Santa Monica

1993

Some of my classmates (friends in the loose, we talk at lunch maybe sometimes sense of the word) tried to drive their English teacher insane by playing Judas Priest’s “Breaking The Law” at a barely imperceptible volume from a portable tape player whenever her back was to us as she scrawled notes on the board in her addled, tenured hand.

Despite what some of you are no doubt thinking, I was not involved in this plan in any way. It would have been more elaborate if it were mine. I was, when I put my mind to it, quite the little criminal.

As to whether it worked, I have no clue. I heard rumors during college that she had been institutionalized.

1999

One of the classes I was student teaching was, to put it lightly, a discipline problem. I blame this, in retrospect, on the fact that I ended up making a Chevy Chase-style pratfall during my first class with them. Mostly student athletes, they were completely unconcerned with academics and engrossed in their own personal drama instead. Much like a lot of high school kids. Heck, much like High School Jeff was. I took the class outside to talk about Lyrical Ballads – I thought it was a good idea at the time – and had a student throw a rock at me. I learned a lesson about rocks that day – rocks hurt.

On a separate occasion, I’m lecturing at the front of the room – Samuel Johnson was the topic of the day, I believe – and from the back of the room, I hear…voices.

“Da da. Ba da dakka da ba da.”

“Chikka chikka.”

I turned around, and the voices were gone.  Was I going crazy?  I was student teaching, taking classes, working, dating and maintaining an active social life – I didn’t sleep much.

I turn back to the board, and it starts again.

“Da da. Ba da dakka da ba da.”

“Chikka chikka.”

I let it go.  I’m not crazy, I tell myself, and if it is just kids, I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of getting under my skin.

“Da da. Ba da dakka da ba da.”

“Chikka chikka.”

It repeated itself for a bit, and then the lyrics started.

“I am still living with your gho-ost”

Yes. A trio of football players were singing “Santa Monica” by Everclear in the back of the classroom. As I was talking about Samuel Johnson. One sang the words, one sang the bass line, and the third was responsible for the ‘chikka chikka.’ Truth be told, they weren’t bad.

I’m torn between trying to ignore, letting it pass and stopping it.  I let them finish that first part of the first verse and I ask, “Hey Frank, who sings that?” When he answers, “Everclear,” I tell him to leave the singing to Everclear. That stops them.

Until the following day. And the day after. They’d walk past my classroom during other periods. If my door was open, I could hear “Da da. Ba da dakka da ba da.” When I ate lunch in the teacher’s lounge, they stood outside, regaling me with a wealth of “chikka chikka.”

They were trying to break me.

I want to tell you I fought back.  I want to tell you I won.

If I told you those things, I’d be a liar.

I learned to ignore it.  In a move that would establish precedent for the way I’d spend parts of my adulthood, I decided that it wasn’t worth it to fight back.  And, having my spirit crushed so thoroughly by three students and one pop song in such a short span of time, I decided that teaching was not for me.  Or rather, realized that I had had done to me in months what some teachers had done to them over decades and further realized that education had nothing left to offer me now that I’d already scaled its peak.

Some of that last paragraph may be an exaggeration.

Going back to the high school classroom is something I think about from time to time. My attempts to do so over the years have met with success ranging from “I don’t want to be the administrator that ruins your idealism,” to a vague intimation with a dollar amount attached to it.  My main fear about trying that hat on again is that it wouldn’t fit any longer.  I think I was pretty capable at the college level during my brief time there, and the secret to that was simple: in a collegiate environment, I had the leeway to be a misanthropic curmudgeon, “Dr. House for English,” as one student termed me.  In a high school environment, I have to be empathetic and emotionally available and capable of bursting into song at any moment’s notice. At least, I assume I do.

I mean, that’s what TV tells me.

Tagged as: Existential Angst, Random