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student teaching
 
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So Where Did Our Graduate Student
Do His Student Teaching ?
Tell Us About That.
They assigned him to two old white christian guys.
One of them actually brought a bible to his math class.
The other one looked the barber from Mayberry,
always wore a bow tie.
It was a half suburban, half urban school.
He taught two physics classes to seniors,
and a geometry and two algebra classes,
Albebra I and Algebra II, I think.

The first day of his student teaching,
this stocky little mexican teacher kid
comes up to him at the door of his physics classroom
and challenges him to play basketball in the mornings
to "get it all out."

Challenges him to "Get It All Out ?!"
Sounds More Like A Challenge To A Rumble
Than A Collegial Invitation To Join In Recreation.
That was exactly the impression Our Graduate Student had.
This kind of inappropriate behavior happened to him
the entire time he was there doing his student teaching,
from a variety of teachers and administrators.
But Our Graduate Student was a pro.
Remember. He's the one who wrote The 1982 Newsletters
that changed the American dialogue
about racial and sexual politics on campuses
and about liberal fascism on campuses.
He was there doing his student teaching
to get his certificate stamped. That's all.
He just ignored these provocations.

The stocky, little mexican teacher kid
had a tag-along, a wiry, taller white teacher kid.
The stocky, little mexican teacher kid
was clearly the leader of the two.
The stocky, little mexican teacher kid
was a weight-lifter
and he was always lifting weights with the female students
at that high school.
Our Graduate Student was assigned to read the school bulletin
to his homeroom class every day,
and every day he read a submission
from that stocky little mexican teacher kid,
"come on girls, get in shape and lift weights with me
in my weight-lifting class for girls !"

Isn't That Discriminatory ?
Our Graduate Student was there
to get his certificate stamped
by that traffic and teacher certification school.
He wasn't gonna let anybody provoke him.
He was told to read the bulletin to his class every day,
so he read it.
Then he taught his math class.

So, Our Graduate Student didn't bite the bait
on that provocation
or on the morning basketball rumble, either.
After a few weeks, the physics teacher guy
(I simply cannot refer to either of these two
old white christian guys as "master teachers" barf),
the physics teacher guy says to Our Graduate Student
that he plays basketball in the mornings
with those two guys and invites Our Graduate Student.
Well, THAT Sounded Better.
Yeah, but they'd already tipped their hand.
He didn't trust 'em.
Besides, Our Graduate Student was there
to do his student teaching, remember.
His plate was full.
He had five classes and four different preps,
four different classes to prepare for.
It was an intensive, one-semester student teaching program
where he had a full teaching load.
Usually, student teaching dragged out a whole year,
two classes one semester, three classes the next.
Besides, he had a lot of extra projects
assigned by the certificate-stamping school,
papers and writing projects and stuff.
Besides, why didn't the physics teacher old white guy
invite Our Graduate Student to play basketball
in the first place ?
He certainly would have done so
just to be collegial.
That old Mayberry bow tie christian white physics guy
was playin' frat boy pranks
on Our Graduate Student all semester long
and made his teaching assignment
twice as hard as it should have been.
For example, one time he gave Our Graduate Student
a small little gadget and said that he was having difficulty
loosening the screw and assigned that task to Our Graduate Student.
Our Graduate Student tried, when he had the time,
and he quickly realized that it was a prank,
that the screw had been welded or soldered inside
and couldn't be removed.
The old guy chuckled when Our Graduate Student returned it
and said he couldn't get it unscrewed.
So, Our Graduate Student just ignored the old white bow tie churchguy,
and got on with the successful completion of his student teaching.
So, getting back to the basketball rumble invitation,
the stocky little mexican teacher kid had an attitude,
and his white boy tag-along did too.
I mean, what was it with this "get it all out" nonsense ?
An invitation to throw elbows and punches ?
They just couldn't wait to get Our Graduate Student
on the basketball court so they could commit fouls on him
and try to humiliate him or provoke him.
He wasn't gonna bite.
He was a professional.
They weren't.
It's that simple.

