Tuesday, March 17, 2009

From, the Soon to Be Remaindered Book, "The Teacher's lounge"

THE TEACHERS HALL OF FAME
Almost everybody has heard of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Pro
Football Hall of Fame, but probably very few people know of the existence of the Teachers Hall of Fame in Scranton , Pennsylvania , birthplace of Horace Mann, the “Father of Modern Education.”
Visitors to the Teachers Hall of Fame will find not only beautiful plaques and exhibits about the greats of the teaching profession down through the decades, but also fascinating artifacts and memorabilia collected from the long, proud years of our education system. Visitors to the Teachers Hall of Fame will see:
*** The very first referral ever written up on a student – in 1907 for the then
Shocking crime of blurting out an answer without first raising one's hand
and waiting to be acknowledged.
*** An actual “Dunce Cap” that was placed on the head of the less bright students, before they were made to stand in the corner. Of course, today, such a cap would be highly impractical as there are just so many corners in a classroom.
*** The last actual homework assignment correctly completed by a student and turned in on time (January 23, 1974).
*** An actual suit and tie worn by a student to school (1959).
***A black and white photo of the last time more than one male teacher wore a suit and tie to school (two teachers, 1977).
***The last book report turned in by a student that was not copied word for word from a randomly selected page of the book itself, (1970).
*** The last weekly lesson plan that was actually followed by the teacher to a
a T, day by day (1897).

And, of course, there are exhibits honoring the Greats of Teaching:

----Herman “The Babe” Dullwood – who in school years 1977-1981 submitted, weekly, for 140 weeks, the same exact lesson plan with only the date changed. Dullwood’s extraordinary streak ended when an alert administrator noticed that the teacher, according to the lesson plan, had been teaching the book “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” for nearly four school years.
Dullwood was immediately placed on prescription, but resigned shortly thereafter to take a job with the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“Maximum Molly” Killian – who in her 32 years as a high school science teacher failed each year an average of 91% of her students.
Stubbornly refusing to compromise her high standards, Killian was best known among her students for her familiar refrain, “I’m not here to win any popularity contests. I’m here to insure myself summer school employment!”
Maximum Molly was finally “surplussed” by her school when they decided that having an overabundance of 27-and-28-year-old seniors clogging up the hallways and classrooms was no longer a tenable situation.
Sadly, just two years after being let go, Molly was tracked down by one of her former students who prodceeded to bludgeon her to death with a hefty bag filled with the failure notices she had issued to him.
On her tombstone are the simple words of Molly herself to her students, “Just do the best of which you are capable, but it probably still won’t be good enough!”

Vernon Glucker – Generally considered the most incompetent, deficient teacher in the annals of American education, Glucker spent all 36 years of his career as an educator on prescription. Choose any area – classroom management, knowledge of subject, teaching techniques, student rapport, relationship with colleagues – in each of these areas Glucker showed why he so richly deserved his sobriquet, “the pits of pedagogy.” For example: Glucker was once found tied to his chair and gagged after attempting to teach Hamlet to his students through the use of hand puppets.
In a brilliant stroke of creative teaching, Glucker once issued each student in his class a heavy rock to hurl at him so that they could fully appreciate the horror of the final scene of Shirley Jackson’s short study, “The Lottery.”
After being released from the hospital three weeks later, Glucker picked right up where he left off by agreeing to be hanged by the students to bring to life Ambrose Bierce’s “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge .” Luckily for Vernon , an alert colleague came to his rescue just seconds before the students were going to kick a chair out from under the hapless teacher.
Glucker’s disastrous teaching career finally came to an end by school board decree after a SWAT team had to be called to his classroom when he attempted to have the students do brainstorming on the words “Sesquipedalian Onomatopoeia.”
Glucker is today active in the organization he founded shortly after leaving teaching: “Masochists of America Pro-Defamation League.”

2 comments:

Derek Taylor Shayne said...

This is nothing short of brillance!

Desert Son said...

Thank you---look for Part Deux, tomorrow.