As an educator who spent 28 years in public schools I know the feeling but loved the bright kids who challenged me. As an example of the Calvin type of kid I include the following excerpt from one chapter of my book, TWENTY EIGHT YEARS IN PUBLIC EDUCATION, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
While sitting at my desk one lunch hour I heard the outer office door open and Walt’s voice ask Syl, my secretary, “Is Mr. McCarty in?”
Syl gave me a questioning look and I waved my hand to her to send him in so she told him, “Go in, he’ll see you now.” Walt entered my office with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. I knew he was up to something. He was obviously prepared to do battle with me, his old nemesis, the authority figure in his life, and was very confident of his position.
Walt stepped to the front of my desk and dropped a stack of about 10papers on it, neatly stapled together, “Read this.” I took the package and began to read. The first page started, “We the following demand a longer lunch period. It has been proven that insufficient time allowed for the digestion of food . . .” After twenty-some years this was, as I recall, the beginning of one and one half pages of neatly typed, double spaced copy, quoting national leaders in the field of gastroenterology from medical journals, and citing studies which showed the harmful effects of stress when eating with insufficient time to digest food. It then went on to say how the students of Smallville High School had suffered from the archaic rules of the present administration. It ended with the statement, “Therefore, we the students of Smallville High School demand a longer lunch period.”
As I read Walt was fairly beaming with joy. He had finally bested me. Iam sure he could just imagine old man McCarty sputtering, red in the face, caught off guard, totally unprepared for this intellectual onslaught and speechless. You recall the title of this chapter? It was moments like this that led me to the conclusion that this was one bright kid. I have seen papers from college English majors that lacked the punctuation, cites, quotes, and bibliography of his papers. I would have needed much time and research to match it. I wish I had kept that stack of papers.
The first page and one half was followed by about eight pages of notebook paper with roughly twenty-five signatures of high school students per page, equaling about one half of the student body. I carefully read the stack, looked at Walt, picked up my pen, signed the last page and handed the stack of papers back to him.
He looked at me incredulously and said, “What am I supposed to dowith these?”
I looked at him just as incredulously and asked, “Well, what was I supposed to do with them?”
He looked at me rather irritated and said, “Well, we want a longer lunch period!”
To which I replied, “Well, so do I!”
“Yes, but you’re the principal.”
“I know, but we have a contract with the teacher’s union. If you can get them to agree to a longer lunch period, I’ll certainly go along with it. Of course if they agree that will mean we will have to start the school day sooner or end it later as the state requires students to be in school a specified number of hours each day. Oh yes, and lunch time doesn’t count. I’ll tell you what though, you keep working on it and if you can get those teachers to agree I certainly will not stand in your way. I could definitely use more time for lunch. Besides I arrive early and leave late so it will not affect the length of my day very much anyway.”
Walt took his stack of papers and stormed from the office. I’ve never seen those papers since. I spent the remainder of the day thinking, “Sometimes it is great to be alive,” especially when you know you have handled a potentially difficult situation about as well as it could be handled.
legaleagle48 is correct. I had parents who knew how to discipline and I occasionally received a swat on the rear. Conversely I had a friend whose father beat all of his children unmercifully. I was in public education for twenty-eight years, from teacher to principal. When I started you were allowed to use physical force when necessary. By the time I retired it had changed. A very good middle school principal I knew of retired after he was charged with assault by the parents of two seventh graders. What was his crime? When the told him to go f_ _k himself he grabbed them by the shirt and took them to his office where he called the parents. He was found innocent but after that he said to hell with it. He spent several months worrying whether or not he would be incarcerated. He retired and took a job selling appliances at Sears. Dale
As far as I am concerned, there are three absolutes, the film about the Muslim religion was absolutely awful, there were many riots in the mid-east as a result of that film, and the attack on Benghazi was a terrorist attack planned to coincide with the date 9/11. So says Dale Franklin
As an educator who spent 28 years in public schools I know the feeling but loved the bright kids who challenged me. As an example of the Calvin type of kid I include the following excerpt from one chapter of my book, TWENTY EIGHT YEARS IN PUBLIC EDUCATION, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
While sitting at my desk one lunch hour I heard the outer office door open and Walt’s voice ask Syl, my secretary, “Is Mr. McCarty in?”
Syl gave me a questioning look and I waved my hand to her to send him in so she told him, “Go in, he’ll see you now.” Walt entered my office with a look of smug satisfaction on his face. I knew he was up to something. He was obviously prepared to do battle with me, his old nemesis, the authority figure in his life, and was very confident of his position.
Walt stepped to the front of my desk and dropped a stack of about 10papers on it, neatly stapled together, “Read this.” I took the package and began to read. The first page started, “We the following demand a longer lunch period. It has been proven that insufficient time allowed for the digestion of food . . .” After twenty-some years this was, as I recall, the beginning of one and one half pages of neatly typed, double spaced copy, quoting national leaders in the field of gastroenterology from medical journals, and citing studies which showed the harmful effects of stress when eating with insufficient time to digest food. It then went on to say how the students of Smallville High School had suffered from the archaic rules of the present administration. It ended with the statement, “Therefore, we the students of Smallville High School demand a longer lunch period.”
As I read Walt was fairly beaming with joy. He had finally bested me. Iam sure he could just imagine old man McCarty sputtering, red in the face, caught off guard, totally unprepared for this intellectual onslaught and speechless. You recall the title of this chapter? It was moments like this that led me to the conclusion that this was one bright kid. I have seen papers from college English majors that lacked the punctuation, cites, quotes, and bibliography of his papers. I would have needed much time and research to match it. I wish I had kept that stack of papers.
The first page and one half was followed by about eight pages of notebook paper with roughly twenty-five signatures of high school students per page, equaling about one half of the student body. I carefully read the stack, looked at Walt, picked up my pen, signed the last page and handed the stack of papers back to him.
He looked at me incredulously and said, “What am I supposed to dowith these?”
I looked at him just as incredulously and asked, “Well, what was I supposed to do with them?”
He looked at me rather irritated and said, “Well, we want a longer lunch period!”
To which I replied, “Well, so do I!”
“Yes, but you’re the principal.”
“I know, but we have a contract with the teacher’s union. If you can get them to agree to a longer lunch period, I’ll certainly go along with it. Of course if they agree that will mean we will have to start the school day sooner or end it later as the state requires students to be in school a specified number of hours each day. Oh yes, and lunch time doesn’t count. I’ll tell you what though, you keep working on it and if you can get those teachers to agree I certainly will not stand in your way. I could definitely use more time for lunch. Besides I arrive early and leave late so it will not affect the length of my day very much anyway.”
Walt took his stack of papers and stormed from the office. I’ve never seen those papers since. I spent the remainder of the day thinking, “Sometimes it is great to be alive,” especially when you know you have handled a potentially difficult situation about as well as it could be handled.