February 13, 2011 (Junior Year)
Our AP English teacher, Ms. Regan, had to have emergency surgery and was out for around 6 weeks during which, Mr. Watson, our new headmaster, took it upon himself (about half the time) to teach the class.
This is a snippet of an email I sent to Ms. Regan, wishing her well and a speedy recovery, and letting her know how much we all missed her.
As you know, Mr. Watson is now teaching our class, which is making
for some interesting interactions between principle and students. I'm
sure you remember the way he spoke over the loudspeaker. Now if you can
imagine that in a relatively small space, with four walls, without the
PA crackle serving as a buffer between us and the especially
earsplitting bits, it's a rather sharp contrast to your quiet,
authoritative voice. Whereas with yours, we were afraid to tune out or
start a conversation with our neighbor, lest we miss something
detrimental, with his, I think tuning out is some sort of instinctual
reaction to save ourselves from the sheer volume. Maybe he used this
tactic to command the attentions of small, fidgety children, but with us
I get the impression of an overall feeling of desperation.
It's clear that Mr. Watson doesn't want us to feel that our loving
mother has been replaced by this loud step-father, he obviously doesn't
want to usurp your teaching thus far, but neither can he replicate the
environment you created for us perfectly, and he doesn't want us to get
our hopes up that he is going to attempt to fill any one's shoes. This
is all quite understandable, reasonable, and yet I feel that a majority
of the class did not realize that this is what he was saying, that it
was going to be different, until perhaps our third class with him.
Mr. Watson offers rather loose, not as analytical interpretations
of things compared to your explanations. This rests the weight of
thinking, cutting through mush to the bare essence, the meaning of what
we are studying, on us, which I think has thrown some people off-kilter
and gives the impression that their responses don't have to be as
thought out as maybe they would have been when responding to you.
Personally, I am finding these interactions hilarious and they are even
more observable because we now sit in a circle everyday.
One day we were discussing maxims, particularly, "PEOPLE WHO DON'T
WORK WITH THEIR HANDS ARE PARASITES."
Analise, who happened to be sitting directly across from me, jumped
right in with her interpretation of this, "I really like this one
because I think, you know, it's just so true and...the
imagery...the...it's like, you can just imagine some guy in a suit, in,
like, an office building, in some corporate job...who just never does
anything!" At this point she was waving her hands around, perhaps
trying to show us exactly what he looked like.
She paused for a moment, and everyone else paused too. In
confusion. I was on the verge of laughter, picturing a business tycoon
who just sat at a desk all day, smirking, commanding everyone else to
run around madly stapling papers for him - and that's ALL HE DID.
Analise turned to Mr. Watson and said, "You know?" Mr. Watson
seemed at a loss for words. He opened his mouth but Analise got there
before him, with waving arms.
"Like, he never does anything for himself, it's always other people
who do the work. And, when I look - er- read this, it just makes me
think of people who never do anything with their hands-" Here Zohra and
Hannah exchanged frowning glances, Katherine leaned forward like she was
going to disagree, Ben had ceased tapping his pencil against the side
of his face, and Roop had looked up from the iTouch that was cleverly
concealed among the papers on her desk.
She went on to say, still gesturing by putting her hands behind her
back, "Like they don't work with their hands, they only do stuff with
their mouth-" She opened her mouth very wide to demonstrate how "they"
went about their careers. When this apparently failed to convey her
meaning, she started using her hands, forming mouth like shapes that
appeared to be pecking at something, while saying, "It's like they feed
off the work...they benefit from the stuff that everyone else does, but
they don't do anything." Analise paused, looking at her hands extended
in front of her.
Then I said, quite reasonably, I thought, "Would you say a vampire
is a parasite?"
Everyone turned and looked at me as if I'd just suggested that we
jump off the roof. Analise had this look of utter confusion on her
face, and said slowly, "N-no." It sounded like a question. I thought to
myself, Ah, yes, those carpenter vampires, how could I forget.
So I said, tentatively, "Parasites don't necessarily have to do
everything with their mouth...They could also probably do some
things...with their hands." Everyone frowned at me, I frowned at
Analise. She frowned back at me.
Then the room erupted. Approximately 10 people had tried to say
something all at once and when they realized someone else was talking,
they promptly started shouting, to no one in particular. It took a
minute for Mr. Watson to get everyone under control.
And that was our first class discussion.
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