subtitled: How mistreated students get their revenge.

In the early 2000’s I worked at a high school with a diverse and entertaining, shall we say, cast of characters who were my colleagues: teachers. To be specific in this case, we did happen to have quite a few interesting English teachers in our midst. Looking back, it’s almost hard to believe that this collection of folks co-existed in this one building for so long.

Two of these English teachers will be my focus today. I will call the first one John Flenney, and the second one Hartford Cannley. Aren’t I good at inventing names?

In the case of Mr. Flenney, he was a Catholic school graduate and a literary bombast like you’ve never seen. He had a tattoo of Shakespeare on his bicep. Now, this fellow was teaching the highest level of students in the school for the class AP Literature, as was I. So we were the two teachers in the school implementing this advanced curriculum. But his group was called “AP Gifted,” and my group was called “AP Honors.” All the students knew about this distinction. Whenever that happens, comparisons of the teachers abound.

Student 1: Oh you have Mr. Flenney? Poor you. I have Silverman. She’s got a better sense of humor.

Student 2: Oh but our test scores have been higher, I think.

Student 1: yeah, but doesn’t he walk out of class to go smoke in his car for about 15 minutes every period?

Student 2: Yeah but our test scores are better.

This battle of the test scores actually did exist. When I think of now, it’s so hard to believe. I have always, always been all about collegiality, not competitiveness. There is literally no reason or benefit to competing against other teachers, besides just some weird kind of ego. Well, Mr. Flenney’s middle name was ego. As it turns out, his class was run like boot camp: one word uttered out of a student’s mouth that was unsolicited wound up with a detention, and an immediate humiliation. One of his primary methods for teaching writing was to write, on the board, an essay –paragraph by paragraph–for the students to copy down. Every day. Copy down this paragraph (which was his analysis of some story of poem, with his words and opinions embedded.) So these students, whose IQ’s were probably all upwards of 160, sat silently and copied their arrogant, chain-smoking teacher’s opinions about the literature.

Students not only hated him, they loathed him.

This is kind of what his writing on the board looked like:

However, these were not the type of students to get into any kind of trouble ever. A few of them got themselves transferred into the “kinder and gentler” world of my classes, but the admin did NOT want this to become an “underground railroad” of transfers. PLUS, it was true that somehow this guy did have results of high test scores. I contend that his students were so brilliant that they could teach themselves any subject.

But onto my main thesis: When students loathe a teacher so dreadfully much, but do NOT want to get in trouble, something happens I call “going underground.” This means that the students band together to do as much damage and hurt to that teacher as they can, without ever getting caught. One time, Mr. Flenney found a used prophylactic on his teacher chair. Another day, he found letter wrinkled up and thrown (carefully placed) onto his classroom floor spewing violent and vulgar obscenities about him and how he needs to be fired, etc…

When students like and trust their teacher, the teacher can do pretty much anything and still trust the students. I gave an example earlier about falling asleep in class and having the students continue their work? Why? They liked the work and trusted me. I know it was not a great thing for me to doze off once in a while, but I put a shitload of effort and heart into my teaching every day. And I respected (and respect) my students.

The subversiveness that occurred in Mr. Flenney’s class was something I have recently been reminded of. Yesterday, the president of the United States went before the United Nations and gave the most idiotic and embarrassing speech ever given or even seen in this assemblage. During this event, two notable things happened: the escalator he and his pretend wife stepped onto STOPPED the moment his foot touched down on it. The next event was that Mr. “I love to make speeches without a teleprompter” had to deal with an unworking teleprompter. Talk about awkward silences. The UN representatives watched with quiet wonderment and a smattering of whispers and giggles as this president told them that their countries were “going to hell.”

These two events, I propose, happened as a result of people “going underground,” just like in Mr. Flenney’s class. It is the outward expression of inward loathing towards an alleged authority figure, and the people who administer these subversive tactics do not get caught.

By the way, the other teacher, Hartford Cannley, ended up going to jail. He had surreptitious affairs with his female students. All his students knew it, and they “went underground” to make sure that his behaviors were discovered. They also hated and loathed this teacher but did not want to get in trouble.

Here is to the subversives who are forced to “go underground” in order to administer justice against these despised “figureheads, ” let’s say. I wish all of you the presence of mind and the persistence to make these guys feel some of your pain.