What a screwball. I love the little signs he holds up.

Next, the inevitable Letterman apology.

Cut the guy some slack. Brotha's just trying to "slay the dragon."

This apparently happened like a year ago. I wonder how it turned out.

He retired with his pension.

Also, I completely hate the phrase "the n-word".

Though I guess it's less annoying than Paul Dawson saying, "NiggAAAAAH!"

That's a pretty low bar.

I also hate people who defend themselves with insinuations like this:

However, the make principal that wanted Dawson so desperately left, and Dawson inherited a female principal who had an entirely different agenda.

Also people who write long, crazy letters referring to themselves in the third person.

Well, what's important to remember is that you don't have to be a rotten ass Nigger to be on the police force.

Paul Dawson, not a likable guy.

Paul Dawson was suspended in 1994, back when he worked at southern high school. According to documents, Dawson directed a student to place a sign on another students back that said, "I am gay."

That said, his rendition of "nigAAAHH!" would make a pretty great ring-tone.

I spent part of Thanksgiving dinner trying to explain to my brother's girlfriend why "nigger" (or "nigga") means different things depending on who says it.

You left out the best part, ogged:

Afterwards, he was assigned to non-instructional duties pending the investigation and he was not supposed to return to Southern High School. The next day he ignored the order and went to Southern anyway. Shortly afterwards, Dawson refused to turn in his grade book to investigators. Dawson was suspended for five days without pay and had to go through an employee assistance program. Dawson also had a letter of reprimand that same year for selling candy to his students.

Selling candy!

Also, I completely hate the phrase "the n-word".

Apo, there's a drama coming out next season on Showtime that is going to make you really unhappy.

I'm starting to think that Dawson might have watched one too many "inspirational teacher" films. In that genre, theatrical teachers who create "situations" for their students to live in and be challenged by are dissed by the authorities but eventually redeemed by their (immediate) transformative impact on their students' lives! Audacity--toujours l'audace!--is the prerequisite for any meaningful gratification for the teacher.

Needless to say, this is manipulative even when done well, and creepy-trending-abusive when done poorly.

That sounds right. His self-image (judging by the letter) seems ludicrously unrealistic.

The Daily Show's Larry Willmore on the N-word.

the 'using what someone said against you back at them' is normally a good modus operandi, but this is the 'but it was really stupid category.

still i dunno where nigger is going. shunned, it will be a word with lots of power that makes people go OOOOOOHHHHH!! HE SAID WHAT?!@.

not to keep up the rambling, but this place is like a timwhorp. ogge'd videos, that BeerGoggles thing, the Bruno, etc.

God, that video was cringe-inducing. It made me sad, because, shit, the guy's an English teacher, teaching Honors English no less, and can barely form a sentence. "I just kept saying the same insult, because that's what I was trained to do."? How does that even make sense? There's a coherent (if incorrect) argument he could have made for his usage, but he didn't make it.

I wonder what sort of guidelines school administrators have for assigning teachers to "honors" positions. I was corresponding with my ex recently, and found out that he, having just finished his first two years of teaching, has been assigned to teach AP US History. This seems wrong to me.

Seems like Mr. Dawson could use a refresher course on the finer points of the use-mention distinction.

Also I suspect that years ago the clerk at the video store got the cassettes mixed up and, instead of giving Mr. Dawson Dead Poets' Society, accidentally gave him The Fisher King.

Alternative post title: WHAS Happening

Alternative alternative post video-title: Fred Armisen saying "I'M JUST KIDDING!!!"

He has taken the fall time after time to be politically correct.

Look closely. This means, "I'm a racist".

21: Maybe he meant "training" to refer to classroom osmosis. "I couldn't help it, they're a bad influence!"

And my Honors World History teacher was the football coach. (Not that "honors" had much prestige there.)

I actually just noticed this part:

Did you actually believe that act Dawson put on for the TV cameras???.....It was all an act! Dawson was just trying to wake everybody up!....Try watching the movie, "Network."........Don't you get it? Paul Dawson was acting the part of Howard Beale!!!!

Hmm. Who the hell is Howard Beale?

27: I agree -- that must be the most ridiculous part. It doesn't accord with his explanation from the interview at all.

27 - Seriously? Peter Finch's part in Network, the nightly news anchor who goes around the bend. "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" Good movie, you should rent it.