The mexican teacher kid, who had a special
weight lifting class for the teenage female students only
that Our Gradute Student was ordered to read about every day,
periodically interfered with Our Graduate Student's teaching
throughout the semester.
One day Our Graduate Student held a class out on the track,
with his class sitting in the bleachers.
He was fulfilling a "lab" requirement.
Our Graduate Student wasn't much into lab classes
which he considers usually to be just mostly busywork
which drives students to madness
just filling out monotonous lab forms.
He did some, but much more important he felt
were the "thought experiments" that went on
inside the students' heads.
So he's out there addressing his students,
who are sitting in the bleachers,
and the mexican weight lifter teacher kid
jogs right in front of him
and starts jogging up and down the bleachers
right between the kids, right in the middle of the students
who were seated on both sides of the stairway in the bleachers.
Our Graduate Student just ignored him.

One day, when the semester was well underway
and Our Graduate Student had gotten his "sea legs",
having caught a rhythm to his hectic and busy routine,
he went into the faculty lunch area at lunch time
and joined the mexican teacher kid and his tag-along white boy.
He greeted them and sat at the empty seat
beside the tag-along white boy teacher kid.
They ignored him.
At one point, the tag-along white boy teacher kid
started speaking and he made a gesture
extending his arms and hands out to the sides
and he put the back of his hand into
Our Graduate Student's face, about an inch from his nose.

That Was An Incredibly Offensive and Provocative Act !
It certainly was.
Our Graduate Student's instincts were right
that very first day when the mexican teacher kid
who lifted weights with only teenage girl students
challenged him to a basketball elbowing and punching rumble.
Ever read Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink?"
I recommend it.
Gladwell explains why intuition, first impressions,
can be so accurate and insightful.
He warns that they can sometimes be wrong, though,
so those first impressions do need to be tested.
That's what Our Graduate Student did that day in the lunch room.
He gave those two teacher kid brats an opportunity to be collegial,
and he validated his first impression
that these two teacher kids were punks who meant him no good.

Any Other Obstructionist Teachers Or Administrators
Who Tried To Derail Our Graduate Student's
Successful Completion Of His Student Teaching ?
Oh, yes. Plenty !
It was a totally unprofessional, uncollegial environment
similar to highlands high school.
Most of the "normal" teachers just left him alone,
as indeed they should have.
They weren't hostile, didn't bother him,
but they made no special effort to be friendly.
So most of the teachers that Our Graduate Student kept encountering,
as he went about his very busy schedule every day,
were problems, obstructionists, provocateurs, instigators.
The provocations and obstructionism were pretty regular
throughout the semester,
but they definitely picked up in intensity
around that last month
when it was clear Our Graduate Student
had done a very good job of teaching all 5 classes
throughout the semester,
and was about to successfully conclude his student teaching
and get his teaching credentials.

There was one teacher in particular.
She appeared, in age, to be one of those baby boomers,
one of the sixties brats of the "oldest childrenation."
She was ever-visible in the hallways,
frequently seen loitering with this vice principal guy.
Our Graduate Student just ignored her as well,
at least when he could.
But, on two occasions, he couldn't ignore her.
The first was at a parent conference that he was required to attend.
A girl had transferred into his lower level algebra class.
He hardly noticed her,
but his math old white man bible-toting christian teacher guy
told him he had to go to a parent-teacher conference
"for the experience."
So he goes on the appointed day and time and place
and there's 2 or 3 other teachers and the girl and the mom
and this one female teacher I mentioned is takin' all charge
and yellin' at the girl and scoldin' her
and Our Graduate Student's just sittin' there.
He figures he's supposed to participate
so at some point he just says something pretty neutral
and that bitchy, entitled white female teacher person snaps,
"we haven't been introduced !"

So, Our Graduate Student is kind of annoyed
that he was required to attend that thing
to be abused by that entitled bitch,
but he just shrugs it off.
He has to get his ticket stamped.
So, as it comes down to the final weeks of the semester,
as Our Graduate Student is approaching successful completion
of his student teaching to get his teaching certificate,
it jumps back into the game of obstructing him.
Our Graduate Student was pushing a cart down the hallway
from the math classroom to the physics classroom.
It's standing there conspiring with that vice principal guy
and, as Our Graduate Student passes by pushing his cart,
it jumps in front of the cart and yells,
"oh jesus christ !"
ands jumps back out of the way,
acting as if he had tried to ram it !
That is EXACTLY what it did. Period.
it jumped in front of his cart as he was pushing it,
yelled, and then jumped back off to the side.
Isn't that something ?

