Stealing a classroom

You know, I was just killing time today, waiting for my sophomores to come back from a pep rally that I did not get to attend, and I got to thinking about something to blog.

I know, I should have been grading tests or something, but it wasn't as much fun.

I had been reading some things another teacher had posted outside their classroom, and it reminded me of my own high school days. Civics class had written up their idea of a student's bill or rights. It was enlightening to see the ironic combination of ideas that included total personal freedom, and no personal responsibility, while adding the very tricky concept of "universal care-giving".

I guess we were all kind of idealistic in our younger years, and we didn't always see (sometimes by choice), that the great ideas we fought for were extremely impractical, if not downright impossible, save for a totalitarian, yet benevolent governing body, and a purely selfless society. HA! Too many greedy and power-hungry people involved!

Thinking about zealous youth, I had promised elsewhere, that I would tell the story of stealing a classroom. Before I begin, however, I have to include a disclaimer.

Please repeat after me, and then have a witness sign an affidavit to the following:

" I hereby acknowledge that the following account, although true, is in no way meant to encourage me to try such behavior, and I furthermore acknowledge that any such attempt is in no way a reflection of Scott Wahlquist's (hereafter known as "Herr") negative influence on my teenage zeal to make all things right and equal and "FAIR" in the world, regardless of their apparent propriety or even 'legality' .

"I also hereby agree that I hold "Herr" harmless in the event that I should try such antics, and receive the subsequent penalties I so richly deserve."

"By continuing on in this blog, I agree to the terms set forth in the previous paragraphs."

Now that we have the legalese out of the way, let me set the stage.

Most of the following events took place my senior year in HS, Foothill HS, Bakersfield California, to be exact. ( I had learned so much from my freshman antics). The goal of all our stunts was to drive home the point that double standards for teachers and students were unfair. Oh The irony, huh?

My senior english teacher, Mr Brackley (whom many of you in my family will remember), was a bachelor, probably in his early to mid 30's when I was there. He might have been older, but I don't remember thinking of him as OLD, and definitely anyone over 35 was. (sorry Mom and Dad)

We had tried many times to convince him that we seniors deserved some special treatment. We thought we should be allowed to ignore the rule about food and drink in the classroom. (I guess that came from the fact that we had English right after lunch, and frequently were trying to wolf down the last bite or slurp down the last of our Big G....... oh wait, watch out for unpaid endorsements, right?) we didn't see the harm in finishing our lunch during the first few minutes of class.

Well, Mr. Brackley would have none of it. Yet he always had a cup of coffee, which he refilled out of a thermos at least once during our class. We had already tried curing this habit by dropping Alka S.. (oh watch out, endorsements again) into his coffee cup while our cheerleader friends distracted him (remember my post about love life?) That was great fun, but not the point of this post.

We also felt it unfair how harsh Mr. Brackley was about restroom passes. He actually had the gall to expect us to use the facilities on our own time! Was he aware how hard it was to get to McD, or Taco B and back to school in the short 40 minutes we had for lunch? There was no way to get lunch, get back, find parking and still use the restroom. I mean, come on!? What's 5 more minutes for your favorite seniors?

To add insult, he would usually come open the door for us, let us get started on our assignment, and then disappear down the hall to the restroom!!??!! That just had to stop!

Well, we had an unwitting ally to our evil plan. Our Physics teacher, ....... I just can't come up with a name.... was also well known to do something that was against good judgement, if not school policy. He always left his classroom unlocked and unattended during his planning period. He would go into the inner lab used by the teachers to prepare for class experiments. we determined that we could hold a dance, and he probably would be unaware of it. He was right across the "hall" in the next wing over.

So, one beautiful day, with our plan in place, we waited while Mr. Brackley calmly opened the door to let us in. As one of us watched him disappear down the hallway, the rest of us removed everything from his desk, carted the desk to the physics lab, and then replaced everything on the floor in its proper order, as if the desk had simple fallen into the floor. Even the coffee cup and thermos were in their rightful place. Everything else that moved also went for a walk.

When Mr. Brackley came in, he went to the board and started to write. We were sitting in our places, where our desks should have been, writing as if nothing were wrong. We watched for what felt like 5 minutes before he reached around blindly for his coffee cup, and discovered the emptiness. His facial expression was priceless. After several minutes of blustering, and threats, and finally promising not to punish those responsible, he convinced some to divulge the location of his classroom. Some of us "model Students" volunteered to go carry it back for him.

This was not the end of our stunts with poor Mr. B, but it was definitely the grandest. He may not have felt it at the time, but you know, we all liked Mr. B. We learned much about English Lit., and we had some great times, but mainly we learned that life doesn't have to be fair to be enjoyable. Sometimes the blatant unfairness of life leads to some of life's silliest, and fondest memories.