Two Nut Cases
by
Bruce Conrad Davis
If you don’t like a play, a movie or a concert you can leave. There isn't a refund.
From kindergarten through high school if you leave a classroom without permission you'll be in trouble. What if the teacher is lousy? That doesn’t make adifference.You must stay in the room while the teacher holds forth. That's the way it is. There is no refund. It’s a pity.
I’ve been a school principal for thirty years. It would be incorrect to say I've seen it all. Stupidities abound.
Here are two examples. Mary taught the fourth grade. I went in her classroom. She was teaching a geography lesson. She pulled down a wall map and showed the students how the Mississippi River runs from Seattle, Washington to Los Angeles,California. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer would have begged to differ.
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Al taught six graders. He was teaching math when I went in his room.Three boys sat at a table in the back of the room playing poker for money. I put a note in Al's mailbox to see me after school. Al came in my office. I asked him to explain. “ Well Chief, I can't teach them any math. You can learn a lot of math playing poker.”
I told Al that effective immediately this must stop and that I’dbe checking. Al stood up. He came towards me in a threatening manner. I stood up. Inches from me he spit in my face. I said I was calling the police. Al grabbed the phone and placed it in the center of my desk. He climbed up on top of the desk and sat on the phone with his arms and legs crossedlike an Indian Chief at a powwow.
I went out of my office and in to the secretaries office. I picked up the phone. I started to dial. Al could see me. He jumped off the phone and scurried back to his classroom.
I’m ever curious. I returned to my office. I closed the door. I climbed up on top of my desk and sat on my phone. It was painful I didn't last long enough to get a dial tone.
Al's personnel file was four inches thick documentingdecades of poor teaching and abhorrent behavior. Al retired. The district often hired Al to substitute teach.