And The Moral of the Story Is.....?

    I just got back from seventh-period English class and my teacher, who was out sick Monday through Thursday last week, has come back. I was on a student court trip all day Friday, when she finally returned. I asked three other students from my English class about what happened on Friday, and they all said that the teacher chewed them out for talking during class and generally “disrespecting” the subs. She told them she hoped it wouldn’t happen again (dream on, Mrs. T - you’re teaching middle school). The students apparently tried to argue that the subs were just insane - which they were - but of course, two random teachers against a class of twenty-something eyewitness students? The students don’t have a chance.

    I have frequently noticed this pattern, as a matter of fact.

    So today, we began preparations for our next writing assignment, which is going to be a narrative. The teacher says it can be about anything we want as long as it has a theme. (Remember - when she says theme, she means moral.) My prediction is that we’re going to get a rubric about length, structure (i.e., introduce the conflict at the beginning, have two instances of rising action and two of falling action, etc.), and just about everything except plot, but teachers have varying definitions of “anything”.

    She is still determined that authors only write stories to teach life lessons, and that this is applicable in every case. I wholeheartedly disagree - maybe you can take a moral from most stories, but that doesn’t mean they were just written as lessons. Maybe it’s me, but that sort of makes it sound like fiction has to be justified - like you can’t just read or write a book for enjoyment, like I do; you have to be getting a life lesson from it. For instance, what is the moral of, say, any of the Harry Potter books? Do you think J.K. Rowling wrote them to teach that, I don’t know, friendship conquers everything or something equally sentimental? (And if she submitted Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for an English assignment before she published it, would her teacher tell her it was unsatisfactory because it didn’t follow some neat little rubric and she didn’t emphasize her moral?)

    I thought for a while about what I would write. Originally, I was trying to think of a way to skirt the guidelines and let her draw her own conclusions about the moral of whatever story I chose to write. Then I had a better idea: I would tell the story of a girl who loved to write, hated guidelines, especially for narratives, and thought her teacher’s opinions about morals - which, by a complete and utter coincidence, happened to be exactly the same as my English teacher’s - were kind of stupid. And I would ensure it was also good writing.

    Asking for trouble? Obviously - though that’s not why I came up with the idea. I just thought it would be a good piece of writing, and maybe make her think a little. (Not likely, but a girl can dream, right?)

    Today, she passed out blue index cards for everybody. We had to brainstorm potential themes for our narratives. She told us we didn’t have to make our final decision - we could change our minds when we started writing, and she just wanted us to have an idea of what we were going to write. Since I already had mine figured out, I got permission to skip the brainstorming page and just write mine. I assumed, when she didn’t collect it, that she would get them at the end of class, so I left mine on my desk. It read Moral: Not all stories have morals and so students shouldn’t be required to write every story with a moral.

    Looking back on it, it’s a lot more provocative than it seemed at the time. I could - and probably should - have left it at not all stories have morals. But still, it was legitimate. I already knew how I could write it.

    It’s probably easy to figure out where this is going, right?

    I got out my book and read for about fifteen minutes. Finally, she noticed I was done and asked for my card. Tensing, I handed it to her and innocently buried my nose back in my book, pretending I foresaw absolutely no impending explosion, while I waited for the impending explosion.

    “This isn’t a theme,” she stated coldly, handing the card back to me. “Try again.”

    “Why isn’t it a theme?” Okay, it’s obviously not the sort of theme she wanted, but I could write a story with this theme. I had already had it planned. I could prove it.

    “Because I’m telling you it’s not.”

    “Well, yes, I know, but why isn’t it a theme?”

    “Because,” she repeated, her voice hard, “I said it’s not a theme.”

    I could sense that to argue further would have been suicide. Irritated at her lack of answer, I erased my theme. She walked away, and immediately, the others at my table wanted to hear the controversial theme. I recited it for them.

    “Well,” I said, perking up as I recalled something she had said earlier, “she told us we could change it when we started writing. I’ll just put down some sentimental fake theme and write my story with the real one.”

    Janet suggested, “You should just do something like ‘Friends should always stick together.’”

    “Great,” I agreed, blowing eraser dust off my index card and writing it down. “Just the nauseating sort of thing teachers want.”