Yes. It's Hard To Believe.
I know it is, but that's what happened,
so I'm tellin' you about it.
Our Graduate Student just ignored it
and kept on going to the physics class with his cart.
He never heard any more about that incident,
but it's very likely the two of them used that
fabricated incident to damage Our Graduate Student's reputation,
behind his back.
That's typical behavior of the sixties liberal/radical brats.
(PUT THE MARK RUDD QUOTE IN HERE FROM "THE TROUBLED CRUSADE").
Our Graduate Student had lived through that as a teen.
He knew those motherfuckers from the inside.
He wasn't gonna let them provoke him.
That's exactly what they were trying to do -
provoke an incident -
and he wasn't gonna fall for it.
Not with three weeks to go.

Anything Else ?
Oh sure. Lots of stuff.
We could write a book about it,
but we're writin' the story here
of three decades of Conspiracy,
Conspiracy to deprive Our Graduate Student
of his Civil Rights, The Rights To
Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness,
so we have to hit the main points and move on.

Of course, you must be waiting for
the allegations of sexual misconduct of some sort.
I mean, that's pretty much a staple
when it comes to destroying a man's career.
So, they tried something like that
with Our Graduate Student,
though it never even really rose to an allegation.

Well, What Was It ?
I don't know what you'd call it.
Just another attempt to get Our Graduate Student.
There was this athletic blonde girl in the class,
on the soccer team, athletic legs,
often wore a skirt so short that
her underpants would show when she sat in her seat.
So, one day, toward the end of the semester,
the female vice principal who handled the student teachers
tells Our Graduate Student they'll have a meeting
with this girl's father and she asks
what's goin' on between him and the girl
and, of course, he replies
that he has no idea what's going on.
But, of course, he does know what's going on.
He knows that they're obstructing him
in any way they can,
but he's surprised that
any of the students are getting involved.

Was He Aroused By The Girl ?
Oddly enough, no.
He didn't like her very much.
You had your normal bell curve of students
in those two physics classes,
and four of them were excellent students.
There were two Vietnamese kids (a boy and a girl),
and a blonde boy and a Chinese/White boy.
The Chinese/White boy actually had a recruiter from Stanford
come up to the high school to interview him,
but he told Our Graduate Student
that he really wanted to go to Cal Tech.
These were the students he really liked.
He didn't like that other girl very much.
She was just part of the inertia of the class
that was hard to get to, academically speaking -
anways whining and trying to change the subject
and do anything but work on physics.
Frank McCourt talks about that in "Teacher Man."
(CITE HIM HERE)

One week, Our Graduate Student brought into class
a "Time" magazine that was all about a comparison
between Japanese students and American students.
She complained like heck about that
because she said that American kids were
always doing enriching fun stuff
and that had to be taken into consideration.

So, anyway, in the final weeks
some teachers were trying to sabotage his success,
so Our Graduate Student wasn't surprised
about the appointment.
He was more annoyed, really.
He felt that other teachers were behind it.
He had done a good job for those kids
and they knew it and they thanked him.
When he took over the class in January,
the kids knew absolutely nothing.
They said so, and the tests he gave them
indicated that to be the case.
So, Our Graduate Student started the course
from the beginning, from Chapter One,
because he knew he couldn't teach them anything else
unless they knew the fundamentals.
He knew it might offend the physics teacher old white man guy
(sometimes called "master teacher" barf),
but he had to do it.
Our Graduate Student quickly realized
that the old white guy, the Mayberry barber
churchgoing christian guy with the bow tie,
didn't have a grasp of physics fundamentals, himself,
even though he'd been employed there as a physics teacher
for many years.

