The worst teacher ever.
The shop teacher was a grizzled old guy awash in wrinkles, coated in a buzz cut. From the first, he made it clear we were shit. He knew few of us would ever use the things he taught–we could care less about making wood boxes or plastic heart necklaces. He told us that we had to look at the tools in the tool shed ’cause one day there would be a quiz. But most of our grade was about the stupid little projects we had to build. If he ever smiled, it meant there were icicles in hell
His idea of classroom time was to walk away and hide in his little room off the shop to build stuff, smoke, and shit in his private toilet. If no one had a question, we literally never saw him for the entire 45 minutes.
He set a trap and we walked into it. No doubt he told his protector, the Foon, what was coming.
The first quiz happens in October and all but 2 of us fail, since we didn’t know the tools. And yea, we were cocky, who cares about this shit? We were all going to college and thank whoever we worshiped that we won’t have to get calloused, swollen hands like this ignorant putz.
Then failure notices went out. The old man is livid, worst in years. Screaming, spittle in the corners of the mouth. The reason we got them was we had not finished our 3-month project in 2 months (which he knew would happen, after 25 years), so all he had for this marking period was the failed quiz. Simple, and crudely effective.
The following Monday, we are herded into the small classroom across the hall. He is gleeful. The crux of his speech:
“You poor little rich boys. You think your mommys and daddys can get you out of failure notices. I’ve failed 50-60 kids in my life and you don’t scare me one bit. Tell your parents go ahead and complain; I enjoy it. I’ve been waiting to see what you spoiled brats were going to be like with this new school system. You sit there smug, thinking you’ll never need this stuff. It is sad this course isn’t considered as important as math or English. But you’re mine for two years and you’ll do what I say. The average student should have finished the first project last week, so guess what? You’re all mediocre students, in my opinion. They’ll be one more quiz [generous cocksucker that he was], and I suggest you ask mommy and daddy to help you, maybe take you to Sears and hold your hand while you look at tools. Go ahead and look at me like that, it makes me smile.”
With that, he walks out and we file sullenly into the shop.
I never hated someone so completely and thoroughly, not even the old man A transparent juvenile adult, resenting kids in rich town born into money, and progress left his little kingdom behind. We saw through him, even at our young ages. We settled into a resentful routine: We rarely spoke to him unless we had to, and for the next 2 years he was a silent annoyance, like a paper cut healing slowly. Just consider this: the key to a good teacher is talking to/listening to students, forming an (albeit temporary) bond; this guy hated kids and wanted to be alone. Would he succeed today, I wonder?
I found out later other teachers hated him; the Foon exempted him (only him) from the last 1/2 day of school, so he could go on vacation. In eighth grade, a guy told me he snuck in the shop on the last day and took a gigantic dump in the private toilet. Things would have been interesting come August.
Also, I heard neighborhood kids made a point of harassing him at Halloween: soaping his car, potato in the exhaust pipe, even sugar in his gas tank.
Here’s to you, Augie, you filthy piece of shit.