Yeah, I looked it up after posting that comment. Looks like a good film. Then I got sucked into the AFI "100 most memorable movie quotes of all time" list for about ten minutes.

He's got Bob Dole disease in that letter. (No, not that Bob Dole disease, get your mind out of the gutter.)

is 31 a Viagra joke? I'm fuming because I will not be able to watch this video and participate in the humorousness until late this evening. So go ahead and have fun without me. Fuckers.

(Alternately somebody could post a transcript or link to such.)

Clownae, the letter is much better than the interview, IME.

Gods, that is so painful.

sam K: thanks -- but reading the letter it seemed like the interview would give me some important bits of background upon which to base jokes. Also, IME usually stands for "In my experience" which doesn't really work here: I think you meant IMO.

36: Oh. I thought it stood for "in my estimation".

(It just occured to me that sam k could be Søren Kierkegaard posting under a pseudonym!)

I'm reluctant to disturb such an amiable conversation, but isn't the outrage reactionary?

I'm pretty sure we're all racists, to greater and lesser degrees. How we act on those prejudices makes all the difference in the world.

Of course, sharing a Michael Richards moment with someone you don't respect because of their skin color, ethnicity, religious convictions, or creed (whatever that is) is a deal breaker, but most of us are human, after all.

What does 39 mean?

I don't detect any outrage here, just embarrassment for somebody who clearly hasn't got the social skills God gave a styrofoam cooler.

38: Old kinsfolk, actually (the relation's relating itself to itself in the relation): either my nephew's uncle three times removed, or my uncle's nephew four times removed.

Yowza.

That is such a painful video. I have a bunch of friends who went to teach high school, and only one of them - but one in particular - is emotionally stunted at high school age. He would genuinely buy the premise, "Well, they said always say it!"

This winner, before getting kicked out of grad school for sleeping with too many of his students, also accepted the bribe of two kegs to slip the final exam to two of his students ahead of time. They never delivered on the kegs after the class ended, and he was outraged.

I'm using the word "friend" really loosely here.

Shorter 45: "I'm actually talking about myself."

Look, where are my kegs?

Guess you will have to come to DC at the end of the month.

I kind of really want to.

I'm conflicted because I generally keep my blogging life a secret from my public life, and it seems overwhelming to work in a real live trip to DC.

You can always just go around introducing yourself by your handle.

More like chatting nonchalantly here in Austin why I'm planning a New Year's trip to a city I ostensibly have no connection with. Not too worried about you guys.

I can't believe no one has pointed out that "Di'n't" is spelled incorrectly in the post title.

Yeah I believe the correct spelling is "didt'n".

50: Or by your real name and just claim to be a lurker.

Not that anyone's tried that before, Ben non-w-lfs-n.

Alternately you could show up claiming to be standpipe b.

You can claim to be me if you want, HBGB. I need to introduce more mystery into my persona.

Not too overwhelmed to meet you guys - that part sounds like fun, owning up to being Heebie and everything. More like the fumbly explanation to my friends here that seems daunting.

58: Not sure if it helps, HBGB, it occured to me that it's entirely plausible you and I know people in common.

Really? What fun! Who do you know? Or what's our connection?

60 is testing dangerous waters...

I wouldn't say it probable ... just normal discipline overlap (unless I've misread you). I'd have to look over [redacted] faculty list to be sure.....

61: um, yes.

carp, should I have googleproofed 62? Can someone redact the location, please?

You don't need to on my behalf. I guess it is potentially sticky though. I've got so many identifying details on my site that this isn't really a particular concern for me.

Philosophically, I just vaguely trust the universe's indifference to my blogging.

I'll just tell all my local friends I'm CrypticNed, and that should clear everything up.

perfect!

Jesus christ. This guy needs to be pulled out of the classroom, not because he's a racist (though there is that) but because he's a fucking idiot. The look on the reporter's face during that interview is priceless.

Also, I realize it makes me a bad person, but the moment they cut away to the face of the student he insulted, I immediately thought, "that's the student he called a nigger?" I don't believe for one second that that young man used the word first.

"I'm going to DC to visit some old friends."

You can leave out the "and have S&M-themed homosexual threesomes" if you don't care to share that part.

carp, should I have googleproofed 62?

