IGM: Brilliant Idea

Inter-Galactic Memo

To: All Personnel
Fr: W. Leavitt
Re: Brilliant Plan
10-09-09

I was having a conversation with a colleague (who will remain nameless in order to avoid prosecution) the other day. She (or he!) mentioned something a friend’s teacher-father told her/him years ago. The teacher thought if all the teachers at a school could choose five students and “take them out” at the beginning of the year, he thought he might be able to endure an entire career of facing adolescents.
Hmmmmmm . . . I think there might be some merit to this tongue-in-cheek fantasy. Let us reason together:
Let’s say we waited until the official count in September and then had a day during which every teacher could submit five names of problem children to be removed. Three weeks would be plenty of time to ascertain existing and potential problems. We could all have a two or three-tiered list of five kids each. If two or more teachers submitted the same name, that kid would be snatched and we would be allowed to submit another student from the next tier. Say we had 80 teachers. That would be 400 students; ostensibly the worst discipline problems in the building. Class sizes would be reduced and leveling would be simpler. Time and money spent on discipline and all its attendant challenges would plummet. The consumption of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic drugs would be drastically reduced, turn over would go down . . . there’s no down-side! Think of the money we’d save.
I suppose we don’t have to actually shoot them. We could expel them for the year and let them try again next year. Oh, and this might be effective; anyone sent home during the “Teacher day of Deliverance” would be expected to pay tuition from then on, having abrogated their right to a free education due to inappropriate and unacceptable behavioral issues. Whatever the Community College is charging should suffice. Now, all you teachers out there sit back and relax, close your eyes for a moment and think about that handful of students who are causing you such pain and misery. Imagine them gone, the class quiet and reasonably well behaved, learning taking place. Would not, in this one case, the end justify the means?
Okay, open your eyes again. Welcome back to reality.

This message was brought to you by Prozac—the “teachers choice.”