Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop (on a Teacher's Head)

The sacking of Ingison was the culmination of over a full year's effort. There was clearly backroom dealing on the Board, dissident teachers undermining the school and a small but vocal mob of parents out to take over the school. The Board, for its part, is clearly driven by an abject fear of controversy and confrontation. An interesting posture for a leadership position, if one can use the word "posture" in reference to a spineless, bottom-dwelling non-entity. If the Mob will quiet down now, the school will carry on as best it can without its leader.

But why would the Mob quiet down now? They run the school by proxy now, and we will soon see the true contures of their designs. It is doubtful that there was ever a master plan, but we've seen the meglomaniacs taste power now and they are unlikely to let it go. Readers of this journal take note: teachers will be purged and the curriculm changed. Expect the Board to plead poverty over legal fees and lowball a select few teachers. How many other charter schools have a Ph.D teaching humanities in the high school? No matter. He is tainted by his assocaition with Ingison. A Dean who has stuck with the school through all the madness and risen through the ranks? Nice, but she may have actually been friends with the vilified Director. She will have to go.

And what of the curriculum? Anyone familiar with the Great Books knows that it takes careful consideration and experience to read those tomes. Are some books too hard? Inappropriate? Who is to make that decision, the experinced teacher or the Mob? Shall our writing program be adapted to journalling and movie reviews? Apparently rigor and clarity will give way to the students' inner fairy poets. Blue Books are intimidating. Why can't we just draw pictures with pastel crayons for our finals? And why call them finals? That's so...determinative. As if the course were over or something and now students have to prove they are worthy. This will not do.

No, better to purge the Old Believers. The Mob has spoken: they will accept dimness of art and disingenuousness of spirit over quality. It is more important to be in charge than to be right. Wither the teachers, then? Driven from Eagle Ridge Academy, where will they go?

Teachers, it seems, teach. There is a school out there somewhere, or will be, where some or all of these teachers will turn up once they are cast out. Everyone who loves what Eagle Ridge Academy was ought to be on the lookout for it.