It started in Ninth Grade. Mr. Tetra, an American of Italian descent, was the English teacher in room thirteen. Room thirteen would have better been described as Mr. Tetra's own little fascist state.
Well, I guess he wasn't a total fascist leader, at least he let you express your own opinion about the readings, as long as you supported them. And your support had to be solid. To borrow an analogy from the movie My Cousin Vinny, your brick (your support) had to be solid in all dimensions, not just from the side that you could see of the wall (your argument). He'd often pay special attention to look at your wall from other angles. He'd make sure your wall was thick enough and it was at least made of tangible materials, instead of just a few real bricks and a whole bunch of air filled foam bricks that looked just like the real thing, but they added no real support.
In looking at your wall, Mr. Tetra, would request that you schedule writing appointments so that he could help you build your wall. More often than not he would knock down your wall, lay the first few bricks of it, and leave you to build the rest of the wall. Almost all the time he would almost lay out the whole outline for your essay make sure you understood it and he then just let you write.
If your essay didn't conform to his outline he usually gave you a really bad grade. His grading was even harsher when you failed to schedule writing appointments. His grading on various over-analyzing works (otherwise known as essays) fluctuated at best. Often, it seemed, he just gave you a letter grade based on how much effort he thought you put in the paper, (This system didn't always work, once I wrote a essay on a test for a book I hadn't read and I got a C+, which is pretty good for not reading the book. The only thing that saved me on that test was that it was a comparative essay with a movie of related substance.) he didn't really seem to look very closely at the argument. On work that wasn't in the form of this long written paper his grading was surprisingly fair. On grammar he just cared if you actually did the work, not whether it was right or not. (He did grade grammar test though.) And on poetry you just had to turn in a poem of the required form each day. (He erroneously assumed that each night we each had an idea that could be molded into a creative, interesting poem that fit the required form. In short he was attempting to force our creativity.)
Rather quickly I took to defying his absolute rule. The first thing I did was either missing class or turning in a rather unconventional paper. (I wrote several unconventional papers that year, like my paper on Vietnam for World Civilizationss that was written entierly off the internet, and the paper that satarized my experiences with his teaching.)
Well, the first time I missed class was actually because in the period before I was attempting to prepare a mini-report about a Greek sculpture that no one seemed to write about. In my hurried attempt to put this mini-report together, I lost the nickel I needed to copy my source, and the time I spent finding the nickel I lost track of the time (Our school depended on us to know the schedule and be able to comprehend the different time zones that were in each room because of the five minute differences the clocks at our school exhibited.) and then I missed the beginning of class. (He didn't let you come in late, instead he locked you out.)
My first unconventional paper was entitled “The Bitch and Me.” I wrote that story the morning it was due and as the title shows it probably had the worst grammar you had ever seen. The assignment was to write a first person paper from the opposite gender. I had written about two girls that had personal differences and one girl had to save the other's life. It was actually good. (in my opinion) He gave it the worst grade, he might have well just torn it up.
And that's how life in the fascist state of room thirteen continued.
Then there was the poetry unit. (I generally hate poetry.) We had to write a poem a day. At first I just said to myself, “What the hell, I'm not writing any poems.” (Not to his face of course.) Finally I figured that writing the poems would at least help my grade. I actually wrote some poems that I was proud of , especially my poem entitled “A Final Dirge”. (That was another work of mine that he figuratively tore up.) It just seemed that he didn't like any of the work I did. (That's not to say everything I did he tore up, my poetry essay was written exactly to his outline and he gave me a good grade on it. But, it seemed that ninety nine point nine nine nine nine percent of what I wrote he tore up.)
As the year progressed we worked through several books which I half-assed my way through on their related discussions and essays. It wasn't until we started reading Romeo and Juliet that I really started making it obvious that I hated his class.
I truthfully hated Romeo and Juliet, it is essentially a cheap romance novel, that has been kept alive because it is a “classic”. (It seems everyone I meet thinks this.) (This theory for it being kept alive proved true when we were voting for what books next year's class was going to read one student blurted out, “Oh come on let them read the classics.” Everyone but I agreed with his short argument and voted to keep Romeo and Juliet.) I actually ended up writing my essay on why I didn't like Romeo and Juliet and in my opinion I supported my argument pretty well, but the bricks were a little thin. He returned it to me with a U saying that it didn't fit the criteria for the essay. (The opinion of my fellow classmates surprisingly varied, from “Wow! Cool” to “You're an idiot.”)
At the end of the year Mr. Tetra's need for absolute power became more than apparent.
I had begun to make a pattern of skipping class. (I didn't skip class, just to skip class. I always skipped class because I had a test in my next class, World Civilizations. I considered my grade in that class more valuable than my English grade. (Besides, most of the time when I skipped class I was not caught up in the reading for English class and it would've been a waste of both his and my time.) I had essentially given up on English class and decided to devote more energy into World Civilizationss, which I also had been having problem in.) He began to show that he was getting annoyed with my violation of his power structure. (You see, his power was derived solely from being able to control you for the fifty minutes he had to teach you. He had the right to make you sit there in the class the full fifty minutes even if for the last twenty no one could come up with topics to discuss. Now when I had decided to undermine his power by not coming to class so he couldn't have his fifty minutes of fascist rule over me he got angry, not just luke warm angry, but really angry. He was angry with a fire in his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it. He had tried in the beginning to gradually kick me back in line, first assigning one hour of work, the usual for skipping class, then he assigned three hours of work when I skipped class twice in one week. I let him think that these hours of work didn't bother me, and I wasn't acting. The hours of work didn't bother me they were the penalty that I had known and accepted when I decided to skip class.) This system of missing class and getting hours of work was fine for me. Mr. Tetra didn't agree.
I had skipped class on a Friday to study for a World Civilizations exam. I was spending my time in the library, (It was surprising, no one asked any questions, no freshmen had sixth period (When I had English class) free.) studying my notes and about five minutes after English class had started, Mr. Tetra stormed in to the library and attempted to close my notes, but because of the placement of my arm he was unsuccessful. He then exclaimed, “Get your ass in my class now!” (He might as well have used a megaphone, because it seemed thirty seconds after the event more than half the school knew. It had always seemed what I had done wrong spread through the school like wildfire, because it was always an extreme act, like the time I stabbed Michael in the arm with the non-eraser end of the pencil.) I should have just sat there, but in the shock I gathered up my books like nothing out of the ordinary had happened and began walking to class. When I walked in the class everyone began clapping, (I later found out that the class had told Mr. Tetra where I was and what I was doing.) Mr. Tetra then filled out three hours of work, (Didn't he get the point that hours of work didn't even phase me.) and threatened that if they weren't done on time he wouldn't give me my final. (I thought, oh, I'm scared that's all you can do is threaten me with my final, what a coward. If he had any guts he would've and should've started giving me a lecture in front of the whole class to embarrass and humiliate me. Instead just these hours of work, the discipline of his fascist state. I actually found the whole thing rather comical.)
And that was it. Mr. Tetra's Fascist state finally fell to my dissenting, his power meant nothing to me. He was just a coward that was finding his power behind the mask of hours of work and threatening your grade. In reality he had no power.