AP Assembly

 

I really do love my AP group of kids.  They’re literate, erudite and culturally aware (relatively, considering that I work on a hilltop far above the boundaries of common decency, PC behavior and/or the common sense which dictates that black people refrain from wearing the Confederate flag.  Yes.  Yes, they really do up at my school).  They’re sort of afraid of me, correctly sensing that my presence in their lives indicates that literary brilliance is clearly not a definite doorway out of this backwoods porthole of ignorance.  One particularly bright pupil suspects that I am not a proper teacher at all and am instead conducting a research project for my doctorate — instead of choosing a third-world country or similar to view butcherings of English, he thinks I settled instead on their high school to run my experiments.  Boy, will he NOT be surprised when my bestselling “novel” on this year of teaching comes out. 

Anyway, they’re the kind of kids that actually look forward to doing presentations — they like getting to be at the front of the class and take every opportunity to sit on the “teacher stool” where they gleefully proclaim, in Borat voices, that they’re “King of the castle, king of the castle…”  They are also spending actual time memorizing the first 18 lines of Chaucer’s Prologue to The Canterbury Tales (in original Middle English).  Not like my standard class, who did drawl-inflected things to Chaucer that would give a Medieval scholar an aneurysm.  That group strives upward to achieve mediocrity — tell them they got a 70 and they give an honest-to-God rebel yell.  Which is disconcerting on a lot of levels. 

Anyway.  The AP kids are great.    They’re a little exploitative of their lesser-minded peer group (like the time they told a LF kid they’d brought him some bouncy balls… which were actually paint balls.  He inadvertently trashed a bus).  But you know, it’s not hard when you live in a commune filled with rejected applicants for “Village Idiot.”  They’re also required to keep Reading Journals, where they record their thoughts on an author’s use of imagery, tone, symbolism, etc.  They do a generally good job with this, and I really did get a kick out of reading some of them:

On reading Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and The White:  “God.  If I read about one more sad vagina, I’m going to find Michel Faber and kick him in the sack.” 

On reading Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice:  “The moral seems to be, not all Jews are evil, but Shylock sure is.”  Also, another student:  “Shakespeare uses a light, comical tone throughout the entire play.  A fun read.”  (I’m keeping my eye on this girl.)

On reading Bernard Cornwell’s The Winter King (about King Arthur):  “Setting:  Biblical Times in London.”  London had Biblical times? 

They’re my class which I have to dismiss for lunch.  This is a pain because 1.  it cuts into the learning process and 2.  I am actually required to go and pick all 12 of them up in the lobby of the cafeteria because, well, otherwise they might … what?  Intellectually hassle their troglodyte peer group?!  This is NOT a school where violence or drugs are prevalent.  There was a brief fist-fight in the fall and the kids are all STILL talking about it.  Biggest thing to happen there in years.  So I was puzzled when “they” (read: the uptight administration and evil lunch-duty bitches) aggressively told me I had to go and fetch these kids like they were demented 5-year-olds, unable to get back to class, never-mind that they’re all afraid of me and my wrath and would never dare walk in my door a minute late from lunch.  They’re all 17, 18 years old, college bound.  I think they’d be all right. 

So we all complained about this together, it was a real bonding moment for the AP group.  We joked about how I should go and fetch them, perhaps getting matching superhero rings and all howling in unison, “AP… ASSSSSEEEEEMMMBLE!”  This was a favorite idea, only replaced by me racing through the library wielding an enormous AP flag, rallying the troops into mad flight back to the room. 

It was not surprising, then, that I came in to an early Easter present early Tuesday morning:  A shiny new AP flag.  Red.  Big.  Awesome.  Made by one of my favorite AP students.  So of COURSE I tore down there at lunch, flag flapping, collecting my wild AP children to the shock and amused applause of the rest of the school.  Except, well, I guess the administration and the other AP teacher, who is more than a little jealous of how much the kids like me.  He never got a flag, you see.  The vice-principal has been shooting me dirty looks all week, but she’s a back-stabbing troll anyhow, so I’m pretty unconcerned. 

Also?  It was totally worth it.