Role models

My sister has a certain teacher in her high school American History class. He is the one teacher I purposely avoided ever taking a class from my entire high school career, simply because I didn't like the man. I had him for a football coach in 8th grade, and those 3 short months were enough to show me he's an arrogant, narcissistic asshole.

Here are some of my sister's stories:

My sister goes by Alex, which is her middle name. Her first name is Stephanie. This teacher calls her "Sam." Sam is my other sister, the one who has long since graduated high school and is now in college. No matter how much Alex corrects the teacher, he openly refuses to call her by her proper name, and insists that calling her "Sam" is easier.

He consistently calls on her expecting to know the answer to really obscure questions, and when she doesn't, he berates her and explains why he knows the answer (he's so awesome, he has like a photographic memory and knows like everything!).

The teacher once asked the students to investigate theories on the JFK assassination (he calls himself an expert on the assassination, and knows what really happened). He then asked students to write on the board the names of theories they found. While many students were doing as told, he suddenly yells for everyone to sit down, then points at one of the names on the board. "Who wrote this?" he demanded. When no one answered he got angrier, until finally someone admitted to putting the theory on the board. The teacher then demanded to know how he could be so ignorant, because that theory is clearly the stupidest bullshit anyone had ever thought of.

The teacher also once asked the class what they would die for. No answer was sufficient. Every single person that raised their hand and suggested something they would die for, he replied with "No you wouldn't." He did this over and over, the only correct answer in the bunch apparently "religion." Finally, he decided to pick on my sister (he does this frequently, apparently). "Sam, what would you die for?" After the beating the last several students had received, she took her time, then answered "I think I'd give my life for my family." The asshole responded by laughing, and told her she absolutely would not. After this whole ordeal, he proceeded to explain to the class that most people would never willingly give up their lives for anything, yet he had risked his life to safe a complete stranger.

Take that, you high school brats.

It was this last event that made my sister almost walk out of the class. The only reason she didn't is she was scared of the consequences. We talked about this, and together we came to some conclusions:

1) My oldest sister and I did quite well in high school both academically and athletically, because of this we left a sort of legacy attached to our last name. It gives both my youngest sister and my brother a leg up: the teachers automatically love them.

2) My sister doesn't need the benefit of this legacy, in fact she only adds to it, more so than her predecessors ever did. She's got straight A's and is being pursued by Div I women's soccer teams. (My brother, on the other hand, needs all the help he can get). The teachers and administration love her.

3) Because she has most of the school's staff on her side and she's never been any trouble at all, if she chose to stand up to this teacher, nothing bad would happen to her at all. The administration would work with her so that everything works out in her favor.

Because of these things, the next time the teacher starts being a complete ass, she's either going to walk out of class and walk straight to the office to complain, or walk right up to him after class and say, in these exact words, "You need to stop being an ass. I don't care if you ask me questions harder than the rest of the students, that's fine. But if you continue to call me 'Sam' and disrespect me, I'll report you to the administration. You need to stop being a dick."

We decided she needed to use words like "ass" and "dick" because he's the type of pompous asshole that needs to be talked to forcefully. If the administration gets involved, then all she needs to do is tell her stories.

The thing that gets me about this is that he's supposed to be a teacher. He's supposed to be a mentor to these kids. All he's teaching them is how to be an asshole. Alex says a lot of kids like him. They are the younger sophomore kids, because she took some AP classes that screwed up her schedule. These younger kids love him because he's different.

Thing is, that's not an excuse. For every ten of these kids that think he's cool, there's one high school kid with poor self esteem that can't afford to have an adult talking down to him or her, calling him or her an idiot. It's just not responsible.

~ Nick
Standing up tall from the top of that hill