The following is a play-by-play of a typical day in one of my senior year English electives, Print Media. As may become apparent very quickly, we did not respect this teacher at all, and even with sixteen years of perspective, I have to say that this guy was SERIOUSLY THE WORST. His identity is protected here by the nickname we had for him, Mack. Here goes:
1-20-98: OK -- funniest Print Media class EVER. Jasi and Larry, while wrestling, caused quite a commotion.
Just the fact that two students could EVEN BE WRESTLING in the middle of class tells you quite a lot about the dynamic with this teacher.
Larry cheated by resorting to tickling. Naturally Jasi was forced to fall to the ground, scraping her back on the chalk tray! Mack began inquiring, "Did she faint? Did she faint?"
Not, though, "Why the fuck were you wrestling in here?"
It seemed like an easy way out, so Jasi responded, "Yes. Yes I did." Mack kept asking, "What happened?" No one wanted to use the word "wrestling," so finally Jasi came up with an alternate story. She explained that she had tripped and fallen upon trying to "enter the closet." (In actuality, it's a cabinet. It contains shelves, and therefore it's virtually impossible to step inside.) She blamed her fall on the "loose wires" on the ground. (Actually there was only ONE wire, and she herself had knocked it to the ground while falling.) Mack insisted upon filing an "accident report."
First responsible and professional moment from Mack so far. But one that could also possibly incriminate him, right?
Jasi was like, "No! I'm fine." Actually, the "laceration" on her back was terrible looking (As Andria Jones put it -- "You look like you got electrocuted!") This whole incident sparked another: Pat wanted to trip over the garbage can and spill its contents.
My memory is a little hazy on this one, but I feel like that was a near-daily occurrence: Pat trying to trip over the garbage can to be funny. You can tell there was very, very little actual academic work happening. In fact, my senior year, we didn't produce a newspaper at all with the exception of a back to school issue in August and "The Knight Times: Senior Edition" at the very end of the year. We were supposed to have like one a month. Perhaps this diary entry sheds some light on why we did not. Anyway, we left off with Pat's attempt to purposefully trip over the garbage can:
Instead he ended up actually falling INTO it! Steph and I were dying. And the garbage can was in pretty sorry shape.
In the upper margin of this page, I drew Before and After pictures of the garbage can. In the Before picture, the garbage can opening is a perfect circle. In the After picture, it looks like the outline of an amoeba.
Mr. Mack was like, "THAT'S IT! EVERYBODY HAVE A SEAT!"
He should absolutely rip us a new one. We're being total dicks in his classroom.
We thought we were in trouble for sure. However, he merely wanted us to sit down because "apparently no one can walk around in here without falling!" He wondered, "Is there too much radon in here? Do you all have to urinate in a cup to make sure everyone's not on drugs?"
That's the thing I can't figure out about my high school experience. We never WERE on drugs, but we ALWAYS ACTED LIKE WE WERE. I have no idea what caused that or how it might have been exacerbated by actual drugs. I can't even imagine it.
Larry pointed out, "You'll have to file ANOTHER accident report!"
Oh, that Larry!
We found it to be incredibly interesting that Mack actually believed it to be a coincidence that TWO people fell in one period! Later Andria tripped on purpose on her way up to talk to him, and I knocked over a chair.
Jesus. We had NO IDEA when to stop. But, with no consequences LIKE EVER -- why stop?
Steph and I later designated the 20th of every month "Stumble / Injury Day."
That's another thing we were always doing in high school: making up weird holiday-like celebration days. And we completely REMEMBERED them and CELEBRATED them. This is why I didn't have time to do my math homework. I had so many holidays to keep track of, and I wasn't alone in this endeavor. My friends were just as fucking weird as I was. But I think they probably got more homework done than I did.
In retrospect -- especially from a teacher's perspective, now -- I really can't feel sorry for Mack. It was obvious then (and it's even more so now) that HE DID NOT GIVE A SHIT about teaching. He was some sort of amateur actor in local plays (I remember that, once, he played God), and he wasn't exactly secretive about the fact that he cared more about that than teaching. This account is actually kind of one of the CALMER days in Print Media -- I have a bunch of other journal entries about the picnics we would have in there, even when he expressly forbade us from having picnics. But that's a story for another time.
