Shaddup Already!
2005-08-17
Local Teacher
I was having this discussion with my coworkers about my desire to run over the teenage minions of disaster in my neighborhood. I said that last Friday, I was driving into my subdivision and some snot-nosed little adolescent decides to try a new skateboard trick in the middle of the road, right after looking straight at my car. I was explaining to my coworkers that by that time in the week, those kids just scream out "speed bump."Then I made the statement, "I can see the headline now, 'Local Teacher Charged With Vehicular Homicide.'"
That got us into a discussion about how we have to think twice about doing anything even mildly not right because we are no longer just people--we are now "Local Teachers."
There is definitely a higher standard of behavior placed on some fields and teaching is at the top of the list. You would never read an article that said "Local Wal-mart Clerk Charged With Vehicular Homicide," unless the said homicide occurred at the Wal-mart and then the mention is still pretty iffy.
So does this imply that Wal-mart employees are less sociopathic than teachers? Probably. But I'm sure that many of them still commit crimes.
Okay, I digress . . .
. . .frequently.
What I was getting at in my post is that a few days after we had this conversation, I read the following headline "blank County Teacher Charged With DUI." And no it wasn't me.
Whenever I see my county in the headlines, I read the story, just to see if I know the person involved. So far I haven't known any of them. Until now.
This teacher who had a horrible lapse in judgement works at my school. In fact, if I had not requested the team I'm on now, she would have been the science teacher on my team.
I go between feeling sorry for her and angry. This is most definitely going to screw up her life some, but she really asked for it. We all make mistakes, but not all of us pilot a deadly weapon while under the influence of alcohol.
I've really thought a lot about this and know that if I were a parent (thank goodness I'm not) and I had a student in her class, I would be uncomfortable. Possibly to the point of withdrawal from the class or from the school if they wouldn't change my imaginary child's schedule.
Now some of this may come from my background with an alcoholic father. One thing I learned when he went into recovery is that he was seldom sober when he was driving us kids around. That kind of pissed me off. I also learned that, before I came around, he was charged with DUI. That really pissed me off. Then I found out that a friend of his at the police department "took care" of the ticket, I was livid.
So the point of the story is this--if you're a teacher, make sure your illegal behavior exists only in your sociopathic imagination on a Friday afternoon. Or something like that.
