The First Days of School, 2007

Institute Day

The novelty of being back wore off within minutes. This alarmed me. So did the candy-ass expressions on the admins' faces as I roamed the halls of the opposite building. Normally I go between them, but since [Note: story deleted due to extreme boringness--Editor], I'll be full-time with the lower classmen.

One hour into the day and I'd managed to move several stacks of boxes across the room several times, reluctant to open them.

Two hours into the day and I'd typed up more documents and brooded in the cafeteria, surrounded by faces I didn't know and bereft of better company for the moment.

Three hours in was the first school meeting. The principal reamed us out about test scores, settled down to assure us he knew we were great, then exploded once again about "If you're so damned great, why do our scores stink?" He then lapsed into jocularity and urged all older people to go in for their colonoscopy. So it's not enough the school is up our ass...

Twenty minutes after that meeting, I wanted to go home. But then it was time for the next meeting, where my department previewed what would come up in the next meeting. The only contribution I made was to deliver a (false) phone number for colonoscopies.

An hour after that, the district meeting. Mr. Roma sat in fron of me, and didn't even acknowledge me; then he got garrulous with the guy on the other side of me. The asshole. He just made the list. Again.

The administration gave a speech, imploring us to take NCLB seriously even as we recognize its absurdity; the union reps reminded us that, even though we were "doing our all," we should still "try to do our all." Whatever that means. A tech guy got up to tell us about a meeting teaching us how to work the new phone system. "It should only last a half hour or so," he promised. "Unless it takes longer."

Then the rest of administration got up there and told us that the best way for kids and adults to succeed was to be part of a community. That means, apparently, endless tests, curriculum alignments and meetings upon meetings, but it can also include cookouts and activities (fed into by extracurriculars usually pooh-poohed in favor of study halls, but that couldn't possibly matter less). "We know what you guys are capable of," we were told, "so get on out there and get it done."

Yay team, I thought to myself in the back. Now is my phone line working yet?

As it turned out, no. That was another hour pissed away later.

Look at my attitude. Can you believe this?

Since I'm treading unfamiliar ground that's nonetheless familiar, since the old has now become the new and since everywhere I turn there's something else I have to redefine because [Note: this portion deleted due to extreme whininess--Editor], I'm in for a temperament overhaul. If I don't get one soon, there's going to be trouble.

The next two days usually take care of that. Usually. It's this time of year I remember everything that can and has gone wrong, and imagine a variety of things that could go wrong. Pointless, I admit, but then again, so are standardized tests, and they're sure not going anywhere. Once I actually attend to the hands-on business of teaching (and contrary to popular opinion, that is not always the priority in American education), that part of my psyche starts to settle down.

Anway, if you need me at school, don't call my work number. I think the outgoing message I recorded has a hex in it.

I hate Mr. Roma

I'm having another professional crisis. And I blame one Rick Roma of the history department.

It's perhaps an inopportune time for plaudits, as President Bush uses the ruler of No Child Left Behind to whap the collective knuckles of my school district, but for once, the president isn't the reason for my reticence to accept praise. This time, it's a colleague.

Rick Roma. He sucks.

He's single, late-thirties to early forties, constantly gushed over by students and faculty alike. We're of a similar build and height, we both wear glasses, and we have a lot of students in common. They leave his class able to cite differences between European and American law without even cracking open a book. They send him cards from college. And you know what he says in return? "I'm just doing my job."

The nerve of that bastard.

Anyway, the last night of layout had my seniors in tears. Normally they're in tears because of an extendd run of late nights, bad food and even worse company. This time, they were crying because they didn't want to go. And they told me so. "I don't want to graduate--this is so much fun." "You've changed my life. You really have." "Thank you so much for everything."

Well, I'm not one to accept compliments. I thanked them, sure, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking, "Roma probably gets more compliments for doing the lit mag. If I were Roma, I'd be getting seniors dedicating their first novels to me by now."

Then my state-award-winning editor gifts me with a wind gun. I don't know what the real name for this marvelous contraption is, but in layman's terms, it's basically a gun that compresses and shoots pressurized air with all the precision of a sawed off shotgun. I've used them before--if you're good, you can blow someone's hat off their head from fifty yards away. Me, I can ruffle a phone book while sitting at my desk.

Okay, so it's a touching gift, but Roma would have gotten a perpetual wind machine. And a solar-powered gyro-thingee to work it automatically, made by a student whom he taught physics in his spare time. The jerk. I hate his guts.

This is the self-deprecation that runs through my mind when students and faculty are trying to congratulate me. After everything was over and I was done negating the compliments, I schlepped off to the banquet.

I won't go into the banquet in detail. Suffice to say, certain students perform at a considerably high level, and they ask teachers to attend this honorary banquet with their parents to show their gratitute. They pick a teacher who "had significant influence on them." I was chosen by a kid in my afternoon literature class. Bright kid, pretty quiet but friendly, good sense of humor, good writer (a self-confessed "synonym junkie," he makes a sesquipedalian look like positively economical). I started to swell up a little when his parents told me his accounts of my class (no need to go into it all here, but rest assured, I come off as a god)...and then I saw Roma two tables over. Three or four students had invited him, that's how popular he is. The jerk. What a jerk.

No matter. I was being honored. I got my picture taken, got a nifty certificate, shook a lot of hands and did some home-fried politicking with the parents and faculty. On my way out, I stopped in front of a mirror to straighten myself out, and there was Roma, right beside me, combing that luxurious mane of hair and flaunting his utter lack of fear of a receding hairline.

"Have a good night," he said to me. "Congratulations."

Can you believe the condescending attitude? What a jerk. He can go to hell. Good thing for him I was on my way out anyway.

So, Roma, if you're reading this (and I know you are, you smug bastard), I'm warning you. Stop fucking with my triumphs. Eat your humble pie and stay away from my business. Or I'll corral the several knuckle-draggers that aren't failing my classes and tell them to go to work on that big ugly head of yours.

I'll see you at the scholarship banquet tomorrow. Stay out of my way.