Student Observation

The bespectacled, thin-lipped, longhaired 40ish year old man in a local punk band, was also the Language Arts department chair for a middle school. Ed 60 required “five hours per week per week with the teacher.” So I learned about Monday’s vocabulary words, Friday’s spelling test and the Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursdays movies. He would disappear for long stretches and then return, gripping the podium in the dark. He didn’t show at all one day so I threaded the projector and shut the lights off for a documentary on the Beatles. Afterwards a student said, “Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?”