By R.J. Beaumia
Viewpoint
In director Francis Ford Coppola's 1986 film "Peggy Sue Got Married," a plump Kathleen Turner plays a 40-ish housewife who tries to distract herself from a tumultuous midlife crisis and a wrecked marriage by attending her 25th high school reunion. While there she suffers a freak heart trauma that sends her back into time, and she finds herself not at a reunion, but actually back in high school circa 1960.
The film has some flaws, but it's still a favorite of mine for many reasons. It's irresistible to imagine the scenarios "If I had the chance to do it all over again, I'd…" or "If I knew then what I know now, I'd…" Just think of the possibilities for redemption and renewal. What would you do with a second chance?
Well, I sort of got that chance when I was recently given the opportunity to go back to school. I'm fatter, balder, and older than Kathleen Turner's character, and my voice isn't as deep. I'm not back in high school, though, I'm attending college… again! If I get one more degree I can have it bound with the others, sit it on my shelf, and no one will be able to tell the difference between that volume and my set of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I hope, though, that this degree will prove to be of more value than the others.
I've always loved school and couldn't wait to get back into it, and the thought of attending fulltime for the first time in almost 30 years was sort of a kick. So, like Jerri Blank in Strangers with Candy, I'm back in school.
The college is great and the classes are very challenging. The professors are highly competent, intelligent, effective, and expect excellence but, as you might suspect, I do have my complaints to register.
Perhaps it's my age and the fact that I've had my head buried deep in the ass of the beast that is life for a number of years. I've not only seen bullshit, but I've smelled it and been forced to eat huge piles of it at various times of my life. I thought I was getting a new start, but thanks to some professors I've seen in action, I'm with bullshit like Michael Corleone was with the Mafia: Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
I want to qualify this rant by saying that I have respect for no other professionals more than I do for those who teach. At some point in my life I would love nothing more than to teach. Teachers are my friends, I have them in my family, and I've had them as boyfriends. I have had high school teachers and college professors change my life in wondrous ways. Men and women who teach are perhaps the most overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated people in the American workforce.
However, my recent experience has also proven some of them to be manipulative, callous, insulting, and sadistic. I've watched a couple of these people in action: They act like they want to be the students' buddy, but when students asks for buddy-type favors (requests for leniency or a little bending of the rules) they get a cold glee telling them, in essence, "tough shit," and lecture them on their study habits or that "they should know better." It's a good cop/bad cop, tough love routine I find of questionable value and generally evil. Yes, life isn't easy and it's good to learn responsibility, but it's wrong to use your position to relieve the stresses weighing down your own fucked up mind.
Recently, a professor of mine sent out a general email to all me and my classmates, reminding us of the no studying for other courses/no laptops/no cell phone usage during class rules. The thought behind the mailing was appropriate and, certainly, most necessary. People are rude enough with their electronic devices in the real world, let alone in class.
This particular professor, though, went on a lengthy six paragraph, typographically botched, passive-aggressive rant about how infractions of policy were reflections of our character, and that she knew about those of us who shirked the rules even when we thought she didn't (surreptitiously sending text messages, doing homework for other classes, etc). All this on and on, and then dropping the bomb by saying only a few of us could count ourselves among the transgressors, that most of the class was following the rules, and that we were generally a good group.
Fine, then save us all the grief, bust the scofflaws in person, and send out a shorter, spell-checked, less aggressive, less hostile reminder to the class via email. To her credit, she explained herself more clearly and apologized for the typos the next day. However, I've got to say that her original note reminded me of someone not in control of their emotions, or of someone who drinks too much and then acts capriciously. Those things I can forgive, but the self-righteousness I cannot. Very unprofessional coming from an otherwise excellent professor.
Incidentally, she prohibits students from using their cell phones for checking the time, something she blatantly does once or twice every session.
The good news is, I know through life experience that it's perfectly acceptable and much more honest to tell these mind-fuck professionals to piss off, but the bad news is that I have to stay in their good graces because they have what I need; yes, knowledge for one, but also the fair grades that would be in jeopardy were I to tell it like it is.
And so it is for young college students, who are just beginning to wean themselves from their parents, and who still look up to authority figures. So it is for this group of people for whom we show so little respect, yet find it just fine to saddle them with mountains of financial debt or to send them off to fight our wars while still so young.
This even starts back in high school, where one day a young man or woman might be sitting in algebra class, and then the next day be carrying a rifle in Falluja. Do we have enough respect for these people to allow them to say what's on their minds?
Yes, but only if they follow a script. Take for example, the recent incident in a Georgia public high school, where a student wrote an editorial in the school paper railing against marriage equality, calling homosexuality a "biological error." Naturally enough, there was lots of negative feedback, but the principal stood up for her student. That's great, but I have to wonder if the same would have happened if the student had said Jesus isn't God or if the editorial had been pro-gay.
On the obverse, there was also the case last March where a high school journalism teacher in Indiana was suspended for two months after allowing an op-ed piece advocating tolerance for gay and lesbians to run in the school newspaper.
In both of these cases, there's blatant, dishonest manipulation that to me is no less egregious than improper sexual manipulation. If you're against the exploitation of kids, then you should be against this, too.
Yes, students require strict guidance, some more than others. They need to know that life outside of the cocoon isn't endless flitting from one nectar fountain to the next. They also deserve some respect and honesty from older adults, and shouldn't be used to further the socio-corporate party line or as a convenient mental skull-fuck to alleviate frustration.
