The original of this essay was actually written and posted to the blog way back in 2015. A friend of mine asked me for an essay to read, and I told her about this teacher essay. Since she also had the infamous instructor in question, one thing led to another, and I sent this to her. She liked it so much she told me to re-post it to the website. Here it is for all you readers out there. Enjoy!!

Word Count: 1131

The Gym/Shower Punishment

At times, I wish I’d become a teacher. Besides the fact that I deeply admire the great commission they’re entrusted with, my sisters have carried on a fantastic legacy my mother started all those years ago.

The oldest one trained stockbrokers and met her husband when he was a student in one of her classes. Just as a side note, those first few years after I met my brother-in-law, I kept singing the lyrics to that Van Halen “Hot for Teacher” song whenever I talked to him.

My second sister won a prestigious award at the elementary school where she teaches in Texas, and I’m so proud of her for achieving that honor. She didn’t gloat it over me when I talked to her about it, but she obviously could have. She was entitled.

My littlest sister teaches pre-school kids (“little people” as one of my uncles used to refer to them), and although she doesn’t make much money doing the task, I feel like the job she does is so essential to a vibrant, functioning society. In fact, one of my wishes is to have the financial resources to supplement her income one day. If I did this, I’m sure the snack options whenever I’m visiting her apartment would substantially improve. From my perspective, this is a vital consideration.

The teachers I had while growing up in Silverton were definitely worth remembering and commenting about. The most memorable is of course the instructor who’s teaching philosophy was based on the tremendous influence of “intimidation as a learning tool”. My favorite story about him in an odd sort of way focuses on this philosophy in practice.

Middle school P.E. in fall of 1972 had the boys & girls running down to an open field the school used as a staging ground for soccer. Standard modus operandi had us at the start of class stand next to an assigned number painted on the bleachers. Drill sergeant Stalin (this teacher was a former Marine) would blow a whistle and we’d run into the locker room and change into our gym clothes, and then run back out and stand by our number. Bashar Al-Assad would then blow the whistle again, and we’d dash down to the soccer field. At the end of class we’d run back to the school, take a quick shower, and go to lunch.

This kid named Dick Elwood, who was basically the butt of numerous jokes even though he wasn’t smart enough to be considered a nerd, was the last one out of the shower one day. When Sergeant Sadistic got back from lunch he walked into the locker room only to discover 6” of standing water as the result of the faucets not being turned off in the boy’s locker room.

Holding fast to the teaching mantra of punishing all for the actions of a few, Count Dracula punished all the boys the next day for Dick’s indiscretions. We’d stand at our number, he’d blow the whistle, and all the males would quickly dash into the locker room to change into our gym clothes. Following that, the whistle would blow again, we’d take another shower and change back into our street garb.

This pattern would be repeated all during class, and the middle school boys at Silverton School in fall 1972 took nine showers that day (I’ll always remember the exact number). The girls got to play volleyball during class, or some other fun activity without Pol Pot glaring over their shoulders. Needless to say all us boys were very clean when we left school for lunch. I’m sure the school’s water bill spiked that day too.

This teaching method was actually quite effective. Nobody ever left class after that without checking to make sure the water was turned off. I felt sorry for Dick Elwood though when all was said and done. I noticed that he got beat up four times the following week.

There are a few other teacher stories I vaguely remember from my youth, and I could write numerous pages about the adventure (or mis-adventures as the case may be). For now though let’s move on to one other glowing teacher example.

I did in fact work as an instructor at one time, but it was a slightly different situation. While doing my Peace Corps stint in Kenya the job I had was that of an extension agro-forester. A lot of our work involved outreach to schools and technical institutes in and around the central Kenyan Highlands where I lived and worked. One of these was a trip with an accompanying load of tree seedlings to a school for special needs children.

Now I was never totally proficient as a speaker of the Kenyan lingua franca – Swahili, but I did manage to talk my way through most of our extension trips, showing the kids and their teachers where to plant the tree seedlings we brought them. Most of the students were just fascinated to see a Mazungu (White – European) in their midst and delighted in observing his comical attempts at speaking Swahili.

Just to add an extra element of confusion, the main tribe in the central highlands in and around Mt. Kenya happens to be Kikuyu, so Swahili was often a second or even third language for most folks (English being #2).

Two months after the initial extension trip, we made a follow-up visit to the school. One of the teachers mentioned that a few of the tree seedlings the kids had planted during that first trip didn’t make it, and wondered if I had any theories concerning the mystery of dead saplings. This led me to digging up the ground around some of the seedlings that had been planted, but ended up biting the big one.

Just like Herr Adolph all those years ago, my discovery that day was quite enlightening. Seems some of the tree seedlings had been planted upside down, thus decreasing their chances of survival by a factor of about 98%. These were kids so I quickly forgave them for their indiscretion rather than petitioning to use a variation of the gym-shower punishment. After arranging to bring the school additional trees to replace the ones that died, we were on to the next extension visit.

The teacher apologized profusely, but I told him it wasn’t necessary. Mentioning that his job as an instructor is a somewhat thankless task to begin with, and he’s doing the best he can under the circumstances.

That’s pretty much what a lot of teachers are up against. For a large percentage of these folks it must feel like they’re paddling upstream in a trusty Papier-Mache canoe. Thankfully they’ve got a few folks like yours truly with their back.