The first thing Our Graduate Student did
was type up a sheet explaining his policies and procedures,
including office hours when he'd be available to parents.
The very first assignment was for the students
to take it home and have it signed by their parents
and return it to him.
Hardly any of them did.
So, this girl's daddy is an attorney
and they have their meeting
and the guy's attitude is like a prosecutor
demanding, of all things,
why Our Graduate Student
didn't give the students a "policies and procedures"
handout with grading and office hours and contact info.
So, Our Graduate Student hands it to him
and explains that it was the first assignment
to have it signed by parents and returned.
Did that asshole attorney father apologize ?

I Don't Know. Did He Apologize ?
I'm askin' you. What do you think ?

I'm Guessing Not.
I'm Guessing That The Attorney Father Didn't Apologize
For Berating Our Graduate Student Like A Prosecutor
For Not Distributing A Policies And Procedures Sheet
Even Though Our Graduate Student Did So
And The Attorney's Daughter Was At Fault
For Failing To Present It To Her Parents, As Assigned.

Besides, What Business Of It Is His
To Call An Appointment With The Teacher And Vice Principal
On A Matter Like That ?
He Clearly Should Have Done Due Diligence
And Tried To Find Out About A Small Matter Like That
Before Arranging An Interview With An Administrator !
That's right.

What Other Complaints Did He Have ?
None.

None !?
That's right.
Who knows ? Maybe it was a one-punch knockout.
Maybe he was just stunned or embarassed
comin' in there all uppity and accusatory
and complaining about a "policy and procedure" sheet
and Our Graduate Student's got one in his hand
and tells him his daughter with the underpants showing
was given one on the first day
and assigned to show it to him.

Our Graduate Student wasn't the least bit intimidated
by that clown.
I mean, what kind of white trash
let's his daughter come to class
showing off her fucking underpants
every time she sits down !?

So, There Were No Allegations Of Sexual Harassment, Then ?
None that Our Graduate Student was informed of.
The only harassment that occurred was
their harassment of him.
And, as usual, nobody apologized to Our Graduate Student,
as normal common courtesy would demand.

Of course, the female vice principal
simply GUSHED with enthusiastic praise
of Our Graduate Student
and told him that she'd definitely
let the people at the traffic school
and teacher credentialing place know
all about his wonderful performance
during that meeting.

What Was That All About ?
I don't know.
They're just shallow liberals.
Who knows what goes on in their pathetic little heads.

He didn't have much contact with her.
Once, he had to chase her down the hall
to have a few words with her.
It was almost the end of the semester
and, all of a sudden, both physics classes
were deteriorating drastically.
The old physics teacher white guy was useless
and, indeed, seemed to have a hand in,
though he didn't expect it to go so far.
He actually had to run down the hall
behind Our Graduate Student
as Our Graduate Student ran after the vice principal.
Our Graduate Student just ignored the old white guy,
"The situation in the physics is deteriorating drastically!"
Our Graduate Student informed the vice principal,
ignoring the old white man teacher guy.

Tell Me More About The Old White Guy.
He wasn't as bad as the old white math teacher guy.
That guy took a bible to class.
One day at lunch Our Graduate Student
was in the teachers' lounge
and some teachers were talking about some issue
and the old white math teacher guy booms,
"now that's ridiculous" real loud
like an angry pastor or something.
Probably it was evolution or something,
or gay marriage. Who knows ? Can't remember.
He just took a bible to class every day
and boomed really LOUD when an idea came up
that made him uncomfortable.
He was patronizing to the rest of the faculty.
Felt that since he was older he knew best, I guess.
Our Graduate Student was just polite to him, that's all.
He found the old white guy to be useless,
but not much of a problem.
One time the old white guy told him not to be too proud
to pick up litter off the floor in the classroom.
Kind of like he was a pastor, teaching humility
instead of helping Our Graduate Student
with practical advice on dealing with students,
teaching tasks and school politics.
One day another white male teacher
complained to the old white guy that Our Graduate Student
didn't erase the blackboard after his class.
Of course, Our Graduate Student had to always
erase blackboards when he went into classes,
and students could be assigned that task,
and the other white guy could have just
mentioned it to in a friendly way to Our Graduate Student.
But they were rude assholes,
so Our Graduate Student made sure he erased that blackboard
every day no matter what,
no matter how late the class had gone,
no matter how little time he had to go across
into the next building to the physics classroom.
They were just small-minded people
who wanted to put Our Graduate Student "in his place."

