A Grim post-modern cruise
It was the day — or maybe the second day — after report-card pickup. The bi-ennial event had been messier than ewe-sual in the City of Chicaaago, which was located, as always, in the Sorry Cheapskate State of Ill - A Noise.
Just another IMPACT impact,” said Scott Skeptic, the journalism teacher in exile, who had arrived earlier with extra begals and donots for his friends still in the trenches.
“So where is she?” bleated Ewenice, who was still toonice for her own good.
“I told you. On a cruise,” said Les Izmore, the usually quiet math, science and astrology teacher. “On a cruise…”
“But she’s never not here,” said Ewenice. “It’s unnatural. It’s like CPSSSS hiring a top executive who had spent more than a week in a classroom. Or the Hizzoner speaking in complete grammatical sentences. It doesn’t happen here. Not here. Not ever…”
“She’s on a cruise,” said Scott Skeptic, munching on half a begal. “I admit I had been skeptical when I first heard both pieces of news, but for some reason when I asked for the information under the Freedom of Information Act they got back to me within 24 hours instead of 24 months. She won one of the DRIVEUMTODRINK honors as an outstanding teacher from CPSSSS. So they sent her and 97 other teachers on a cruise.”
“IMPOSSIBLE!” shrieked Ewenice, who always lost her Toonice composure for a day or two after report card pickup. “She’s always here. Right there. Ever since I got here. She’s been there since Richard Nixon was President. Milk was 25¢ a gallon…”
“Gas was 25¢ a gallon back then,” interrupted Scott smiling. “Milk was about a dime. And didn’t you hear her saying that she was finally ready to give some work to a substitute now that Stubby was here every day?”
Scott was going to go on, but was interrupted.
“DON’T YOU DARE!” shouted Ewenice noticing that Nancy was about to place her bottom into what was known as The Millicent Seat. Ewenice virtually lunged across the table and was sitting in Millicent’s seat just as Nancy was about to sit in it. “DON’T YOU DARE YOU SHAMELESS HUSSY!”
“Now that’s one I haven’t heard in a long time,” said Scott. “Be careful, Ewenice, or you’ll date all of us. Next thing you know, you’ll tell everyone the New Deal is better than the New Age…”
“What are you doing!” shrieked Nancy, in her best Pammy Pretty imitation. “There is no one in that seat and won’t be this week or next.” Nancy Naïve was standing at the table staring at Ewenice. Ewenice was sprawled across two seats, her own and the one Millicent Militant ewesually sat in while they had their morning coffee and discussed the reality show they’d been starring in for longer than many of them would have like to admit.
“DON’T EVEN THINK OF IT!” EWEnice snarled again, very unnicely. Ewenice was pointing her new magnetic grading pen straight towards Nancy’s new Board ID, Swipe, and Direct Deposit Card, which, by regulation, was hanging precisely around her neck on her Bank America/CPS Public Private Partnership lanyard. She swooped the pen like a sword in the direction of Nancy.
“OK. OK,” said Nancy, backing away. “What’s the big deal? There are 35 other seats in this room.
At the mention of the number “35” they all heard a crash. They looked over to see BEEram sprawled across the floor, a crushed 100-year-old folding chair marked “Chicago Board of Education” beneath her.
“Make that 34 chairs,” said Scott. “That’s what she got for eating Board pizza after she stopped working out while coaching the football team during the fall season and soccer in the Spring. In five years, she went from being a ‘4’ to being a 14.’ Next thing you know, CPS is going to shut off her medical benefits because he’s not following the wellness program…”
Most of them were not listening to Scott, who could overdo it at times. They were still thinking about the cruise.
“I can’t believe it,” said EWEnice. “A ten-day cruise. The day after the rest of us had to do report cards in what Awful Arne called ‘the traditional way’. With CPS quill pens. By the way, why do we need official CPS quill pens and official CPS magnetic grading pens?”
“Because of IMPACT,” muttered Clara Clark, the clerk. Clark hadn’t slept a full night in six months. “Some of us suspect those special quill pens write in disappearing ink…”
Clara had been trying to steer the school’s records and payroll between what she called the Scylla of IMPACT and the Charybdis of People Soft for six months. Everyone in the main office was losing their sense of humor. A week before grades, all the clerks and office aides had been issued six-inch Smile Face buttons by the Office of School, Community, and Interpersonal Relations.
“Quill pens. Magnetic grading pens. Combination swipe cards and ATM cards. What’s going on?” said Stubby Sam, the new substitute, who sported a verified eternal three day stubble like all the Teach for America veterans who were still in CPS. Back in the day, as they used to say, he had been knows as “Studdy Sam” (or, behind his back, Sam the Stud) and not because of his academic habits. Even with his Versace stubble he looked beat. After he had begun coming in as a sub, they had changed his nickname from Studdy to Stubby. Even Nancy had giggled.
“It’s called ‘Data Driven Management,’” said Scott, filling in for Millicent, who was indeed not there. EWEnice straightened up and was straddling across the two seats, eyeing Nancy carefully. “Don’t try it,” she whispered in Nancy’s direction.
“Actually, that’s not an ATM card in the traditional sense,” said Scott. “It just looks like one. It’s sort of a reverse ATM card and global tracking device. Both are based on the new CPS global positioning satellite system and data tracking systems…”
Stubby had fallen a long way since his two-year stint with the Teach for America crowd, but was actually becoming one of them. Back in the day, as he once said, even Nancy couldn’t stand him. After his classes would riot — one time tying his Florsheims together under his desk while they talk to him about their “issues” so that when he tried to chase two unknown Unknowns who grabbed his lesson plan computer he fell on his face — he would remind them that once he had ‘paid his dues’ and ‘punched his ticket’ he was going to take his rightful place in administration and come back as their principal. He even had the usual TFA book contract lined up, complete with the charter about the greedy union, the greedy lazy veteran teachers, and how his perfect lesson plans (and perfect teeth) had saved a few of the natives before insensitivity had driven him out of the profession he loved.
