Bob’s Blog

I think one day, I’m going to run for public office. Because, to be perfectly honest, I’m just tired of the bullshit on all levels of government.

After watching the now infamous “don’t tase me, bro” video that was released this week, am I the only one who thinks that…

1) While he certainly didn’t necessarily deserve a good ol’ fashioned tasing, he surely had a handcuffing warranted for resisting the police in the first place. His resistance was clear. Regardless of how you feel about how the situation was handled (and it was undoubtedly handled poorly by the police), the kid resisted and made it much harder on himself than it should have been.

2) Long winded questions don’t deserve mics cut off. We can all agree with that. But I can tell you that after actually working in college event programming for 4 years, there are certain rules people must follow when asking questions in these types of events. Rule #1 being that you keep it brief and to the point as possible because there are hundreds of people at these events and dozens of questions typically get asked and the guest speakers only have a limited amount of time to answer questions. It’s about courtesy and respect for others in attendance.

He could have simply stated why Kerry conceded the election give the amount of evidence out there, and then quickly asked about Iran and this so-called “secret society” that he’s apparently part of.

Yet, those two things get lost in all of this. I watch some of these Youtube responses and really can’t believe some of the things people say and think. Common sense gets buried under “WE’RE LIVING IN A POLICE STATE. DEMOCRACY IS DEAD. THE FIRST AMENDMENT IS DEAD. WE LIVE IN A TYRANNY” and other such nonsense.

I’m a firm liberal and believer in free speech. But I’m also a firm believer in common sense.

I happen to teach in an area of Atlanta where kids generally do sub-par work. Only about 60% of all students in my high school graduate. Our county has one of, if not the highest, teenage pregnancy rates in Georgia. Most kids have troubled home lives and have no real respect for authority or discipline.

It’s hard to try and teach these kids. The constant whining, the babying, and dealing with the disrespect is very overwhelming at times. About 2 weeks ago, I had a student verbally threaten me (he was later removed from the school by his parents). Today, a girl threatened our economics teacher and cussed her out. Another student said yesterday to the substitute across the hall that he “isn’t afraid to knock a teacher out”.

It’s stories and experiences like this that makes me wonder what is going on down here. These students don’t idolize people like Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks, but rather Tupac and Biggie Smalls. Rappers. Rappers whose contributions to this world pale in comparison to those of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King; people who did more for their race than a rapper ever will, or could, do.  They get excited and settle for not A’s or B’s. But rather D’s.

I can’t even assign homework because the students WILL fail. There are no ifs and/or buts about it. If you want to fail your students at my high school, just simply assign homework 2-3 times a week. You can’t grade anything other than tests; you simply have to give credit and the only thing you really can grade are tests or quizzes. It’s unbelievable how bad things are.

The most discouraging part about this entire job is knowing that most of these kids won’t ever make it. Most of these kids probably won’t make it out of their 9th or 10th year. Many of the girls will become pregnant or will drop out soon because they have to take care of their current kid(s).

The odds are too overwhelming for most of them.  And it’s depressing knowing this. I just hope a handful make it to college. That’s all I can really wish for with this group.

Jim and I are angry about our jobs today and we have decided to co-author a book on how not to suck at managing. Here is the current outline, chapter by chapter.

I’m thinking: New York Times Best Seller. Easily.

The Management Bible
Chapter 1: Don’t be a dick, dumbass
Chapter 2: All employees love pie
Chapter 3: No, really. Chances are you are hated by most of your employees.
Chapter 4: 100 more reasons not to be a dick
Chapter 5: At our staff meetings, it’d be great if you could serve pie and punch.
Chapter 6: Employees bitch less when you give them sandwiches
Chapter 7: How to avoid death threats
Chapter 8: When speaking to employees, make sure you use logic from this plane of existence, and not the one you’re actually from
Chapter 9: That funny smell isn’t the building, rather the smell of failure on your part as manager
Chapter 10: Most managers deserve to be eaten by wild dogs and unruly children
Chapter 11: More reasons why you should be eaten alive by small children
Chapter 12: Why everyone thinks you wouldn’t know a good idea if one came out of the bushes and started humping your leg
Chapter 13: Remember that time you said you’d give me a raise? Yes. I’m still waiting.

The dreaded teacher survey. Something that will only annoy you while reading and make you want to slam your head against your desk in anger.

Every teacher does this at some point in their career. You give out a survey asking students how they feel about the class, what can be improved, how your style works, etc. Normally, I would stay away from these things because I am not there to be liked and things are going to be done my way. That’s not to sound insensitive to kids needs, but you don’t let kids run your classroom or let them tell you how to do your job.

But I need to build a class portfolio and I needed to ask these types of questions.

And the answers you get are astounding, discouraging, relieving, and confusing. You’re not sure what to feel or think as you flip through the surveys. You go through about 20 different emotions at one time reading through what these kids have to say. My favorite was:

“We need to take more notes in class. We need more notes so we can use them to study for our tests.”

The girl who wrote that today? She was asleep during my 3 pages of notes.