The physics old white guy wasn't as stupid as
the old, white, loud, bellowing, bible-toting white guy
who lived on a farm.
Actually, he wasn't really a physics old white guy.
I don't know what his major was but it wasn't physics.
He got the physics assignment years back
when they couldn't find anybody else to fill it.
When Our Graduate Student started student teaching there,
the old white Mayberry physics guy
would leave retirement letters on the desk all the time
for Our Graduate Student to see.
But Our Graduate Student realized almost right away
that the old white physics mayberry guy
didn't have a clear grasp of simple physics fundamentals.
And, most important, the kids knew absolutely nothing.
Furthermore, right away the physics old white mayberry guy
got involved in the basketball rumble set up thing.
Our Graduate Student didn't have time for these frat-boy games,
if that's what they were.
He just dove into the job of teaching all five classes
as well as he could, and ignored anybody who wasn't helping him.
Towards the end of the semester, those last few weeks
when things suddenly deteriorated,
the old physics guy brought in
one of the boys' mother who attended church
with the old white physics teacher guy.
There was really no issue with the boy.
He was just a mediocre student in the class.
Toward the end of the semester
he had approached Our Graduate Student
and complained that he didn't care enough about their feelings,
that high school was a special time for them
and that they cared a lot about each other, and so on.
Next thing you know, the old white physics mayberry guy
makes an appointment with the boy's mother,
and she comes in and berates Our Graduate Student.
She was like an anglo-saxon bella abzug.
She had a list of questions.
"Does my son show up on time ?" "Yes."
"Does he do his homework ?" "Yes."
"Is he a behavior problem ?" "No." And so on.
So Our Graduate Student has to put up with this grilling
by the boy's mother, the old white physics mayberry guy's churchmate
while the old white physics teacher guy stood there beside her.

Our Graduate Student never really learned WHY
everything fell apart in the physics classes the last two weeks.
There was no real reason, so he concluded,
considering the rest of the hostility and obstructionism,
that it must have been part of an activist conspiracy
to prevent his successful completion of the student teaching assignment.
Even the physics teacher, in the last week or so, became alarmed.
It was kind of like he was a part of the prank, the hazing,
but he was duped and didn't realize that it wasn't a game.
Things got so bad the last week or so that even HE became worried.
Our Graduate Student had to get a bunch of papers signed off
for the university and, when he presented them to the physics guy,
he signed them all off immediately and made some kind of comment
about how bad things had gotten and how wrong it was
for them to do that and how he wouldn't let them stop me
from getting my credential.

The old white guy, bible-toting, bellowing math guy was dumber.
Our Graduate Student presented him with the papers the last week
and he signed one and handed them back.
It was like a mexican standoff.
Our Graduate Student presented them again and he signed another
and handed them back.
Our Graduate Student presented them again, and again and again
and wouldn't leave until the bellowing old fart signed them ALL.
It was touch and go at the end.
Even though Our Graduate Student had done and excellent job
January, February, March, April and into May,
they were playing cat-and-mouse until the very end.

Didn't Anything Happen To Make Things Worse ?
Not really. You could always come up with pretexts,
but the real reason was that Our Graduate Student had succeeded,
to their surprise probably,
and the activists were desperate to stop him.
There definitely were activist-minded brats
among the teachers and administrators.
Our Graduate Student remembers one day
one of the administrators and a teacher were carrying on
in the teacher's lounge at lunch
how it was so important to stop some local person
from getting elected to some local office.
Our Graduate Student's thinking,
"It's a @#$%^&* SCHOOL, for @#$%^&* sake !
Do your Fucking Politicking at home on your own time !"
They were just 60's activist brats.
That administrator looked so out of character in a jacket and tie.
Picture jerry rubin in a jacket and tie,
just off the ramparts fighting to bring down
the capitalist, imperialist system,
and now a card-carrying member of The Establishment.

