You Must Be This Dumb To Ride This Ride

Hammer sent out an e-mail expressing a concern that teachers were releasing kids before the last bell of the day, giving students the opportunity to create problems in the hallways before administrators are in place to monitor behavior. I wonder how desperate a teacher is to do that? I mean we’re talking about five minutes or so here. You can’t bear to be in the same room for that much longer? Yes, there can be some pains in the ass (just go read some of my past stuff), but remember that this district’s “think tank” has already limited classes to forty-two minutes. That’s not even enough time to teach. Each class I’m warp-speeding it through the lesson, so there certainly can’t be any dead time where a teacher can go, “You know what guys, why don’t you go ahead and take off.”

My biggest worry is that the district will take these premature dismissals as an indicator that teachers don’t need so much and knock us down to like thirty-seven minutes or something. Mark my words; ten years from now schools will resemble those animatronic amusement rides. Kids will be locked into roller-coaster cars and will be taken in a big circle. They’ll only stop in subject specific portions to get some brief edutainment. History will have a Hall of Presidents type thingy, while science will probably have some type of mad scientist pop out and scare them with Bunsen beakers that shoot fiery gas balls. The English part will most likely be just a bunch of video screens showing the movie version of various books. Then that will be it—short, sweet—unload them and seat the next batch.

I have to stay positive though. Hey, maybe there will be a position open in the souvenir shop at the end of the ride.