August 31, 2005
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Hello beautiful readers. Sorry about my delays in posting this month. Shaun-san and I are moving to a new apartment for the sake of trying a new Chicago neighborhood (one that is quieter and that doesn’t try so damn hard) and into a bigger, nicer place. The move happens tomorrow (Sept 1), so as you can imagine, I’ve been a bit caught up in moving plans. But now, with everything packed and an afternoon to myself, I let myself do a little writing. This essay is inspired by the events of today. I left work a tad early to de-stress before the move and I signed up for a creative writing class at Story Center Chicago. Both are things I did in the spirit of free will and I am extraordinarily happy about them. Read on to see what my happiness lead me to write. Thanks!
Regurgitating Zombies
© The Author, 2005I had a pregnant English teacher during my senior year of high school. Her nose hooked ever so slightly, as if the extra bit of flesh on its tip were a just little droplet of sweat dangling in languor over her smudgy, bunny lips. My English teacher had teacher hair and she wore teacher clothes and she wasn’t quite old enough to be our parents but she was old enough to regularly proclaim, “No one should be having kids until they are my age.” Sometimes my English teacher made me daydream of getting knocked up and coming to class with a tremendous belly just to remind her to have a little fucking sensitivity.
Aside from questioning my English teacher’s authority on breeding, I also frequently found myself challenging her expertise as a teacher. It wasn’t so much that Mrs. Pregnant-Married-Early-Thirties was a bad teacher—it was just that she submitted a bit too enthusiastically to a larger educational system firmly rooted in creating drones and copy-cats. The attempt to turn fresh, vibrant students into zombies particularly bothered me in English class. Even as a high school student, I loved reading and writing too much to let a corrupt system suck the joy out of these things.
The English teachers I had in prior years were thrilled with my wacky creative projects that took threads from the book and expounded upon them and examined them in new lights. I made funny movies that paralleled thematic threads of our reading assignments, I created sculptures to illustrate theme, and I did performances to communicate my interpretations. I loved group work, and while other students simply wrote a paper and read it aloud to the class, I would rally a group together to collaborate on a paper and put on a show of some sort when it was time to present. My English assignments were always done in the spirit of fun—I never dreaded an English assignment, and I always worked my ass of for them. Some of my best friends in high school were people that I was randomly paired with in my advanced English classes, and beyond that, genuine learning was taking place within our projects. Needless to say, I was pretty shocked when Mrs. Fetus Container had absolutely no interest in what she referred to as “my antics.”
Soon, our stormy relationship reached a breaking point. Upon my teacher’s request that I re-do a number of items due to the fact that she did not agree with my interpretations of her assignments (in particular a series of copy-changed poems I wrote that mercilessly satire the idea of writing copy-changes), I politely challenged her reasoning. After a tense and biting conversation, Mrs. Pregg-o tersely informed me that I needn’t waste money on the AP English exam. “I’m not convinced you have what it takes to write a decent essay,” she told me.
Needless to say, I was outraged and deeply hurt.
The next day in English class, I joined my friends at our table and tried to resign myself to an hour of thought crushing lessons. We were reading The Sun Also Rises, which was becoming my favorite book of all time. This made it doubly painful that my bubbling forth of ideas and discussion points and questions and projects were squelched in favor of memorizing Hemmingway quotes to regurgitate into stale, formulaic essays.
When Mrs. Baby-on-Board waddled into the room, I physically cringed. I couldn’t possibly put myself through one of her idiotic lessons that day—I was in no mood for it. It was time to actually utilize the lessons I gleaned from The Sun Also Rises. I stood up and addressed my table, “I’m exercising my free will to leave this hell hole. Who wants to come with?” Most stared at me blankly, but a devilish grin broke out on my friend Derek’s face. He began to stand.
“Just what do you two think you are doing?” Our teacher demanded.
“Being existential,” I said as we strutted out of the room.
As much as my pregnant twelfth grade English teacher wanted me to become a mere robot able to repeat memorized quotes (sadly, I she actually did succeed in programming me to regurgitate lines from The Sun Also Rises and Death of a Salesman—a useless skill that I can’t shake even today), I actually learned a lot in that class and from the things we read in it. Taking my happiness and needs into my own hands that day taught me that the boundaries that authorities pretend are impenetrable are actually an illusion. Free will is an individual’s burden to society—not a favor we pay to those who play at superiority. In this way, all of our actions, reactions, good deeds, and bad deeds shape the world we live in. If we are ever able to reach a point where we can collectively accept this, then we will not have to rely on a higher power (god or politician) to shape our societies and lives into the happy, peaceful, just states of being that we imagine and deserve. We can do it for ourselves.
Now if only the schools would stop making status quo supporting drones, then perhaps everyone would understand their personal power and obligation to be free thinkers and shakers of this slumbering world. Until then, we all are in some way reliant upon superiors—snooty teachers, disrespectful bosses, murderous politicians, politically positioned religious icons, and other “power players”—who seldom have the interest of equality, justice, and happiness for all people in mind. In the meantime, I guess those of us who know better will just have to continue to be the change we want to see.
