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Embarrassed by my Quote of the Day
A number of years ago — in the last century — I did some substitute teaching. One day I was assigned a high school English class. Fortunately, I had a detailed lesson plan.
The class was reading John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. I read ahead on what we were to read aloud in class and was a little distressed to find the dreaded “N-word.” Even worse, when the class filed in, I noticed that there was just one black student in the class. So, I decided I should get ahead of the issue. I spoke about understanding a book in the context of the time it was written. I talked about the importance of creative license and the necessity of writers being true to the world and their vision. And about how rational people could disagree on these things.
As I opened the floor to questions, I felt prepared to deal with this sensitive issue.
A young woman in the front row raised her hand. I called on her.
Her question was, “Mr. Scrubb, did you know your zipper was down?”
I’ve had worse moments of embarrassment, but this is among the worst I’d be willing to share.
We all would like to avoid such moments. But we can’t always.
This is what Tina Fey had to say about a moment she was willing to share:
“For my first show at ‘SNL’, I wrote a Bill Clinton sketch, and during the read-through*, it wasn’t getting any laughs. This weight of embarrassment came over me, and I felt like I was sweating from my spine out. But I realized, ‘Okay, that happened and I did not die.’ You’ve got to experience failure to understand you can survive it.”
Though I didn’t check it at Snopes, I do think it is a Scientific Fact that no one has actually ‘Died of Embarrassment.’ Sure, it’s unpleasant, but we get through such times, especially if we have the grace to acknowledge the awkwardness and move on. You’ll never really accomplish anything if you aren’t willing to risk looking silly.
*Kids, you may not believe this, but there was a time Saturday Night Live was willing to mock Democrat politicians.
Published in General
That’s the quote of the day?
for a future day….regular feature.
It’s rusted in place . . .
I still recall that a boy who went on to become one of the most popular kids in high school, went on to Yale, et cetera, et cetera, first came to visit in seventh grade and spent most of the morning with his zipper down.
I am impressed that you had an actual lesson plan for your stint as a substitute. Most of the time you get a place-holder activity because the regular teacher assumes you can do nothing but babysit.
Yes, usually I was happy if they had a sitting chart.
How did the reading of Steinbeck go?
Yet. And do you want to be the first? It’d be historically embarrassing.
Very fascinating experience. I really wasn’t expecting that student’s question to involve your zipper.
You also said: *Kids, you may not believe this, but there was a time Saturday Night Live was willing to mock Democrat politicians.”
That was during the same era when people mocked one another of all races, religious beliefs and sexes. There was even the long running sketch about “Pat,” whose identity and pronouns were unknown. (Numerous sketches and whether Pat was male or female, yet no one ever could figure it out.)
If you had had the black kid read the passage with the N-word, it would have been OK because blacks are allowed to say the N-word.
I’ve never been black before but I imagine that word have made the black kid feel more uncomfortable. I remember that both the black character was well written and a decent fellow. He wanted to start his own farm instead of working for someone else the rest of his life and he seemed solid.
And for the most part people of races and sexes and what not laughed at all of that.
The “N” word isn’t really a big deal among Black people. It is the white, mostly liberal people who are outrageously offended by it. Same thing with other “forbidden” racial references.
I work a part-time job loading and unloading food at a philanthropic organization that gives away food to elderly poor people. A big Black bald-headed guy made a truck delivery this morning. When he unloaded a huge carton of watermelons off the truck I asked him “Did you ever watch the Little Rascals?” He enthusiastically said “Yes!” So I reached up and rubbed his bald head and said “I wish I had a watermelon.” He laughed hysterically and reminisced about how much he liked the Little Rascals.
LOL I remember one day at work, I made it halfway through the day when a coworker approached me and said, “Stad, did you know your shirt is inside out?”
Horrified, I stealthily slinked to the bathroom. Sure enough, my sport shirt was inside out. I quickly took it off, pulled it rightside in, and went back to work.
Here’s what happened:
I would get up in the morning way before neutral observer. After doing my thing in the bathroom, I go into the closet, close the door, turn on the light briefly (so as not to wake NO up), get dressed, then turn off the light. Normally, neutral observer makes sure the shirts are folded correctly after washing & drying, but not this one time . . .
I have been substitute “teaching” for the past two school years at a local high school because they needed subs and it gave me something else to do. At this high school, I don’t teach. Almost all of their course content is online and I don’t have access to it. Even if I did have access, knew where they were in the course and they wanted me to do any instruction, it would be hard to prepare on short notice. I can and have subbed for an assortment of math, science, foreign language, English, social science and even cooking and woodworking classes. I have avoided art, music and PE. There are a few things that I find very troubling.
One is smart phones usage during class. A few teachers don’t allow them, but so far they seem to be in the minority. The kids can’t stay off them if they are permitted. They seem destructive to the ability to focus on something for more than a couple of minutes at a time.
Another is group work. Instead of having to put in the effort to learn something yourself, you can piggyback off the effort of someone else.
And then there are test retakes and various other do-overs to boost your grade.
I’ve done that but it was just a t-shirt. Made it the whole day without me or anyone else noticing.
“Seams on the outside” actually might be a new style, seems like I’ve seen it before.