In the last two weeks or so
Our Graduate Student's university supervisor
signed off and left him to the wolves.
She had been a district superintendent before
and, while she was around, nobody fucked with Our Graduate Student.
But, when her observations were done and she stopped coming around,
they felt free to attack,
and they felt urgency
because he was within grasping reach of his goal.
Our Graduate Student asked her if he could
wrap up his student teaching when she left
because things were suddenly going bad,
and he told her that she was "abandoning him,"
but he had to stay and finish.
It turned into an endgame, to use a chess analogy.
Our Graduate Student won because he had built up
an overwhelmingly powerful position over 4 1/2 months
of competent, professional and dedicated teaching.
The last week or two he just ran out the clock.

They Do That In Football and Basketball, Too,
When They're Way Ahead.
They Just Run Out The Clock.
That's right.

Anything Else Happen ?
Oh sure. There's lots of little events to mention.
Don't know if it would clutter up the story
or shed light on it.
There was the "notice of possible failure" form,
ice cream with the vp,
the "A" grade for the African American kid,
the engineering brats from uc davis,
the murder of the Russian boy,
the murder of the white student,

What !?
Oh, the two murders happened within the decade.
Our Graduate Student happened to hear about them somehow
when he was in Alaska.
It really made an impact on him, made him really angry.
Especially the murder of the Russian student,
which happened on campus.
They never solved it. That's unbelievable.
How can they not solve something like that?
Limited number of suspects, footprints, hair dna,
stuff like that.
Kids talk. They know the likely suspects.
Some of the kids would have ideas about who might have done it.
They know how to get the truth if they want it.
I've seen them do it.
Isolate the kids.  Intimidate them.
Analyze the contradictions.
Keep probing.
Some kid'll break.
The only reason they didn't solve that crime
is because they didn't want to.
Russian immigrants are fair game, they figure.
Gotta show 'em their place.
Just like Our Graduate Student,
their two priorities were to put him in "his place"
or make him fail.
The Russian boy was beaten with a bat or something like that
and left in a ditch on the campus.
It was probably, almost certainly, other students.
That's who hangs out on campuses during non-school hours.
The Russian boy probably didn't behave submissive enough.
American white boys know their place.
They KNOW they're second-class citizens
and they behave appropriately submissive.
The white women's libbers fascists of the 60's have ensured that.
But some kid from Russia ?
He doesn't know that he has to eat crow all the time in America,
doesn't know he's supposed to walk around all submissive
and humble with his eyes on the ground
and his tail between his legs.
He doesn't know the rules in America.
Our Graduate Student thought about all the hostile bullshit
he endured there and just shook his head in disgust,
"how low will they go ?" "will they stop at nothing !?"

There was another case years earlier
in the sacramento valley
that enraged Our Graduate Student.
An American couple had adopted two Russian toddlers,
twins maybe, or brothers anyway.
So they were like kindergarten age
and living in a small farm town in the valley
and they're walking home
and the bigger american boys
trick them into eating the leaves
of a poison plant.
I forget the name of the plant
but it's common, everywhere, ubiquitous
in the sacramento valley.
The two little boys died.
That was murder, too.
But then, too,
nothing was done to the american boys
who killed the toddlers
by tricking them to eat poison plants.
And they KNEW they were dangerous poison plants.


Why Don't You Just Explain Those Items You Just Brought Up
And Then Move On To Subbing And
Finish Up The Eighties.
OK. The "notice of possible failure form"
was this bureaucratic, legal thing that had to do with grading.
If a kid was in any danger of failing,
you had to notify his parents. It was the law, I think.
So, in the physics classes,
Our Graduate Student decided that everybody was gonna pass.
It was a high level class.
Things had gone well all semester.
They were seniors. Why fail anybody ?
So he brought that up to the old white physics guy
who told him that he "had to" send out failure notices.
So, this is the end of the semester
and Our Graduate Student is worn out
with all the hazing and harassment and writing assignments
and now he's got this.
He "has to" send out failure notices.
How do you know who's gonna fail ?
Anyway, long story made short,
Our Graduate Student calculates that, theoretically,
almost ANYBODY could fail,
so he sends out the legally required
"notice of possible failure" to everybody,
or almost everybody in the class.
He didn't fail anybody,
but he was doin' what he was ordered to do.
He had a million things on his plate,
so he got that one over with.
There was buzz about it,
and maybe that was one of the pretexts.
Some parents "were mad."
Who knows ?