Instead of the fast track to the Main Office, Stubby was subbing. It all had seemed to begin when his Daddy’s Countrywide — or was it New Century, they could never remember — office in La Jolla had collapsed. Stubby’s Daddy had been indicted along with a couple of hundred other high powered mortgage brokers, and Stubby wound up having to share an apartment with six other fallen TFA angels and try and pay his share of the rent as a day-to-day substitute.
Scott almost felt sorry for him.
“They’re getting ready for the next round of data driven ‘deficits’,” said Scott. “They’ve given you Reverse ATM is so they can pull the money they didn’t pay you back out of your checking account so you don’t spend it wastefully. And the GPS is so they can make sure you’re on call ’24/7' as you used to like to say…” Remember last year, when Arne proclaimed the Deficit the Wans’t. Well, that won’t happen again, because next time they’ll just make a withdrawal from the checking account of everyone on direct deposit with one of those cards.
“But I thought data driving was a good thing…” Stubby had begun when the door slammed open.
Suddenly, the door opened and a bleary eyed Millicent walked in, cradling a 1979 edition Green Book under one arm and trying to hold a cup of Board coffee and two vintage Board butter cookies in the other hand.
Nancy snareled. Stubby gawked. EWEnice moved her bottom off the sacred chair.
“What are you all looking at?” asked Millicent. “You look like you’ve seen the ghost of Joseph Hannon…”
“We heard you had been taken on a cruise for the winners,” EWEnice said. “Wasn’t it supposed to last ten days?”
“True. And Truer,” said Millicent. “The DRIVEUMTODRINK award winners were supposed to be teachers. One from each of the 25 ‘areas’ or districts or whatever they’re calling them this week…”
“But we heard there were 98 people on the cruise,” said EWEnice.
“True. And Truer again,” muttered Millicent. “They actually did give that silly plastic plaque to each of 26 teachers they declared had won. And they tried to get every TV station to do a story on it. And they world it was further proof they loved teachers like you and me — and even him and her.” She said, eyeing Nancy and Stubby out of the corners of her eye.
“Did you really try to sit here?” she glared at Nancy.
“No. Not really…” Nancy babbled.
“Well, the announcements about DRIVEUMTODRINK were made, and even reported in some of the neighborhood papers. Then they whisked us to O’Hare and down to Miami for the cruise. They gave us bouquets while the TV cameras were filming. They took back as soon as the photo op was over. Someone said they needed them for the OUTSTANDING PARENT awards that night…”
Even Nancy was listening.
“The last photo op was dockside Miami. We boarded tge PEDAGOFICAL PRINCESS ship. Each of us wearing a big badge that read I TEACH AND I’M PROUD that doubled as a Homeland Security ID. Every moment was filmed for TV. Lots of speeches about how Chicago loved classroom teachers…”
“So why are you back here?” asked Nancy.
“I’m getting to that,” continued Millicent. “It’s about the chaperones. When we got on the ship, we discovered that Arne had sent along about 60 or 70 chaperones to watch over us. All from some place called ‘New Schools.’”
Stubby was paying even closer attention.
“I thought you’d be interested,” Millicent continued, looking at him. “All of the New Schools people were about you age, and all of them had names like Biff and Buffy and Muffy and perfect teeth and really intense smiles. They also were masters of Power Point…”
“You were with Buffy,” said Stubby sadly. “We used to be…”
“I heard,” said Millicent. “Don’t worry. She’s forgotten you completely. Turns out, she knew what happened to your family even before they broke the news to you…”
“But how?” he began to ask.
“Something about data driven management,” Millicent continued.
“Can you get back to how you’re back here,” said Scott. “The bell’s going to ring in less than two minutes…”
“Our part of the cruise, turns out, lasted six hours,” Millicent continue. “The ship slipped out of Miami with a band playing — like a scene from ‘Titanic’ — and sailed swiftly around the peninsula to Tampa. We were taken off the ship — escorted by CPS security people wearing those Hawaiian things — and flown back here on a chartered DC-3 owned by one of the mayor’s third cousins…”
“But how did 98 people get to go on a cruise for 26 teachers?” asked EWEnice.
“The rest of the people are still on the cruise,” said Millicent. “They’re the chaperones from the Office of New Schools. They’re having a seminar on how to present nifty cool ideas for New Newer and Newest Schools to replace the old failing farty ones like ours and us. They won’t get back for ten more days…”
She looked sadly at Stubby.
“They also told us the regular teachers were needed because the schools had run out of substitutes and we couldn’t be spared…” she said.
“What do you mean, run out of substitutes?” Stubby stuttered. “I heard from Biff that Arne is hiring everyone he can from Century and Countrywide and...”
“Right,” said Millicent. “And there are another four hundred getting their alternative approvals this morning at Human Resources...”
Just then, there was an announcement that said “Stubby… Er, Substitute Sam please report to the main office…”
They all looked on sadly as Stubby — formerly Studly — stumbled out of the lunchroom. “Have a last begal,” said Ewenice. “Really.”
“I guess Muffy and Fluffy are data driving Sub Center now,” Scott laughed without humor in his voice, as they bells rang. “Remember when he was talking about how qauint and archaic unions are? OIC.”
