Steven Hunley
09-28-2016, 07:31 PM
Whipping Post
I only picked the Creative, Performing and Media Arts Magnet Middle School for one reason: because it wasn’t as far as the Congo, and was on Conrad St. I’m beholding, literally, to Old Captain Joe. Like ship’s doctors, visiting teachers can be a strange lot.
So I came, I saw, and imagined the staff was the crew on my steamer.
Even from the first moment I entered the office I saw an extra infusion of camaraderie.
Is it because it’s a middle school?
I decided to make keen literary observations and then set my imagination to play.
There are a thousand students, they tell me. Yet the office crew still has a sense of humor and the teachers are helpful as can be to a stranger in their midst. I must imagine this more dramatically. Let’s see. I’ll try:
The staff is assaulted and tested every day by students grade six through eighth. Does this make them feel like they’re deeper in the trenches than usual?
“You deal with a group of young men and women who take every opportunity to test you, and not just one on one, or two on one, but if a whole class were to decide to revolt, all the education codes and all the penal codes in the world wouldn’t stop them from trying you up to Gregg Allman’s whipping post.”
Because the staff has experienced the assaults and survived, they’ve become the veteranos, and esprit de corps is high. The educators support each other flawlessly, calmly, with care and precision.
But this only goes to show that too much imagination doesn’t always highlight the truth. The truth was that the kids were wonderful and the staff was wonderful right back. What then made the camaraderie so remarkable? Maybe it was my rose-colored glasses. I enjoy my job.
When I need more drama I’ll set sail on a steamer up the Congo. They say it’s still Heart of Darkness there. Oh, and by the way, the good feelings I saw demonstrated by the staff when I was waiting for attendance sheets in the main office was the return of a retired teacher who came by for a visit. It was a touching scene, and tinted my glasses rose-colored right there. It was like a female version of Mr. Chips. Make that 21st Century Mrs. Chips.
Great staff, great school, and the Special Ed kids were the greatest of all.
İStevenHunley2016
https://youtu.be/ktTxiGAewZ4 Whipping Post
I only picked the Creative, Performing and Media Arts Magnet Middle School for one reason: because it wasn’t as far as the Congo, and was on Conrad St. I’m beholding, literally, to Old Captain Joe. Like ship’s doctors, visiting teachers can be a strange lot.
So I came, I saw, and imagined the staff was the crew on my steamer.
Even from the first moment I entered the office I saw an extra infusion of camaraderie.
Is it because it’s a middle school?
I decided to make keen literary observations and then set my imagination to play.
There are a thousand students, they tell me. Yet the office crew still has a sense of humor and the teachers are helpful as can be to a stranger in their midst. I must imagine this more dramatically. Let’s see. I’ll try:
The staff is assaulted and tested every day by students grade six through eighth. Does this make them feel like they’re deeper in the trenches than usual?
“You deal with a group of young men and women who take every opportunity to test you, and not just one on one, or two on one, but if a whole class were to decide to revolt, all the education codes and all the penal codes in the world wouldn’t stop them from trying you up to Gregg Allman’s whipping post.”
Because the staff has experienced the assaults and survived, they’ve become the veteranos, and esprit de corps is high. The educators support each other flawlessly, calmly, with care and precision.
But this only goes to show that too much imagination doesn’t always highlight the truth. The truth was that the kids were wonderful and the staff was wonderful right back. What then made the camaraderie so remarkable? Maybe it was my rose-colored glasses. I enjoy my job.
When I need more drama I’ll set sail on a steamer up the Congo. They say it’s still Heart of Darkness there. Oh, and by the way, the good feelings I saw demonstrated by the staff when I was waiting for attendance sheets in the main office was the return of a retired teacher who came by for a visit. It was a touching scene, and tinted my glasses rose-colored right there. It was like a female version of Mr. Chips. Make that 21st Century Mrs. Chips.
Great staff, great school, and the Special Ed kids were the greatest of all.
İStevenHunley2016
https://youtu.be/ktTxiGAewZ4 Whipping Post