Sarcastic School Teachers

I took Greyhound Bus Lines from Atlanta to Greenville on Saturday. The driver gave his obligatory speech after offering a bag of chips an 3/4ths of a soda he found for 75 cents each - if the unknown owner didn't want it. He didn't. Half-way through his 'don't smoke and don't take your shoes off' verbal escapade he caught someone jabbering.

"You want me to stop the bus? I'll stop the bus. I'll kick you off the bus if I have to. It's no problem. Don't talk while I'm talking. Don't talk while I'm talking." The person whom I never saw stopped talking.

After a few minutes of quiet as we were settling into our not-so-long ride to G-Vegas, the bus driver brings it back up.

"Now, why would anyone talk while I'm talking? Does anyone know why you would talk while I'm talking? Anyone? Answer me that. I don't know why. Does anyone have an answer." His parade was laced with sarcasm as he called out the chatter fiend.

The man sitting next to me, who must have been aged between thirty and forty, whispered to me, "Actin' like a school teacher."

"Heh," I agreed.

All throughout the day that line kept my mind bothered. "Just like a school teacher." How true. I started remembering some of my sarcastic, impatient, cranky, less mature teachers littered between Kindergarten and 12th grade. I think about my little brother who is now home-schooled because he doesn't know how to handle the teachers. Well, I'm sure they have a hard time with him as well.

He's just 11 now, a bully with a soft heart, and he can't help snapping back sarcastic remarks at sarcastic teachers. He told one frizzy-haired teacher to 'Brush her hair!' when he got in trouble after another kid tripped him. After being told that class was not "The Connor Show" he thought back, though holding his tongue, "Well, this isn't the Mr. Rice Show, either." You go boy. I think I had Mr. Rice in middle school, too.

I also had a teacher I'll call Mr. Capiche (Not because he was Italian, but because the name sounds close and far enough to make telling this story feel just right.) He was a big n' tall, well built black man and former paratrooper for the military. He taught 7th grade social studies. He won Teacher of the Year a year or two before and he loved telling stories.

He usually only told stories once, but he told us about the Alpha Wolf a few times. Just like the alpha wolf proudly walks through his pack, Mr. Capiche would pace from his desk to the chalkboard down the middle of the classroom.

If another wolf makes eye contact with the alpha wolf for more than three seconds, then the alpha wolf would attack and possibly kill it to show the pack his superiority.

Yes sir.

In his class, you were safest in your seat. If you got up to sharpen your pencil, you risked being asked what you had for supper the night before. It was impossible to remember.

He would make a buzzer sound,"ENNNH. Times up. Better luck next time."

One time I was ready.

"Chris! What did you have for dinner last night?"

"I ate at Ryan's, what'd you have?"

"Uh. Chi.. cken and um." he paused, "You got me. I had chicken and potatoes, though, I didn't forget. But you got me."

Short victory. The next day he asked me to come up to his desk. He placed a 12 inch ruler halfway between him and I.

"On the count of three, try to grab the ruler before I do." This was one of his favorite games.

"Corey," he called to one of his favorite students, "count to three."

Needless to say, he grabbed the ruler quicker than I. He regained his superiority, his mental stability, over me. I remember he called me bug-eyed, or that I had bug-like eyes, they were larger than most eyes in proportion to my face, I guess, and I told my stepmother about it. She had a conference, or maybe just a phone call - I can't remember - with him.

The next day in class he called me out for it. In front of everyone he told me not to go complain or cry to my stepmother about stuff. Capiche?

Maybe you can tell, maybe you can't, but I was definitely a little wimp in middle school. I was that way until about 11th grade. I liked his class even though he picked on me, though, and I respected him. I used to give respect to a lot of people that didn't deserve it. That's what you do when you're a wimp. You want the people who bully you to respect you. You set the wrong goals in life.

Anyways, I got the best of him, eventually.

One day in class he offered a gamble to anyone that wanted to take it. He would ask a question, something to do with geography, and if we answered correctly within thirty seconds he would give us a free 100 quiz grade that would average in with our other quizzes. If we got it wrong, he would average in a 0 quiz grade. Being the little gambler that I've always been, I went for it.

"What's the capital of Missouri?" What was I thinking? I don't know this stuff. I didn't answer, or I didn't answer correctly, I don't remember.

I sat down with a new zero quiz grade. He asked if I wanted to try again and that this time I could use the encyclopedia. Honestly, I can't remember if he offered the encyclopedia or I asked for it. Either way, he asked a much harder question and I had no idea where to look and I sat down again with two fatty zeros.

Because of that, I received a B instead of an A in that quarter.

Getting to where I got him back. One of the most memorable parts of Mr. Capiche's class were the daily trivia questions he had written on the chalkboard. Each was worth a pretty decent amount of bonus points and the points increased throughout the year. Questions ranged from "Who was the first person to discover North America?" (Leif Erikson, I believe, not Christopher Columbus) to "What is the southernmost point of the fifty states of America?" (Key West? Actually that was the wrong answer according to his trivia book, which did not understand English. The answer was death valley, which would be the lowest point. Whatever.

I never got any of the question correct until I cheated. During a class before his, I excused my self to the restroom and went by his empty class. He must have been at lunch or had a teacher planning period. I pressed my face against the door's clear plastic pane and read the chalkboard on the far side of the room through the dark. It asked about some kind of dance. I went to the library and looked it up.

Whenever a student correctly answered one of these questions he would ask how they knew it. He probed them until he believed they had not cheated. Fortunately, I was enough of a queer (quoting my fellow students) to have taken dance the previous year. And I had spent a some time in ISS (In School Suspension). So, I planned to tell him I learned it while doing busy work in ISS for dance class.

Before class, I told another student, Caleb, that I had to study dance in ISS. Mr. Capiche trusted Caleb. In class I submitted my ill-gotten answer, gave my perfect excuse and even had good ol' Caleb back me up. He was surprised, or, I dunno, he respected me for getting the answer right. He wrote a note for me to take to one of the secretaries in the principal's office. It instructed them to change my B from the previous quarter back to an A.

For a few years I wanted to tell him what I did. I wanted to send him a letter explaining that I beat him. He always said he had great memory and I'm sure he would remember what happened ten years later. But, I don't really care. It's not worth it. I'm not sure if he still teaches, either. Maybe he'll read it here one day. Most likely, he won't.

To summarize, I feel that a lot of new teachers, the ones that have grown up in our age of cynicism and sarcasm, take that attitude to work. It may feel appropriate with older kids, to fit in as my mom does her students in high school, but in elementary school? Like I said, my little brother is eleven. He just got to middle school. And just got out, too.

Teachers need to hold their tongue, need to be trained to handle stress better. They all need to age fifty years. Not really, I know.

Call me a hypocrite, I get it. I'm a sarcastic person. Can't you tell? I love using sarcasm to put down bad products or crappy work.

But, really, I hate it. It's like smoking. It kills me and poisons the people around me. I think everyone has similar harmful habits and most self-conscious, or should I say self-aware, people would like to do away with them. It's so deep, though, I was raised with it. It's so stupid.

Every time someone speaks, my mind starts working for the next thing to say. If they said or did something dumb, the first thing I think of isn't patient, it isn't helpful. It's a fucking joke. Some sarcastic remark meant for laughter. Laughter at anothers expense. And it builds up.

Sigh. I just trailed away there. What can you do? I don't really feel like proof reading this, either. Just let me know if I screwed up. Speaking of which, I'm going to buy a grammar book this week I just bought a grammar book. That's right, it's time to step it up.