Well, I was a little disappointed in the students’ performance today. We were explicating poetry, and they simply weren’t giving it their best efforts or highest levels of concentration -- not spotting the alliteration, not scanning the meter, not grasping the metaphors. So....I forced every one of them to fully submerge in ice.
Ohhhh, I didn't of course! What do you take me for -- some pedagogical Marquis de Sade?!? Needless to say, if a teacher were to pull such a stunt over student non-performance, said teacher would be F-I-R-E-D and then, most likely, brought up on charges of child abuse. So it was with a fair amount of shock and incredulity when I read the following account in this weekend’s Gwinnett Daily Post:
HOSCHTON Feb. 4 — After a win like this, another round of ice baths
are on the way.
Mill Creek coach Chad Rogers forced every one of his Hawks to fully submerge in ice Thursday after his team was a no-show Wednesday night in a 66-38 loss to Norcross. It was the second of back-to-back region games for Mill Creek, which lost the night before in overtime to Peachtree Ridge.
“We had to get our legs back under us,” Rogers said.
Their legs were there from the start Friday at home against North Gwinnett. The Hawks’ defense kept North’s guards off-balance and their offense found and hit shot after shot in a 68-52 win.
Submerged them in ICE BATHS?!?!?!?! Are you kidding me??!?!?! Ohhhhhh, but it was the high school basketball coach, you say. Well, why didn’tcha say so!! That’s totally okay!! The boys needed a wake-up call, for heavensakes....good for character....that’ll teach ‘em. Hey, after all, we did win the next game!
I’m perpetually astounded at the double standard, it seems, in what is often tacitly approved for the coaches of our young people versus what is acceptable from our teachers of the same young people. Mind you, when a teacher stands in front of his or students and chides them -- okay....berates them -- for poor effort or laziness,that teacher winds up on YouTube quicker than you can say bus call, and is quickly dubbed hysterical, perhaps later even having to explain himself or herself to no less than the likes of Bill-Almighty-O’Reilly. And then they’d be fired.
Coach, on the other hand, gets a pass -- lauded, even, for instilling those slack youths with mettle and backbone. You missed your block; give me twenty! Is it any wonder we can’t keep teachers? Well, who knows, maybe tomorrow if they botch sensory language, I’ll have the students run the stadium steps.
Michael McIntyre
Dacula 2011
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