The Ice Cream ?
Oh, yeah.
Well, the last week or so
that female vp in charge of the student teachers
takes the two of them out to a diner or something for lunch
and she orders ice cream and so does Our Graduate Student.
Later on he figures that has to do with that girl he dated
three years earlier at sac city college.
On one of their dates, he took her and her friend
out to a well-known ice cream place.
Kind of a parallelism there,
like he's being forgiven or something.
The math dept chair had invited him
to a math dept party or something at his house
and told him he could bring
"his wife or his girlfriend or a date
or anybody he wanted."
Our Graduate Student connects all this
to his two-month friendship with that girl at Scc
and he's thinkin',
"Don't they understand that it's none of their @#$%^&* business !?"
He didn't need their approval to date whomever he wanted.
They didn't seem to get that.
That's the problem with teachers and other unions.
They seem to think that once you've joined the union,
you were in their religion cult or something.
No. Not.
You go school. You teach.
You go home. You do whatever you want.
Nobody's business. Nobody's approval required.
You drive a bus. You do it safely.
You go home. You do whatever you want.
Nobody's business. Nobody's approval needed.
That math chair guy had been such a rude pain in the ass
that Our Graduate Student had no desire to party or schmooze at his house
way the hell out there about a hour into the foothills.
On the first day of class, that math dept chair guy
had blocked Our Graduate Student's way
as Our Graduate Student pushed his cart down the hallway to his math class.
He said that he was the math dept chair and that he thought
Our Graduate Student should be teaching other math classes,
not the ones he had been assigned by the vice principal.
So, Our Graduate Student acknowledges him
and says "OK" and continues on his way to class
because the bell had already rung.
All through the semester that math chair guy old white man
had an attitude because Our Graduate Student
had been so "rude like people from New Jersey are."
He said to Our Graduate Student,
"the dept chair can REALLY REALLY make your life miserable."
So, do you really think Our Graduate Student,
after a completely rude and uncollegial semester,
is going to drive way the hell out to the foothills
to this clown's house to schmooze with him and the other math teachers,
who ALSO had a whole semester to get
to know Our Graduate Student ?
No. Not.
Teaching is done in the classroom.
And the patronizing permission to bring his wife
"or your girlfriend or whoever else you want to be with"
was crossing the line.
It was clear to Our Graduate Student,
from the context, that the old math guy
was alluding to the International Student girl
he had dated for a couple of months at sac city.
He was really somewhat bewildered
that they seemed to be spending so much time
thinking and talking about his personal life.
It seems they didn't have enough work to do,
too much time on their hands,
like when they played pinochle every day at lunch.
Our Graduate Student never had a minute to spare
to play pinochle, and he wouldn't have if he did.
By the time of that end-of-semester celebration at the diner with the vp,
Our Graduate Student was making if very clear to that vp,
as politely as he could, without being rude,
that he had no intention whatsoever of teaching there.
I mean, for the last two weeks, he had gone down the street
every day to eat lunch
because he had been insulted and harassed so much.
He was gonna teach there ?
No way. Not on those terms. Not on those terms.

The "A" Grade For The African American Boy ?
Oh, yeah.
Actually it was an "A-"
There were these twin brothers in the physics class,
one in each. They were African American.
One was the student body president, popular kids.
They were no problem, except that
they just wanted to be the center of attention all the time.
One of them really, really, really wanted to get an "A" in physics.

