Friday, February 24, 2012

Communication Breakdown

My first year of teaching was Jim Oscar's last.  He had taught for 30 something years, and in my opinion, was a giant prick.  I don't know how he was during his 'peak' years, or what a career of that length in the classroom will do to a person, but Jim is exactly the type of person I hate to work around: never smiles, appears to hate kids, writes lots of referrals, etc.

Jim took a cell phone off a kid in class one day.  This was in the real early years of cell phones, where a student having one was universally treated about the same as having a revolver or a heroin needle.  As with seemingly all student issues, Jim wrote a referral.

The dean and I were friendly and he called me over to take a look at this particular referral later that day when I was down near his office.  Jim had written the following:

"Michael had a cell phone out in class! THEN LIED AND TRIED TO TELL ME IT WAS NOT REAL!!!"  He wrote the last part real big, with lots of underlining, so everyone could see just how mad he was.  To highlight his point, Jim had taped the phone to the referral.

The phone was made of chocolate, hallow, and covered in decorative novelty foil.




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