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Authors: Tony Monchinski
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sweet.
Courtney and Jack had broken up sometime ago. They’d driven here as a reminder. It was Jason’s idea.
“What about you, main?” The voice came out of the sky, a clear sky, no rain. “Why you here?”
“You want the long answer…” Jason asked the unseen man in the cell next to his. “…or the short answer?”
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“I was a teacher.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“ Was , huh? What happened, yo? You touch a kid?”
“No!”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. When I was a kid, teachers were respected.”
“Main, I’ll tell you—I spoke back to Mr. Moody once and my grandma laid it on me good when I got home. I can still feel that shit.”
“There was this idea that, sure , if you were a teacher, you’d never get rich, but you’d get your summers off. You’d make a decent living. And it was viewed as, I don’t know, a noble profession.”
“All that changed, didn’t it?”
“Sure it did. They started blaming us—blaming teachers, blaming students and schools—blaming us for everything. Some study comes out, says US students aren’t up to par on math and science internationally? Must be the public schools. Must be the teacher’s union.”
“Must be.”
“Kids graduating from high school, not ready for college? Not ready for a decent job? Our fault. Never mind that we see these kids for, what? Six, seven hours a day and then what? Never mind that the economy sucks and isn’t creating the kinds of jobs anybody would want to work, or the fact that colleges produce more drop outs than graduates. Never mind that test scores aren’t everything, but once they became everything education became all about raising them.”
“Never mind,” the other man echoed.
“I mean, the high school I taught in, we used to spend the last third of the year prepping kids for the state tests.”
“Fucked up.”
“You know what happens when that happens? Forget the big ideas. Forget ‘intellectual inquiry’. Forget sparking a life-long love of learning. You’re not just dumbing down individuals, you’re dumbing down a nation.”
“Allelujah, main.”
“That how I sound?”
“No, I’m just messin’ roun’ with you.”
“They started to ‘measure’ us, using our students’ performance on tests. All of a sudden everyone wanted to work with the A.P. kids—”
“Advanced placement?”
“Yeah. No one wanted to work with special ed. kids, with the English-language learners.”
“That’s who you worked with?”
“Yeah. That’s what I got into teaching for . I didn’t think they’d be as shortsighted as they were—I mean the politicians, the bureaucrats in state ed. Breaking the unions wasn’t enough for them. They wanted to privatize the whole enchilada.”
“And so you’re here?”
“After I was deemed ‘ineffective’ two years in a row, it was easy enough for them to get rid of me. They’d already scrapped seniority, scrapped tenure, collective bargaining.”
“So you lost your job?”
“I lost my job. I couldn’t make my mortgage payments. I lost my house. I was a real good time to be around. Boy was I. I lost my wife.”
“No?”
“She left with the kids. And I can’t blame her.”
“We’ve all got things we regret,” the other man noted sadly.
“I didn’t do anything I regret,” Jason called into the passageway. “Not with her. One thing I know—I wasn’t a bad teacher. No matter what their ‘objective’ measures supposedly said. Fuck them all anyway.”
We’ve all got things we regret “I said I didn’t do anything I regret. Didn’t you hear me?”
“What? All right main, calm down. Shit, I didn’t say…”
We’ve all got things we regret
Jason’s head started to spin, a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds, the bars of his cell, knuckles rapping out a beat, the cold rock walls of the passageway, a little girl in a bee suit, we’ve all got things we regret, knocking, Rudy smiling knowingly
Courtney and Jack had broken up sometime ago. They’d driven here as a reminder. It was Jason’s idea.
“What about you, main?” The voice came out of the sky, a clear sky, no rain. “Why you here?”
“You want the long answer…” Jason asked the unseen man in the cell next to his. “…or the short answer?”
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“I was a teacher.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“ Was , huh? What happened, yo? You touch a kid?”
“No!”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know. When I was a kid, teachers were respected.”
“Main, I’ll tell you—I spoke back to Mr. Moody once and my grandma laid it on me good when I got home. I can still feel that shit.”
“There was this idea that, sure , if you were a teacher, you’d never get rich, but you’d get your summers off. You’d make a decent living. And it was viewed as, I don’t know, a noble profession.”
“All that changed, didn’t it?”
“Sure it did. They started blaming us—blaming teachers, blaming students and schools—blaming us for everything. Some study comes out, says US students aren’t up to par on math and science internationally? Must be the public schools. Must be the teacher’s union.”
“Must be.”
“Kids graduating from high school, not ready for college? Not ready for a decent job? Our fault. Never mind that we see these kids for, what? Six, seven hours a day and then what? Never mind that the economy sucks and isn’t creating the kinds of jobs anybody would want to work, or the fact that colleges produce more drop outs than graduates. Never mind that test scores aren’t everything, but once they became everything education became all about raising them.”
“Never mind,” the other man echoed.
“I mean, the high school I taught in, we used to spend the last third of the year prepping kids for the state tests.”
“Fucked up.”
“You know what happens when that happens? Forget the big ideas. Forget ‘intellectual inquiry’. Forget sparking a life-long love of learning. You’re not just dumbing down individuals, you’re dumbing down a nation.”
“Allelujah, main.”
“That how I sound?”
“No, I’m just messin’ roun’ with you.”
“They started to ‘measure’ us, using our students’ performance on tests. All of a sudden everyone wanted to work with the A.P. kids—”
“Advanced placement?”
“Yeah. No one wanted to work with special ed. kids, with the English-language learners.”
“That’s who you worked with?”
“Yeah. That’s what I got into teaching for . I didn’t think they’d be as shortsighted as they were—I mean the politicians, the bureaucrats in state ed. Breaking the unions wasn’t enough for them. They wanted to privatize the whole enchilada.”
“And so you’re here?”
“After I was deemed ‘ineffective’ two years in a row, it was easy enough for them to get rid of me. They’d already scrapped seniority, scrapped tenure, collective bargaining.”
“So you lost your job?”
“I lost my job. I couldn’t make my mortgage payments. I lost my house. I was a real good time to be around. Boy was I. I lost my wife.”
“No?”
“She left with the kids. And I can’t blame her.”
“We’ve all got things we regret,” the other man noted sadly.
“I didn’t do anything I regret,” Jason called into the passageway. “Not with her. One thing I know—I wasn’t a bad teacher. No matter what their ‘objective’ measures supposedly said. Fuck them all anyway.”
We’ve all got things we regret “I said I didn’t do anything I regret. Didn’t you hear me?”
“What? All right main, calm down. Shit, I didn’t say…”
We’ve all got things we regret
Jason’s head started to spin, a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds, the bars of his cell, knuckles rapping out a beat, the cold rock walls of the passageway, a little girl in a bee suit, we’ve all got things we regret, knocking, Rudy smiling knowingly
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