Professional Development
by Publius
As a former acid freak, I’m trained to handle extraneous bullshit. My dead pet schnauzer humping my leg while he lights the fuse to a dynamite stick he’s crammed up his ass for example. Stuff like that. But today? No one is trained for today.
We just went to an all day professional development. The whole district gathered in an indoor sports auditorium downtown. Next to me is a buddy from another school, a former ballet dancer. We promise to periodically stab each other for stimulation.
The day begins with motivational speakers. Actual motivational speakers. Here’s how I made my first million in real estate — speakers like that. What this has to do with teaching in an inner city school, who knows? By the end of it, however, about half the audience is motivated to leave teaching.
Just before lunch comes this guy, a local TV anchor. I’m not sure what his theme is — I’m well known locally because I learned to have a facile smile while I read a teleprompter? Anyway, he actually sets up a TV link in order to interview his former 8th grade teacher, who is now retired and in a home somewhere that’s not here. She comes across as lovely Miss Sally from Sweet Bird Of Youth Middle School. The problem is that she hasn’t been retired for so long that there aren’t plenty of folks here who remember her.
I ask the guy in front of me, “So what was she really like?”
He says, “She had a reputation for being the meanest teacher in the metropolitan school district.”
“Why?”
“Because she actually was the meanest woman in the metropolitan school district. If she liked the student, like she must have liked this guy, then the kid was fine for as long as the kid answered with a smile and otherwise remained motionless. But if she didn’t like the kid — or anyone else for that matter — that dislike immediately went to hate, which immediately went to revenge for any offense real or perceived. That was true for students as well as colleagues, family, neighbors, even some buddy for the forty-five minutes she’d occasionally have one. She’s crazy. But, in her defense, she was an equal opportunity sadist. I remember the first day she taught at my middle school. It was like someone threw a crocodile in a koi pond.”
In the afternoon, there was supposed to be actual information. Something about a new curriculum. There was only one problem. A power failure. Soon as the presentation began, all the lights went out. Except for the one little light on the presenter’s podium. So this dude, the presenter, he’s fine. He’s got his little light. So he just carries on.
He introduces his power point presentation. He uses his laser pointer on the blank screen. He even says stuff like, “Let me clarify roman numeral II.” There are hand-outs. The poor schlemiels, who distribute the hand-outs, have to feel their way aisle to aisle. Judging from the grunts and the curses, and that distinctive a-bunch-of-papers-just-fell-on-the-floor sound, more than just a few of these distributions ended sadly. This goes on all afternoon. All afternoon. About a glaciation into this presentation, I realize my buddy has been gone for like an hour, so I too excuse myself to “go to the bathroom.” I find I’m not the first to get this idea. In the lobby, it’s like intermission at the symphony, except it isn’t.
I heard later that the lights finally came on just minutes before the day was over. There were like fifteen people left in the auditorium. Twelve were using the opportunity to catch-up on their z’s. Three teachers were taking notes.
But the day had a trick ending, one last shtook. In the morning, we all gathered at our various schools, parked our cars, then were taken by yellow bus to the auditorium. In the afternoon, the district forgot to schedule buses to take us back. The feeling was not unlike finishing a long day, finally getting home, only to be leg-humped by your pet schnauzer. Except for the getting home bit.