They got special help from an outside group called "MECHA,"
or something like that.
That was the approximate acronym and I never knew what it stood for,
but I know that the physics help
was only available to minority students !
So, these engineers helped ONLY the minority students
with their science classes.
White students need not apply.
I don't remember how many grading periods there were,
but he wasn't one of the best students and he was only getting "B's".
Our Graduate Student doesn't play with grades.
You get what you get. That's all.
Anyway, either the last or next to last grading period
Our Graduate Student calculates this boy's grade,
and it comes out to "A-", so that's what he gives him.
The boy is ecstatic.
Some of the faculty start treating Our Graduate Student
like he'd just been saved by Jesus.
Like, all of a sudden, he stopped being a racist.
It's their mythology.
You see, Our Graduate Student never was a racist,
but those shallow, FAKE liberal fascist activists
never could get that.
Actully, THEY'RE the racists
because they patronize African Americans and Chicanos.
THEY were the racists because THEY treated blacks special
and inflated their grades to make them feel good.
Our Graduate Student was NOT a racist.
He just wouldn't treat African Americans
like they were God's answer to sliced bread.
He treated African Americans like he treated everybody else.
He gave that boy an "A-" because that's what he earned.
He wouldn't give him a "B+" because he earned an "A-".
He wouldn't give him an "A" because he earned an "A-".
He gave him an "A-" because...
can you guess ?

Because He Earned An "A-" 
Very Goooooood !
I'm very, very, very proud of you !
I...

Oh, shut up !
I know. Being patronized is sooooooooooooo fucking annoying,
isn't it ?

Yes, it is.
The engineering brats from uc davis ?
Oh, yeah.
So, towards the end of the semester,
the old white mayberry bow tie physics guy
tells Our Graduate Student
that the engineering student club from uc davis
wants to come to our class and they left a phone number.
Our Graduate Student had fought a heroic semester
and was enduring a grueling endgame.
This was not a high priority.
This physics mayberry bow tie guy
was a useless pain in the ass, an impediment,
had burnt up almost all his trust the first couple of weeks
with his involvement with the basketball rumble punks.
So, Our Graduate Student puts it on the back burner
and never gets around to it.
So, mayberry bow tie who brought in his church friend,
that abusive mother of that average boy,
perhaps in cahoots with the activists and the vp (who knows)
makes an appointment for the uc davis kids to come in.
Our Graduate Student greets them
and they ignore him like he's not there.
They're mixed boys and girls
and the girls are aggressive, rude feminist white brats (entitled)
and never stop saying,
"we really want girls in the engineering program at uc davis.
Girls are welcome. We really want girls"
All of them are saying that, even the boys.
That was their ONLY message.
They were incredibly rude and insulting,
and didn't even say "hello" to Our Graduate Student,
even though he identified himself as a uc davis graduate.
Our Graduate Student had to put up with this kind of shit
ALL through the student teaching.
Their implied, bratty message was that Our Graduate Student
was NOT encouraging girls to go into science or engineering.
However, that would seem to fly in the face of the fact
that Our Graduate Student treated the girls in his class
just like the boys.
He just taught them physics.
The Vietnamese girl, who was one of the four best students,
was one of his favorite students.
She was interested in physics.
She studied hard.
She still has Our Graduate Student's Isaac Asimov book on Physics
that he lent her.
There was a white girl who was a strong student.
She wasn't one of the top four as described above earlier,
but she was smart and capable and Our Graduate Student
interacted with her a great deal in the classroom.
So, of the top five students, two of them were girls.
Our Graduate Student would have been very happy
to see either of them, or any girl in his classes,
go into science or engineering fields.
It's a slam dunk that the Vietnamese girl did.
She probably went into electrical engineering
(oops ! ethnic stereotyping there ! please forgive !) lol.
So, in other words, the whole purpose of the visit by the uc davis
engineering club brats was to insult Our Graduate Student
by forcing their way into his classroom
and acting out THEIR MYTHOLOGY that he was sexist.
That was their INTENTIONAL MISREPRESENTATION
because of their INTENTIONAL MISUNDERSTANDING.
I mean, can you blame Our Graduate Student
for hunkering down in the endgame and wearing out the clock !?
He did great job !
A professional job !
And, he saved those kids who learned absolutely NO physics
in September, October, November, and December.

OK
Very Easily.


*****************************************************************************
 

 
OK
Very Easily.