What Classical Teachers Want From Administrators

“Teachers want administrators who are around. Administrators need to be present. They need to put in lots of face time every week. Headmasters at big schools may disappear for days at a time, but not weeks at a time. On the other hand, principals and deans need to be in the middle of things every day so they can hear the gossip, griping, and horseplay of students between classes. Principals and deans need to run into teachers six, seven, eight times a day in the hallway, on the quad, at lunch, and while getting coffee in the break room. Teachers need a regular supply of evidence that administrators are genuine co-laborers and co-sufferers. Administrators should know what’s going on in the student body and the faculty because they’ve seen it, not merely because they’ve heard  about it. Administrators who aren’t physically in the middle of things eventually turn into deaf, distant bureaucrats.”

-from my latest for CiRCE   

This-Pilled and That-Pilled

Conservatives are obsessed with pilling. Everybody is getting this-pilled and that-pilled. The pills aren’t even colors anymore. There are noun-pills and idea-pills. Even modest changes of mind constitute a pilling of some sort.

“I wanted to go to Wendy’s for lunch but Tony Whopper-pilled me and we went to Burger King, instead.”

“We were going to walk but Cheryl car-pilled me and so we drove.”

“So I’m sick, and I was going to take DayQuil in its liquid form, but Mark pill-pilled me and I took gel caps instead.”

The Troparion of the Mediocre Saint Bob

Comic, but by no means a joke. This is wonderful.

“By not cursing in rush hour traffic, thou hast found the way to divine contemplation/

And by working nine to five at a mind numbing desk job for twenty years to feed thy family thou hast broken the snares of the enemy/

By not judging the people of Walmart thou has shown thyself to be an enlightener O pure one/

Thou has kept the faith through the raising of teenage daughters, O holy husband and daddy Bob, pray to Christ God to save our souls.”

Leadership training is just Queer Studies for straight white guys.

“The same people who criticize Feminist Studies and Queer Studies for being fake also tend to treat Leadership as a serious academic matter, even though the trajectory and justification of Leadership is basically indistinguishable from every ‘Identity Studies’ major of the last thirty years. Leadership is just Queer Studies for straight white guys.” 

-from “Leadership Is A Scam,” my latest for CiRCE