    Janet snorted in reply.

    The teacher saw as soon as I was finished writing and came over to retrieve my card. She picked it up gingerly, as if it was a bomb that could go off at any time. I could almost sense her relief as she scanned it. “Much better,” she said, an undercurrent of warning in her voice as she carried it away.

    Ha. If she thinks I give up that easily, she doesn’t know me very well.

    The moral of this story is: If you come up with a moral a teacher doesn’t like, she will treat you like a tantrumming two-year-old.

PS: Here is the story I eventually came up with and submitted.

The Power of Empty Threats (or lack thereof)

     Last year, during lunch, one of my friends was texting her dad. I don’t know the whole story - she said he was taking her somewhere and they had to work out the logistics of it, or something to that effect. But you’re not allowed to have your cell phone out during lunch.

    I don’t know why it mattered. She wasn’t being disruptive or anything, just sitting there quietly, not bothering a soul. But a teacher came by, noticed her phone-holding position, and asked, “Do you have your phone?”

    Of course, by the time she got the words out, the girl had slipped her cell phone subtly beneath the lunch table. She looked up, weighing her options, and then said, awkwardly, “No.”

    Well, what the heck else was she supposed to say?

    “I hope not,” replied the teacher, looking expectantly at her. It was clear she didn’t believe a word.

    “Um…I don’t.”

    “Good. I’m glad.” The teacher gave her a long look and moved on.

    When she had gone, the girl turned to me and muttered, “Yeah, people just randomly look down at their crotches and smile.”

    It was pretty obvious she was lying. I’m glad the teacher didn’t call her on it, of course, but it seemed pretty stupid on her part. Did she think she was giving the girl a warning, or guilting her, or what?

    Here’s a hint for any teachers who may think that works: It doesn’t. Students know when you know. And they don’t see your silence as a warning, they see it as a weakness. They won’t feel guilty for lying, they’ll scorn you. And it’s not because they’re heartless.

    Teachers make a big deal out of making the rules and insisting they have power. It’s like a silent challenge, and most students treat it as such. When it comes to actually enforcing the rules, though, teachers are a bit lacking. And students know this from experience. They will not hesitate to take advantage of it, just to prove they can.

    When a teacher says, “Stop talking over me, or I’ll give this whole class lunch detention,” they won’t. When a teacher says, “I guess you guys can’t handle being in groups,” students know, even before the teachers admit it to themselves, that they’ll be back in groups by the end of the week.

    My English teacher made this threat. She is the rare type who actually carries out most of her threats. She still makes us sit separately (though I’m betting at the start of next quarter, we’ll get a chance to “redeem ourselves”), and it’s been several weeks. It was kind of impressive.

    Then recently, while we were working on our persuasive essays, things fell to pieces.  All the students were sitting at their desks with their laptops. Someone unplugged the headphones from the laptop next to them while the owner was absent, and loud music played for a good five or ten seconds before the giggling student plugged them back in. The teacher snapped, “It’s not cute, and it’s not funny.” The whole class was still snorting with laughter. “If you guys would rather handwrite this essay tomorrow, that’s fine with me.” The laughter abruptly halted.

    Several students talked quietly amongst themselves. Others looked up photos on their computers instead of typing. (I may or may not have been pausing to type creative insults about a computer program that opened a window every ten seconds after my mouse stopped moving, but that’s beside the point.) But a not-entirely-focused class is to be expected when you teach middle school. About five minutes before the bell, she ordered brusquely, “Sign out and put your Chromebooks away. Sit at your desks until the bell. I shouldn’t be hearing your voices.” She paused a moment to let this sink in, then continued, “And tomorrow, we’ll be handwriting this whole essay.”

    Then, right before the bell rang, she informed us, “Tomorrow, you get one last chance to impress me with your Chromebooks.”

    And just like that, most of the lingering respect I felt for her vanished more quickly than joy in math class.

    The more empty threats a teacher makes, the less effective future threats will be. When you get an exceptionally rare teacher (that isn’t a sub) that actually carries out some of what he or she threatens, most likely they will be labeled a dictator. Striking a balance is possible, but difficult. And I’d say I admire teachers for achieving it, but…I’m not sure I’ve ever met a teacher who has.