Ian doesn't do reunions -- except maybe for money

I’m feeling thoroughly stressed out today. Well, maybe that’s excessive. I am feeling mildly disconcerted. The reason I am disconcerted is because the high school at which I once taught is celebrating a major anniversary this week, and one component is some sort of a reunion thing.

Ian doesn’t do reunions. I have never been to a class reunion of either the high school or university I attended. I have been to a couple at the school where I taught, but only because a couple of favorite students were going to attend. And, it was one of those, OK do the handshake, give the hug, marvel with assorted ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ how some people had changed, be enchanted how the little lame duck girl from 11th grade had become a hot fox – and then get the hell out of the place.

So, I don’t really want to have anything to do with this forthcoming thing. One of the reasons I want to shun all the nonsense is because the past is the past, bygones are bygones, and life moves on. Another of the reasons I would like to stay away is because I left my teaching gig early; after only eight years in the classroom.

I left early because, quite frankly, I couldn’t stand the calling. I did not want to spend the rest of my working life fulfilling some bureaucratic function with a group of people as colleagues I wouldn’t have chosen as friends – with some notable exceptions, many of whom remain friends today – and acquiescing to the decrees of some brain-dead ex jock who called himself an administrator.

By the way, my addition to the old Bernard Shaw adage, which proposes that: “Those who can, do – those who can’t, teach.” I would extend GBS to include: “Those who can’t teach, teach PE; -- those who can’t teach PE become administrators – those who suck at administration become superintendents.”

Oh, I could go on and on. See how it wasn’t a good fit for me with my contraritan nature?

My departure, I must emphasize, had nothing to do with the kids (most of whom I liked very much and got along well with) or the act of teaching, which I also enjoyed immensely. And the perks were pretty damn fine, too. Few others in any field can boast the freedom to work nine months of the year, yet be paid for 12.

My departure also had nothing to do with my skills. I was a good teacher, and highly regarded by my students. I was also English department chair when I was still in my 20s, as recognition of the fact that I was doing well and had much to offer.

No, it was the bullshit that drove me out; the bullshit that permeates the public school system. Bullshit like adhering to antediluvian ideas; watching the talentless be promoted; seeing good and highly creative kids being chastised and even punished because their hair was too long or they did not fit into some preconceived notion of acceptability; seeing inordinate amounts of money going to athletic programs, yet little going to academics. Bullshit from superintendents and boards; bullshit from administrators, and especially bullshit from the most left-wing union this side of the Kremlin back in the good old USSR days.

So, I left. I never looked back. I’m happy I left because I got to work with real adults in an adult world. I didn’t make as much money; I certainly didn’t get the perks, and I had to work harder. But, it’s all been good.

So, what is the deal with this weekend? Well, I was initially going to have no part of it. Then I made the mistake of paying a call on my old editor this week. She asked me if I was going to go to the reunion. I said I probably wasn’t. She said she’d love it if I did and that she was quite prepared to pay me fairly well for an “Ian story” on the matter, since I had once been there as a teacher.

Money. Hmm. OK. Money always has an ability to cut through bullshit or even ones finer feelings.

But, I won’t like it, even if I must confess to being a tiny bit curious.