Teachers

 

Teacher’s Pet

Teacher's pet (pa dumb pa dumb pa dum)
I want to be teacher's pet (pa dumb pa dum)
I want to be huddled and cuddled as close to you as I can get

There are good teachers and bad teachers, but you can learn from both.

As background, I graduated from a parochial high school. In Gym Class (or PE, whatever they call it these days), which I had in the middle of the school day, I had lots of textbooks and notebooks that would not fit easily into my Gym Locker.  To cope with this, I always put my textbooks and notebooks just outside the Gym on a public shelf, not in my locker.  One day in my senior year, after Gym Class, my books were gone from that shelf.  My reaction was “so it goes” and I went to my next class.  While in that class, I received a summons to the Principal’s office, which in my “goodie two-shoes” life was a rare event.  The Principal wanted to say that he had taken my books.  The Principal asked wasn’t I afraid that someone was going to steal them. My reply was innocent, but in hindsight the best answer. ”Gee, Brother, no one ever stole them until you did.”  Project much?  In my experience, those who complain the most about a crime are most probably guilty of that crime. 

A postscript.  In two years that Principal went on to become the eastern provincial of his order, the Brothers of the Holy Cross, CSC.  One of his first official acts was to remove the order from my High School. I don’t think that it was for financial reasons, because it was immediately taken over by the Christian Brothers who have operated it successfully for more than more than 50 years.  BTW, the CSC order also operates Notre Dame.  Guess who I always root against in College Football? 

But one bad apple does not spoil the orchard.  That order also included my high school chemistry teacher.  When a neighboring public high school sent a delegation to attend our classes, after the school day, that Brother was moderating a discussion attended by those students and my classmates.  A comment was made by one of my classmates that our high school had the superior education because it was taught by a religious order.  That Brother said that it was not true.  Our school was operated because in the past, Catholics had been discriminated against in public schools.  Because of its size and resources, our school was not able to offer advanced classes (which are now called AP classes).  He said that in an ideal world, there would be no need for parochial high schools and no one would be discriminated against. 

Good or bad, you can learn from either.