Million dollar teacher

Not that I'm worth a million bucks. Not by a long shot. I spent the last twelve years of my career teaching grade 3 math to high school students. For high school credits! Yup, there's plenty of kids walking around with high school diplomas who struggle with grade 3 math.

That was worth something, but not a million dollars. Here's where that kicks in.

I was a late bloomer in terms of realizing I had a passion for education. In fact, I'd hated high school when I was a hostage there. To be honest, I was mostly passionate about steady day shift and summers off. I turned 40 the year I started teaching.

To my surprise, I enjoyed the job. From the get-go kids liked me.

"Cool tattoo sir..."

Holy shit, these idiots think a bit of ink makes you cool? Anyway, I ran with it. I was quite popular amongst the student population.

From the beginning, I was also very much unpopular amongst a certain sort of administrator; the dimwitted careerists who love their power and hate students. Along comes this goofball VP, a man clearly destined for a senior leadership position at the board office, who decides he's gonna make a name for himself by getting rid of me.

He spent six months following me around, taking notes every time I violated some petty bullshit rule. The education system is chock full of folks who thrive on making up petty bullshit rules. I once saw a "Protocol for toileting student X" that ran an unbelievable 52 bullet points. Yup, 52 steps in helping a...
well, I can't say disabled... ability challenged (?) kid take a crap.

I can reduce this to two steps right smartly. Step one - position the kid over the toilet. Step two, have him bend over in front of the 2000psi pressure washer down in the auto shop.

Mission accomplished, and you just saved 50 steps!

After six months job-shadowing me, the VP who mistook me for his ticket to the board office had a stack of notes about a foot and a half high. I know this because he'd stay late in the photocopier room, sometimes till after five o'clock. Apparently a lot of different people needed copies of his evidence. Then he wrote a pithy letter to the College of Teachers making the case that my presence in the school was a threat to the very lives of my students.

Cue the lawyers!

My legal team was provided by the Teacher's Federation. The school board also had lawyers on hand. The College of Teachers had their own legal team. The adjudicators were provided an independent legal team because the actual people judging this case were political appointees with no legal expertise. One of them was there because her husband owned a marina where some politicians kept their boats.

The first flaw in VP Dickhead's master plan was exposed when it was revealed that the board had not done an evaluation of my teaching prowess (or lack thereof) in over ten years. They're required to be done every three. The obvious first question would be, how do you allow this allegedly incompetent and dangerous teacher to keep endangering the lives of the children, neglect to do at least three scheduled and legally mandated evaluations, and then suddenly discover he's a threat to the lives of the students? 

That pretty much stalemated them from the get-go.

A couple of years into this imbroglio, I enquired of my main legal person what they had billed on my file.

"We just passed $100,000" came the reply. The case was to run almost eight years. If one legal team milked this for 100 thou in two years, how much did four legal teams bill in eight years?

Sounds like a math problem I'd assign my students... which I did!

It's obvious why something that could have been dealt with in an afternoon dragged on for that long.

Lawyers.

Everybody involved was billing hours to deep pocket organizations. Nobody has any incentive to invoke common sense and get things wrapped. The College of Teachers HQ is on the "Mink Mile" on Bloor Street. When our occasional get-togethers were in recess, you could slip out and buy a $50,000 Philippe Patek next door, if you were so inclined. Lunches were catered by the finest eateries in downtown Toronto. Nobody in their right mind is gonna rush this gravy train!


So it was that almost eight years after VP Shitwad posted his pithy letter, and seven years after the shmuck had taken early retirement (never made it to board office), it was agreed all round that nobody had intended any harm, and I promised never to endanger the lives of the children again.


And remember, every single person in this sorry saga was being paid by you-know-who. Cut out the school boards and do away with the College of Teachers, and you'd free up billions to invest in actual education.

Would you like fries with your liver and onions?

No I wouldn't.

I'm not a big fan of the long drive to the city and back. Promised myself a good feed of liver and onions at the Steeles Deli, where they've long claimed to have the best liver and onions in town, as compensation for the aggravation.

So we get Junior out of res at Margaret Addison Hall on Charles in the heart of downtown, up to his summer place at Younge and Steeles, and we pop over to the Steeles Deli, me and the Farm Manager and four of our five juniors and a couple of add-ons.

I know what I want, and I'm literally drooling in anticipation. When it's my turn to order I say liver and onions.

She says, how do you want it?

I say, on the light side.

She says, and what kind of potatoes?

Totally redundant question. There's only one kind of potatoes you have with liver 'n onion, and if you're reading this blog you already know.

Mashed potatoes.

She says, we're out of mashed, would you like fries with that?

Huh?

What the hell goes on here?

Best liver 'n onions in town but you're outta mashed potatoes?

Sorry, but that simply does not compute.

Fries? With liver and onions?

NO!

A thousand times no!

I'm the kinda guy who took decades coming to grips with the fact that pineapple on pizza is socially acceptable... but fries with your liver and onion?

No way Jose.

So I had a Reuben instead. Mediocre at best. I swear the sauerkraut came out of a jar.

By then my tablemates were gushing over their matzah-ball soup, and I didn't want to ruin the mood, so I made do.

Meanwhile, I've got the cell-phone addicts at the table furiously googling election results from France. Seems almost seven million voters opted for communism and a strategic alliance with Venezuela. Good showing but not quite enough.

France is going into the run-off with a choice between a rabid racist and a guy who met his wife when he was fifteen years old... and she was his teacher!

Not that there's anything wrong with that...  although I do imagine it would raise eyebrows at the College of Teachers were such an outrage to unfold here. In France it's never even qualified as a scandal.

Go figure.

But the highlight of our lunch date was when one of the add-ons, a guy who is just wrapping a Doctor Phil in Chem at U of T, googled the listing for the place he's been renting a basement apartment in for years. His landlady done put the place on the market just this week.

Even though it's a little threadbare, he figured a million and a half.

I figured, threadbare or not, if it's within a comfy bicycle ride of UT, it's probably over two millions.

They found the listing.

His landlady is asking 3.49 million for a tear-down that might have fetched 500 thou ten years ago.

Wynne and Tory have no clue.

Plagiarism not a big deal (if the plagiarist is white)

By all accounts Chris Spence was a highly regarded administrator. He recently lost his job as Director of Education at the Toronto District School Board.

The reason? He got busted for plagiarism.

Today the Bluewater District School Board, a couple of hours away, announced a new Director of Education, a long-serving superintendent who, just a few years ago, was found guilty of plagiarism by the same College of Teachers that revoked Spence's teaching credentials.

The plagiarist who lost his job as Director of Education is black.

The plagiarist who got promoted to Director of Education is white.

Go figure...