A Good Teacher Provides Insensitives to Learn

B chose teachers.

My roommate Chris taught third grade at Waters Elementary, a school that had been shown on Cops. He was in Teach for America -- or Totally Functioning Alcoholics, as he called it and moved to the house in East Atlanta so he wouldn't have to wait so long to drink once school let out for the day.
If I could be a teacher, I'd want to be one like Chris: one who genuinely cares for students but not to the point of babying them or putting with crap even from the administration.

An administrator came by Chris's class room one day and asked why his bulletin board hadn't been changed to the Spring theme.
"I'm sorry. I'll get right on it."
Back in class, the kids asked if they could help with the bulletin board.
Chris grimaced. "No. We're not doing that. I'm teaching you how to read instead. You know -- something important."
He and some of our teacher friends would commiserate about how the Atlanta Public School System Superintendent only visited schools if there was going to be a camera crew there.
"She's supposed to visit a school a week," Kristin said. Or it was something like that. "And I couldn't tell you when we last saw her at Humphries."
Similarly, Chris had a student once who had just been passed along without ever learning the alphabet or earlier skills.
"I need to have him tested for the remedial class, but the woman who does that is never there," he told us.
"I know! It's like that at Humphries," Kristin said. "What do they do all day?"
"I used to see her all the time just wandering the halls. I think that's what they do."

Speaking of reading, one year -- or really, there was probably a variation of this every year -- one of the reading groups -- let's say the Red Team -- became convinced that Chris liked the Blue Team better and gave them special privileges and was more lenient with them.
To which Chris replied, "I do like the Blue Team better."
It became a running joke between Chris and one student who had a similar sense of humor.
The next year, Chris found some money in the hall, pocketed it, ran to another classroom, and said, "Sorry Ms. _____. I just wanted to talk to Keon. Hey Keon. I found five dollars in the hall, and I was thinking, 'What am I going to do with five dollars? ... I know. I'll give it to Keon and the Red Team.' But then I remembered I like the Blue Team much better, so I gave it to them."

Chris and the teachers at his school had a hilarious Mrs. Malaprop for a principal.
"She says incull-ment for inclement so much, I'm starting to think that's the right way to pronounce it," he said. "And insensitive for incentive."

One of Chris's co-workers would always sign Chris in when he arrived in the morning so it would like Chris got there at a decent hour.

Chris tried to come down with a nasty cold an hour before after-school meetings, but sometimes it just couldn't be helped. Whenever he was forced to stay late, he would try to cause mischief with the other third grade teachers especially Mrs. Hadley. Mrs. Hadley had a quirky way to deal with unruly kids: she duct taped them to their desks. There was a teacher at my high school who threatened to kiss you if you misbehaved, but I never had her; otherwise, this post would clearly be about the time an older teacher kissed me because I wouldn't shut-up.
So anyway one day, they had a very antsy speaker.
"Mrs. Hadley?" Chris whispered. "He sure can't keep still. Do you know what we should do?"
"Duct tape him to his chair!" Mrs. Hadley said. She could never tell how loud she was being, and the-now alarmed speaker cut the meeting short.

Another time, Kristin was scheduled to take her class to the King Center. We were having drinks that afternoon, and I remembered to ask her about it.
"It got cancelled."
"Why?"
"Cause of the rain."
Chris frowned. "But Kristin... the King Center's all in-doors. Kristin? Ms. Pugh? That doesn't make sense."
"I know that. Our principal was like, 'But they'll melt!' And then what did it do? What did it do? It cleared up in an hour, and I had to be stuck in school with a bunch of rowdy kids all day."

The Teachers would come over for parties and other, smaller get-togethers. One night after playing Power Hour -- where you drank a shot of beer every minute for an hour -- they decided to play Never Have I Ever.
Someone said, "Never Have I Ever farted in class and blamed it on the kids." All the other teachers snorted and took their shots.

It was sort of a behind-the-scenes look at elementary school teachers and their uncontrollable flatulence.