Summer school

If public high school can be compared to a circus, then summer school is a traveling carnival, complete with greasy ponytails, inbred rednecks and bathroom blowjobs by the stringy haired chick in the Skynyrd shirt.

I taught summer school for four years back in the '90s. I did it for the only reason any teacher signs up to ruin the first five weeks of a hard-earned summer vacation: I needed the money. And the money was great. I can't remember what the going rate was back then, but I'm guessing it was in the $25 bucks-an-hour ballpark. At 30 hours a week, it was a nice addition to the bi-weekly check the district sends us all summer. It allowed me to enhance certain aspects of my personal life. For example, it kept me in Dewars instead of Cutty Sark.

Just as with the rest of the school year, I did next to nothing, which was more tiresome than you might think. Back in those days, summer school was run with a tacit understanding among check-writing parents, hungover teachers, blinders-wearing administrators and the semi-retarded bozos who somehow couldn't manage to eke out a 59.6 percent in one or two of their core classes during the school year.

Parents knew that they were basically writing a check to buy the English or math credit their kid was too stupid or too lazy to earn through 180 days of regular school. I think each class cost $140, which wasn't a bad deal. They'd pay the money, and all the kid had to do was get his ass to school every day (on time, that is), stay awake and scribble some answers on a few worksheets. These answers didn't have to be correct. The kid just had to write something, and the teachers would pass the kid and give him the English or math credit his parents paid for. No teacher wanted to be known as that teacher who actually expected kids to work, learn, and – ha ha ha – earn a passing grade. You fail a few kids in summer school, and odds were good you weren't going to be selected to join the elite group of summer school slackers who earned the right to scam a cool $700 a week the next summer.

(If this sounds offensive to any tax paying citizen, keep in mind that the money we pilfered, er, I mean earned, was not from tax revenue. The money we edu-slackers were paid came from the bank accounts of parent slackers who have raised kids who lacked the minimal mind power it takes to weasel out a passing grade in a basic English or science class in a public high school. So pocketing that weekly bonus never caused an ounce of guilt.)

The only iron-clad rule the kids had to adhere to was the attendance policy. If they missed more than one day or were late more than twice, they were kicked out with no refund. The reason for the absence was irrelevant. The rationale was that, if we're letting you earn a full credit for 25 half days of doing almost nothing, then the least you can do is drag your tired, untanned ass to school and sit there for two to four hours while your friends, the Einsteins who managed to pass their oh-so-stringent classes during the school year, were still sleeping off their daily summer hangovers. Even though I am about the most lax, forgiving teacher this side of any Hollywood "teacher movie" dreck, I followed this rule to the letter. Had I let one kid miss two days and let it slide, every kid in the class would have noticed, and you know that the type of kids who need summer school would have taken full advantage of it. Then word would have spread to other classes, and those kids would have started missing more classes, and the principal would had to have bent the rules for everyone, and then every teacher would have been pissed at "that Bitters asshole." And my 25 dollar-an-hour ass would have been toast. So instead, when a kid missed his second day, we never cared why. The kid was booted out with no refund and no mercy.

"Your mom's junker car wouldn't start? Too bad. You're done."

"Almost died from food poisoning? See you in English 9 again this September, Pukeboy."

"Your family died in a fiery highway crash? Fuck you - you should have held the funeral on Saturday."

Despite never actually teaching in summer school, I worked harder than I ever had in the classroom. I am not joking at all when I say that the hardest part of teaching summer school was trying to staying awake. The two classes were two hours and 20 minutes long. Each. With only a 10 minute break in between. Since I wasn't going to waste all of our time standing in front of the room actually offering instruction, I would pass out some busywork that was doable to even the most IQ-challenged summer school hammerhead, a vapid, personality-less specimen that made up most of my classes. They were there because regular school proved too difficult, so, smartie-pants that I am, I knew that challenging these kids to think and perform in June and July would be insanity. Instead, I'd give them something just a tad more challenging than a word search, which they'd complete in about an hour. Then I'd give them more work ... hey, aren't you paying any attention at all? I was just testing you there. Of course I didn't give them more work. Once all the papers were collected, we still had over an hour left of class. I would then use the services of the world's greatest teaching tool, the VCR, and show a movie. Staying awake during all of this was excruciatingly difficult.

As for the movies, they weren't exactly your standard issue, feel-good sapfest, the kind of movies with the supposedly uplifting, inspirational message about how hard work, honesty and clean living always pay off in the end. I'd sacrifice the inspirational bullshit for some good ol' entertainment value. Oh, they would be movies I could somehow finesse a message out of, just in case I had to justify whatever I was showing should a bored administrator pop into my room and wonder just why in the hell I was showing The Breakfast Club. ("But sir, it's about how kids hide behind a tissue paper thin veneer of security and cocoon themselves in the false but comforting safety of the clique, even though the seemingly coolest of the cool are in fact fighting a daily, debilitating battle against insecurity and fear. And there's also that Molly Ringwald panty shot." Hmmm. I see. Good call. Carry on, Bitters. Did I miss the panty shot?)

I'd also have to worry, but just a little, about a puzzled parent, still feeling that $140 sting, calling to inquire why her son was watching some mindless comedy instead of learning the valuable life skills he obviously missed out on from September through June. ( "Well ma'am, if you think about it, Ace Ventura stands for perseverance and single-minded devotion to duty, qualities I'm sure you'd want your own son to develop." I'd leave out the part about wanting to bang Courtney Cox.) But parents never caused a problem. I was pretty sure they wouldn't. Because if they were that involved in their kid's education, the kid wouldn't be in summer school to begin with.

Yep, summer school is more carnival than circus. The rules are lax, it doesn't last too long, and most of the people are kind of funny looking. But there is one difference. Carnival games are designed to rip people off, but the summer school game is rigged so that everyone leaves happy. Except, of course, for that one skinny, sickly kid we threw out. Chemotherapy, my ass.

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.