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Oh, the Drama!

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  • Oh, the Drama!

    I just had an interview for a new position as a drama teacher. Since I taught it several years ago, I think I've got it nailed down. But it reminded me of some stories from my previous position. I taught drama in an extended-day program for a magnet school. Basically, for a fee, the parents could enroll their child in a program that had arts and academics until 5pm every day. Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

    Exhibit A: Creepy McCreeperson
    My classes were split into grades 2-3 and grades 4-5. One of my 5th graders had an older brother; I think he was about 19 or 20. Now, I was 32 or 33 and engaged at the time. But that didn't seem to phase Mr. Creepy. He'd show up early to pick up his sister, and he asked me out several times; coffee, the movies, etc. I was running out of ways to say "no, not ever" to this guy. I tried a soft no, I tried a hard no, I tried "SO MY FIANCE SAID..." loudly in his earshot. The other teachers mostly thought it was funny.

    Until one day I was out sick. My sub was a fantastic no-bullshit-taking woman. Apparently, that was the day he decided to make his BIG MOVE and throw it all up for TRUE LOVE.

    He showed up in a suit. With flowers. Reeking of cologne. And when he realized I wasn't actually there, he threw a tantrum. He demanded that my sub tell him where I was. There was angry screaming in front of my class! She tells me she just shot him down and told him I was never ever going to go out with him since I was getting married in 6 months. I think she must have complained to the principal and had him barred from campus. I never saw him again.

    I'm kind of not sure whether to be glad or sorry that I missed it.

    Exhibit B: Why yes, I'm totally racist against myself.
    One semester, I didn't have enough 2nd-3rd graders to make up a full class. So I combined with one of the arts teachers who also had a tiny class, and we decided to collaborate on a puppet show. The kids made their own "giant" (ie: 8-year-old-sized) puppets, and we did a play.

    Now these are young kids, so they didn't exactly have a lot of lines. But they did have to learn a few things, and practice them over and over. So casting the play was based on who came to class the most often. Remember, the parents were paying for this, for all 5 days of the school week. And yet, we had a number of kids who would show up maybe 2 or 3 days a week. One of these kids was Lisa.

    Lisa would come maybe 2 days a week. So of course, her puppet wasn't getting finished, and she wasn't learning any lines or blocking or anything. Naturally, we just gave her a part like "villager #4".

    Lisa's dad was NOT happy with this. One day he showed up and asked us why we only cast white kids as our leads. Lisa, like probably 1/4 of our class, was Mexican (this will be important later). We pointed out that we cast our leads on who showed up for class, and Lisa only came twice a week. "Well she has tutoring and soccer!" ... Okay, but not seeing how that's our fault that you've overscheduled her.

    Not only that, but after he left we realized that it wasn't even accurate. Our lead males were Brazilian and Filipino. I'd guess he was only looking at the girls, and we had an unusual number of little blonde girls in the class that semester for some reason. The lead girl part was the palest little blonde this side of albino, to make matters worse.

    The punchline was when he went into the office file a complaint with the administration that we were racists. The secretary (also Mexican, trust me, I'm going somewhere with this) looked at him and said "Let me get this straight, you want to complain that Ms Green and Ms Ortega are racist against Mexicans?" Yep, that was me. I was a gringa with a Mexican name.

    He still filed the complaint. And he still kept enrolling his daughter in my classes. And she still kept going to soccer and tutoring instead. She even had soccer games on performance nights, and he'd be angry that she wasn't asked to perform, in a performance she couldn't be in anyway.

    I actually only ever had one other parent yell at me because her precious snowflake wasn't given a lead role, but I honestly can't remember what she said.

  • #2
    Yikes.

    The only "drama queen" story I ever had was when I was doing a teaching prac at a very arts-heavy school (Steiner school). One of the parents complained that her kid did not get a leading role in the class play. Except that the kid had indicated that they didn't want a leading role in the play this year and had been in the leader roles for the past three class plays in a row.
    The best professors are mad scientists! -Zoom

    Now queen of USSR-Land...

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    • #3
      Sometimes I think the biggest obstacle in a lot of kids' lives are their parents.
      When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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      • #4
        Quoth MoonCat View Post
        Sometimes I think the biggest obstacle in a lot of kids' lives are their parents.
        They asked us once what our least favorite thing about teaching was. I said the parents.

        I mean obviously I don't hate all the parents... but there's always enough of the " My darling Sneauxflayk can do no wrong!" ones. One of my favorite parents ever was at the same school. She was a wickedly funny and brilliant woman who could tell a great joke despite only knowing about 10 words in English. Her kid was equally clever and funny.

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        • #5
          I think you were lucky to be home sick on the day the creeper was banned. He could have tried to follow you home and then you would have had a real problem.

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          • #6
            Oh, yes. If the kid isn't modelling the parents' behavior, then it's the parents. That was the absolute one thing I hated about the scouting of really young male children. The parents. And the wooden car derbies. Actually, that usually was because of the parents too. I have never seen so many sore losers except during the derbies. The boys were having fun, but the parents were out for blood.

            Only thing I could figure out was that the EGO became ALL during that time. It was rare to find a car that a boy had done for themselves in any way shape or form. They didn't even get to pick the colors of the cars out for themselves! And the parents would try to bring the car to the track, load it.. which was a HUGE no-no. Boys only, folks. Oh, precious broke the tire off? You get 5 minutes to fix it. BUT THE BOY IS THE ONLY ONE TO APPROACH THE TRACK. GET OVER IT!!!

            Wow.. even after two years since the last time I went to a meeting and I still have such a hate for the derbies.
            If I make no sense, I apologize. I'm constantly interrupted by an actual toddler.

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