Getting fired is not as easy as you think, dear readers. But I'll let you decide for yourselves how you want to meet this challenge.
I'll tell you how I did it.
For the past year or so I've been teaching at the local middle school–it's just a short walk from my house and I wanted to be able to bring my wit and wisdom to bear, to mold impressionable young minds, to make a difference and pave the way to a brighter future for our youth.
I'm kidding.
I just wanted to see what it was like, take the temperature as it were, of what is essentially an inner city school. Yeah, it's Newport, but everyone with any means sends their kids to private school. Sure, those same people will attend the black-tie fundraisers and donate money, and virtue signal, but they wouldn't... it's too boring to continue that thought–you know what I mean.
When I get into the classroom I tell the students three things:
1. There is no talking in this classroom. But I encourage you to participate. If you have something to say, raise you hand and I'll call on you. Address me by my name, Mr. "C", and ask your question. Be sure to use a magic word.
2. You will sit with your legs under your desk, feet on the floor, facing forward.
3. If anyone doesn't follow the rules, disrupts the class, or keeps me from doing my job, they'll explain why to the dean. You'll get three strikes and then you're out.
Of course the kids are testing me from the get-go and seeing how much they can get away with. But if they persist and strike out I just send them down to the office. I stopped arguing with minor children in about 1989.
Everyone is watching to see what I'll do, whether I'm as good as my word. Once the troublemakers are gone, I find the classes fun and the students curious and engaging. I've enjoyed teaching there enormously.
Today I had a particularly difficult class–I'm sometimes amazed at the almost unbelievable level of disrespect these kids think they can get away with because they always have, without repercussions or consequences. I gave two of the worst disrupters their at-bats and then sent the pair of them down to the office.
A little while later a third recalcitrant told me he wasn't going to play my game. I told him that he could play whatever game he wanted on the other side of that door, but in my classroom he was going to play mine. He told me, no, and just walked out.
I continued teaching the class and got a call from the office not five minutes later that the principal wanted to see me after school. Getting called down to the principal's office once again, almost sixty years later made me laugh!
Very well dressed, a Dr. of some sort. Picture of the Vice President hanging over his desk. Sat me down. Told me that Dean M. was concerned about all the students that had been sent to him by me today–they had all complained that I was too strict. I told Dr. B. my rules, which are basically just common courtesy and respect and the right way to treat anyone, aren't they?
He told me in no uncertain terms they were right–they meaning the children and that I wouldn't be invited back.
Really?
Yes.
Main photo: caricature of a school flogging by George Cruikshank, 1839
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