Unbonded

I do not mean the ones that held you to high standards in your field of study. Tough graders make accomplished writers, mathematicians, and economists.

The Classroom Drill Instructors

The tough ones I remember tended to be generally disagreeable people. Some were cold and acerbic; others were more brash and volatile. Some had the persona of Army drill instructors talking to bumpkins fresh off the bus, and sometimes those bumpkins were young teachers.

My wife remembers one such teacher. This woman would spend the passing period between classes standing in the girl’s bathroom and shouting the time until the tardy bell rang. This was punctuated by pronouncements of the doom that would befall anyone who was late to class.

Her description reminds me of a particularly difficult family member in one British humorist’s Bertie Wooster novels. Bertie describes his dreaded Aunt Agatha as “the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth”

In the movie, Teachers, there is a character named Ditto (an old slang term for a copier). Ditto is a veteran teacher who has students hand out papers at the beginning of the period and others collect the papers at the end of the period. In the intervening time, the students all work quietly while Ditto reads the newspaper. That is the routine, day after day.

Detached, But Hanging On

Ditto is so detached from his students that when he dies in class still clutching the newspaper, it is not discovered until after school is out.

Thinking back, I wonder if those tough teachers had any bond with their students. If, as I suspect, the answer was no, then how much did those teachers enjoy their jobs?