Jenisfamous High School Week: Day Five
To recap: I bought a really cool scanner, scanned about 50 pounds of paper and tossed out the originals. In the process, I discovered a big stack of documents left over from high school, which I have been sharing on the blog for the past week. So, here's a little bit of backstory.
In ninth grade, at Frank W. Cox High School in Virginia Beach, Virgina, I took a (required) biology class with one Mr. Perrenot.
Mr. Perrenot was a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed telling jokes about men having sex with one another in prison. It was often the same joke over and over, with a few details changed, ultimately leading to the same "Do like pizza? Yes! Then you'll love Thursday! Do you like sex with other men? No! Then you won't like Friday!"
Mr. Perrenot also:
- Responded to a girl's complaint about dissecting animals -- she didn't want to dissect something that had been killed just for that purpose -- by bringing in roadkill, on a cookie sheet, and asking her to "dissect" that, instead.
- Made us watch a video of an arthroscopic knee surgery, even though we were in the middle of a unit on cellular biology, just because it was "disgusting" and "the girls hate it." He said he'd deduct points if anyone looked away.
- Complained that we used to be able to prick our fingers and look at our blood under the microscope in class, until gay people and AIDS ruined it for everyone.
We were studying infectious diseases, and Mr. Perrenot told us we would be writing a paper, and then he proceeded to walk, slowly and with some pleasure, around the room with a clipboard on which he had personally assigned a disease to each student.
"You have ... malaria," he would say. "You have ... gonorrhea."
I got cholera. We were told in no uncertain terms that any report submitted must have images, as graphic as possible, to receive an A.
This was before the internet was really very useful, so I xeroxed my photos from the encyclopedia and glue-sticked them to this cover sheet. One shows a dehydrated Indian child, the other a dirty well.
I received an A.
posted by JenIsFamous at 2/16/2007 02:50:00 PM
4 Comments:
You deserved an A just for having put up with Mr. Perrenot.
We had a crazy goverment teacher by the name of Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller would do things like tell us about his drug use and jail time. He also would spend all his time at Starbucks and show up to student only events uninvited. He one time got into a fist fight with another teacher in the hall. And when asked what he liked in a girl he named several girls in my little sis's senior class he wanted to date. Such a wonder he didnt get fired.
Exactly which pillars of virtue do Americans expect would be willing to work for the kind of money teachers get paid? When you pay teachers shit, you wind up with quite a few shit teachers. (Or, at least, teachers who are shits.) Like, um, Messrs. Perrenot and Miller.
That's because, if you hire a Mr. Perrenot or a Mr. Miller, the scatology and inculcation of misogyny (racism, xenophobia, homophobia, take your pick), not to mention other even less savory things also constituting corruption of a minor, is on them; their little way of saying thank you for being allowed to be around kids all day long.
Hey, here's a brilliant thought that came to me while Study Hall provided a respite from one of Mr. Gillespie's rants: Pay teachers what they deserve, and America will start getting some better teachers than Mr. Gillespie! Don't, and you wind up with the faculty advisors to the Trench Coat Mafia.
Of course, that's just my opinion. But I somehow managed to escape being killed by Mr. Grassi or raped by Mr. Holdsworth, and I received an otherwise first-rate education. Having resisted being brainwashed by Mr. Gillespie too, I learned to think for myself. That's why I know I'm right.
My previously arthroscoped knee is offended.
I stayed awake for my surgery and I didn't find it disgusting at all. Then again, I am the kind of guy who opts to stay awake for surgery.
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