corner of the field. He had run into a fence and didn’t know what to do next. He was making some horrible, plaintive sound, much as a seal might make if snared in a bear trap. How do I know about this? Because the P.E. teacher does a marvelous retelling of the story, complete with the sound effect of the wailing student. Great laughter always ensues in his audience of teachers. Role models, all!

We have three kids in our school who have formed a heavy metal band, and they are so good that they have played at some rather impressive clubs in Washington, D.C. and northern Virginia. Although the true rock and roll spirit says that heavy metal band members are supposed to have nothing but disdain for all things high school, the band’s drummer, a Henry Rollins lookalike, is a member of the marching band. Last year, our football team made another run deep into the playoffs. The semi-final game fell on the same night as one of this band’s big gigs at a local underage club. The show had been planned for months. The football game was scheduled just the week before. It was a dilemma for the drummer, who decided that he was going to forego the football game, play the gig and accept the punishment in class that came with this decision. The band teacher was understandably upset. So how did Mr. Role Model band teacher handle this? Did he call the boy’s parents to try to get them to change their son’s mind? No. Did he call the student in for a conference with some other marching band members, so that they might use the soft-sell approach to show him how much they needed him at the game? Uh uh. The teacher made a decision that was, um, not quite Solomon-like. He secretly called the club that Friday and told them that he was calling on behalf of the band to CANCEL THEIR GIG! Then, he told the drummer this news at the end of the day. Talk about a Hiroshima blow-up! The gig being canceled, the raging drummer ended up playing at the football game. But in the ensuing weeks, the band teacher had to meet with the students, their parents, administrators and central office folks. He had to officially apologize. That role model is no longer working in our school system.

So please, ease up on the role model assignation. I’ve known teachers who use the words “nigger” and “spic” in the hall before going into a class to teach kids who fit those ugly descriptions. I’ve seen a man and woman sneak out of the men’s staff restroom at 6:15 one morning, buttoning their clothes and fixing their hair. I know a teacher who handled a mildly misbehaving student by kicking him in the shin. (Charges were filed.) Another teacher, a coach, kicked a kid’s desk four times during a red-faced tirade when that smartass student (I love this kid) asked why the football team always sucks in the playoffs. (No charges were filed this time. Barely.)

I could go on and on about all the things we do that make us so very unworthy of the role model status society likes to assign to us. I think very few teachers actually buy into it though. And I know one who is just about to pour himself a scotch, load up his bong and check out the latest free trailers on UtterDepravity.com with the speakers turned up full blast.

Ned Bitters teaches high school and dreams of one day seeing one of his former students on stage at a strip club. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.