ISAP
It was called "Individual Study for Assholes in Physics" and I had, somehow, forgotten entirely about the program despite being personally responsible for its creation. During last night's dinner, a Saturn commercial featuring Alphaville's "Forever Young" spawned a discussion of proms. This in turn prompted more reminiscence of high school. Eventually, B. reminded me of ISAP and it all came flooding back: coasting through my senior year, my perpetual attitude problem, the habit T. and I had developed of completely disrupting our Physics with Trig class, and that fateful day when I finally pushed Mr. F. too far.
Mr. F. had thoroughly lost control of the situation, not that I am certain he ever had it. Smartass comments and witty banter between myself, B. and T. had derailed everything. When I want, I can transform into a machinegun spray of caustic barbs, doggedly attacking any point of weakness or potential hole in someone else's logic. I had kept the rest of the classroom in a state of relative disarray throughout sixth period. This had been going on for months.
Having finally had enough, Mr. F. announced, "I am losing my patience!"
What I said next broke not only any illusion of his authority, but also his very will. The class erupted into pure chaos and Mr. F. sort of shut down. He stood in silence for a few minutes as he collected himself. I was wearing the malicious shit-eating grin that accompanies those moments when I know I have struck the delicate, unprotected underbelly of Smaug. I was reveling in the power and prestige of having humiliated a teacher in front of his entire class.
Mr. F. was not a bad guy. In fact, he was arguably one of the cooler teachers at our school. With his red beard, cheery smile and hip demeanor, he seemed determined to prove to the kids how cool he (and therefore physics) was. I, on the other hand, was a petty creature. Despite grades and SAT scores that counselors claimed would get me in wherever I wanted, I was refused entry into the only college I had bothered to pursue. Meanwhile, a close friend of mine (on whom I had a bit of a crush) was accepted for no apparent reason other than family connections (he was a mediocre honor student who tested far worse than I). I subsequently spent the remainder of my senior year with a chip on my shoulder the size of Michael Jackson's Venetian vase budget. The world was a terribly unjust place where people were not rewarded based on merit, so I decided it could go fuck itself. I stopped studying, stopped attending classes (I was eighteen and of the opinion that I should be able to write my own notes), and pretty much stopped caring about everything except hurting other people for my own amusement. I began bullying an old friend of mine, nearly ran over some chick with my car, made an inappropriate comment about my A.P. Chemistry teacher's mother, and challenged the apparent cool of the ostensibly hip Mr. F.
After a few minutes of uproar, the class became uncomfortably silent. Mr. F. immediately drew up a new seating chart that placed B., T. and I at the extreme corners of the room, as far from each other as possible. He then asked T. and I to join him out in the hall. There, we were inducted into the ISAP program - Individual Study for Assholes in Physics. We already had a course syllabus that included the entire semester's homework, so we were told to stop coming to class except for exams. He did not care where we went, just so long as it was far away from him. This, coupled with the advanced art classes that I was using for "independent study" and the math class I chronically skipped, meant that I only attended about three hours of school per day.
When I received straight A's that year, I learned a valuable lesson about the lack of correlation between effort and performance (at least for me).
As for Mr. F., he finished out the year and quit teaching soon after. He said he wanted to find something more fulfilling to do with his life. I heard from my ex-classmates that he planned on building and launching the first privately funded rocketship. He was a dreamer and I imagine my months of harassment were a bit of a wake-up call regarding the harsher realities of being an educator. I have a few regrets, I suppose, but obviously he was not cut out for the job if something as simple as a pun became the straw that broke the camel's back.
"I am losing my patience!" he had warned.
"But, you're not a doctor!"
Mr. F. had thoroughly lost control of the situation, not that I am certain he ever had it. Smartass comments and witty banter between myself, B. and T. had derailed everything. When I want, I can transform into a machinegun spray of caustic barbs, doggedly attacking any point of weakness or potential hole in someone else's logic. I had kept the rest of the classroom in a state of relative disarray throughout sixth period. This had been going on for months.
Having finally had enough, Mr. F. announced, "I am losing my patience!"
What I said next broke not only any illusion of his authority, but also his very will. The class erupted into pure chaos and Mr. F. sort of shut down. He stood in silence for a few minutes as he collected himself. I was wearing the malicious shit-eating grin that accompanies those moments when I know I have struck the delicate, unprotected underbelly of Smaug. I was reveling in the power and prestige of having humiliated a teacher in front of his entire class.
Mr. F. was not a bad guy. In fact, he was arguably one of the cooler teachers at our school. With his red beard, cheery smile and hip demeanor, he seemed determined to prove to the kids how cool he (and therefore physics) was. I, on the other hand, was a petty creature. Despite grades and SAT scores that counselors claimed would get me in wherever I wanted, I was refused entry into the only college I had bothered to pursue. Meanwhile, a close friend of mine (on whom I had a bit of a crush) was accepted for no apparent reason other than family connections (he was a mediocre honor student who tested far worse than I). I subsequently spent the remainder of my senior year with a chip on my shoulder the size of Michael Jackson's Venetian vase budget. The world was a terribly unjust place where people were not rewarded based on merit, so I decided it could go fuck itself. I stopped studying, stopped attending classes (I was eighteen and of the opinion that I should be able to write my own notes), and pretty much stopped caring about everything except hurting other people for my own amusement. I began bullying an old friend of mine, nearly ran over some chick with my car, made an inappropriate comment about my A.P. Chemistry teacher's mother, and challenged the apparent cool of the ostensibly hip Mr. F.
After a few minutes of uproar, the class became uncomfortably silent. Mr. F. immediately drew up a new seating chart that placed B., T. and I at the extreme corners of the room, as far from each other as possible. He then asked T. and I to join him out in the hall. There, we were inducted into the ISAP program - Individual Study for Assholes in Physics. We already had a course syllabus that included the entire semester's homework, so we were told to stop coming to class except for exams. He did not care where we went, just so long as it was far away from him. This, coupled with the advanced art classes that I was using for "independent study" and the math class I chronically skipped, meant that I only attended about three hours of school per day.
When I received straight A's that year, I learned a valuable lesson about the lack of correlation between effort and performance (at least for me).
As for Mr. F., he finished out the year and quit teaching soon after. He said he wanted to find something more fulfilling to do with his life. I heard from my ex-classmates that he planned on building and launching the first privately funded rocketship. He was a dreamer and I imagine my months of harassment were a bit of a wake-up call regarding the harsher realities of being an educator. I have a few regrets, I suppose, but obviously he was not cut out for the job if something as simple as a pun became the straw that broke the camel's back.
"I am losing my patience!" he had warned.
"But, you're not a doctor!"