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When have you resisted against something you didn’t believe in? Was the consequence worth the struggle?
Comments (4)
As always, that was a delightful read.
In response to your question, that’s a subject that hits close to home with me. At my last job, the power duo who ran our department had no sense of self-control. We writers took verbal abuse at the drop of a hat, and frequently just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Apologies were sometimes forthcoming, but after almost a year, it was way too little way too late. An abuser who apologizes to the abusee, but then does it again.
When gender specific comments started getting thrown into the mix, very real rage at the way we were treated (all female) started to boil up inside me, though I surpressed it as best I could.
As the icing on the cake, longer and longer hours were being demanded (without any compensation). Weekends, evenings, early mornings. But we buckled down to get through what was promised to be a “short crunch time” even when it hit the three month mark.
In mid-April, our company calendar showed a half day one Friday. Realizing we’d have a chance to get away from the office and breathe for a minute, though slightly puzzled at the non-holiday early closure, the writers planned an afternoon together down in Santa Monica. Drinks, shopping, whatever. Early that week, we mentioned to the duo that the calendar showed an early day. In an off-handed manner, boss-man promised to check into it just to make sure it wasn’t a misprint (though the calendar was issued in December and no one had issued a correction of any kind).
He never said anything else about it. So at 2pm that Friday, we wrapped up our work, shut down our computers, and prepared to leave. Which was when all hell broke loose.
In a fit of rage, he came flying into our office and accused me – I got designated to be the taker of blame that day – of being unethical and trying to take advantage of the company. Of being an embarrassment for my lack of work ethic. While he talked, all the long, unpaid overtime hours I’d put in over the last three months started to run through my head. Every weekend that I’d said no to fun plans to get a project done came rushing back to me. All the personal sacrifices I’d made for the benefit of his bottom line. And something snapped. He ended his tiraid with “If you’re going to go, then FINE! But you’ll be a complete embarrassment to yourself and to this company.”
Suddenly, being an embarrassment to the company didn’t seem like such a big deal. And I certainly wasn’t going to be an embarrassment to myself. So I stood up, gathered my things, looked him dead in the eye, and walked out. I have never felt so freed from abuse in my life. To realize I had a choice about whether or not I stayed sitting in that hell hole on a beautiful Friday afternoon was one of the most empowering experience of my life.
The others followed me out, but it was I who took the blame for them leaving, too. I was fired the next week, and the reason I was given was for “not fitting in with the direction the team was going.” If the team was going in the direction of gender discrimination, abuse, and 15 hour days, then he was absolutely right. I wasn’t ever going to fit in with that direction.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. And life has been better ever since.
I guess I’m just quietly subversive … when I come across a brick wall, I just try to paint a door on it. The process takes a while, but I’m usually happy when I finally get through.
You may be happy to know that I referenced Death of a Salesman — and Death Cab for Cutie — in class today. Other than that unintentional pairing and what seemed like some decent planning, my lesson came up way short. I have a lot of work to do to become a teacher. But any sane person should want a roomful of people like you who want to learn.
Ha! “Mrs. Fetus Container” is the funniest thing I have heard in a long, long time. This story evokes all-too-similarly memories of my eleventh grade English teacher. She was dreadful. She once told a friend of mine that she went home and cried because of my arguments in class. Um, hello! I was arguing with her interpretation — or lack thereof — of the symbolism in Ellison’s Invisible Man. One would think that developing a student into someone who can challenge what he or she is given and turn it into a well-structured argument would be an act worth celebrating, not crying about. It seems as if their goal is to create drones. When my report card arrived, it said that I was argumentative and I was receiving a C because I missed a spelling quiz. First of all, what 11th grade English class should be subjected to spelling tests?! Secondly, I bet I could have spelled all of those damn words properly without even seeing the list. Thirdly, I missed the freaking test because I was out with the flu. So, me and my argumentative self marched my ridiculous report card to the dean to complain that this teacher was unfairly grading me, and do you know what my dean said? Yep, you guessed it:
“Laura, while I respect your point of view here, keep in mind that some arguments aren’t worth fighting.”
And so I sulked my lemming-ass out of her office and swallowed my C with pride. I fucking earned it. The ultimate vindication was writing an essay about teachers who stifle their students creativity — hey, if I’m getting a C, I’m going to do it in style.
Every year I resist a school system similar to the one you describe in your essay. In an effort to avoid my children becoming mindless drones I homeschool. This is not the popular choice in my neck of the woods. Especially considering I don’t do it for religous reasons but to give my children an alternative way to learn and grow. It is a constant game of keeping one step ahead of the state. The consequence being that I continually have to explain my reasoning to various idiots and bow down before the state of New York so they might not give me a legal hassle. The positive consequence are the two brilliant individuals that share my everyday.