Freddogg Off The Chain

The course title was School and Society and the Ph.D. from Lebanon had been sentenced to a fate worse than staying in his own country which was to teach an Introductory Course in Education to American Education majors.
I was in the class trying to back up my Anthropology major with certification just in case I ever had to market myself at the secondary level if my dream of chasing primitives into the denseness of third world obscurity for the purpose of finding out what they thought was funny was never realized.
The guy opened the book, stood at the Podium and said, ”The first kindergarten in the United States was founded in 1842 by Adam Rowlancen.”
I raised my hand, ”Excuse me but beyond the obvious, who cares, did you just read the first sentence from the textbook?”
He said he did then continued to read the entire first page and over to the second. I raised my hand.
“Is there a chance you may be reading entire first chapter here during the entire first class?”
He said that was his plan. There were future teachers throughout the room and none seemed to have a problem with it. I got up and left and never came back.

About 8 years later I was teaching high school and lifted from a Friday afternoon class along with other secondary social studies teachers for a mandatory seminar on Teaching Reading in the Content Area.
The plan was to be lifted for six consecutive half day Fridays three in the afternoon and three in the morning because The Bitch was getting paid and needed a captive audience.
Some of my older colleagues went right into that sleeping horse routine with erect seated posture but I never sleep on the job or in public places. I asked the woman a question about kids who are not motivated to read textbooks. She looked right through me then looked down and continued to read her notes. I instantly realized that this was not going to be an interactive learning experience so I got up and left.
There was a substitute in my room making money so I went to guidance and pulled folders just to get background info on some of my students. On Monday there were three administrators totaling 350 grand in salaries asking me why I left the meeting and telling me I didn’t have a choice but to attend the next five.
“See if I’m there” I said, using whacky behavior defenses learned from teaching emotionally disturbed teens.
The union told me I had no choice but to show up where they mandated. I told them that teachers were sleeping while the conscious ones were being ignored. I told everyone that I didn’t survive and arrive at a level of education to play stupid games to justify some one else’s job.
I drew the line and rolled the dice because I stand for many things and sit for dam few. The compromise was that I take a half of personal day for each session and amazingly it was the only time I missed all year.
Human captivity must be earned by performance of the leader or by threat of violence. In the words of professor Irwin Cory "A kind word and a gun goes a lot further than just a kind word."

Freddogg