Probably, just for the halibut.

69 -- Oh! I thought soubz was invoking CharleyCarp, and trying to figure out why he would do so. (It is "he", right soubz?)

I think this guy's entire problem is that he's way overinvested in his self-image as the Cool Teacher.

People like that make me cringe in fear and terror that I might be one of them.

That is why I believe it is imperative for all teachers to self-identify as geeks.

way overinvested in his self-image as the Cool Teacher

Indeed, but it's plain as day from watching him on camera that he's one of the teachers all the kids would consider an überdork.

B, that kid's face is the saddest thing about the story. I mean, the glasses and everything.

it is imperative for all teachers to self-identify as geeks

So true. Can we come up with a suitable Latin version of this motto?

The problem is that self-identifying as a geek doesn't make you a good teacher either. You can still be an asshole who has disdain for your students, just in a different way.

So far, the intertrons are coming up with: "is est imperative pro totus magister ut ego identify ut geeks".

I'm no Latin scholar, but I suspect this translation has some problems.

NiggAAAAHHHH!

Picture your students as little plants, and your job is to fertilize them.

The problem is that self-identifying as a geek doesn't make you a good teacher either

No, of course not. But it reminds you that you Are Not Cool, that you in fact are not there to be Cool, and lets you focus on other things, while avoiding the specific set of rather sad vices attendant upon the Teacher Who Tries, So Desperately to Be Cool, when he is well past his sell-by date.

Ecce Geeko!

There's also the issue of being smart enough to recognize that "cool" doesn't necessarily mean "what 16-year olds do."

Teacher Who Tries, So Desperately to Be Cool

Hey!

Slol, what's on your list of vices associated with this?

In fact, it tends to be the exact opposite from what I recall of being 16.

Okay, if you want to redefine "cool" to have apply to middle-aged people with advanced degrees, a little extra around the middle and gray hairs, be my guest. I'm unpersuaded. Unless you mean, you know, relatively cool, given the advanced degrees, a little extra around the middle and gray hairs. Which is, to say the least, a different part of the "cool" spectrum.

By comment 300, we're going to be talking Labs off the ledge.

81 -> 83

Slol, what's on your list of vices associated with this?

Um, I hadn't actually thought about this quite so formally, but let me put it this way: I had in mind a professor who, in the late 1980s, had the same hair and craggy features and tight jeans as Robert Plant in the late 1980s, who hung around a decidedly undergraduate bar well past 11PM on weeknights, playing pinball and not-quite macking on the undergraduates. That was my type of the type not, really, to be.

And for all I know, he was a stand-up guy. But overall impression was not so good to my 19 y.o. eye.

I'm defining "cool" as "not fucking pathetic."

I guess my poiint is, when I say professors shouldn't try to be cool, I mean they gotta remember they're not, themselves, nineteen anymore.

I think of the "cool" teachers as overlapping significantly with the "cult of personality" teachers.

I'm defining "cool" as "not fucking pathetic."

Okay, but then for canonical values of "cool," this is exactly wrong. See, e.g., James Dean in R w/o a Cause. Which is, you know, in some respects just totally pathetic. So much angst over, basically, nuthin'! (Until Plato gets shot. But I mean, the angst was before that.) Yet, that's supposed to be archetypal cool, isn't it.

But of course, the whole idea of "cool" is determined by social value, and professors are supposed to resist such values in favor of the Life of the Mind!

Ogged, can you lend a nigga a pencil?

Ok, Steve McQueen, then.

You know what's really Cool? Ranting to yourself in the comment column of a blog.

Steve McQueen is cool.

Discussing cool over the Internet in blog comments? A substantial indicator that one doesn't need to worry about it.

I think you're cool, slo.

A substantial indicator that one doesn't need to worry about it.

Also, getting pwned. Or recognizing pwnage.

I think you're cool, slo.

Ah, but it's okay if you think I'm cool. It's just important that I not think I'm cool.

I'm in the mood for a melody, slol, I'm in the mooooooood. NiggAAAAH.

Totally agree about the importance of avoiding Robert Plant. At the same time I reserve the right to go on occassional tangents about Borat or whatever.

At the same time I reserve the right to go on occassional tangents about Borat or whatever.

See, I think this is okay, though. Sacha Baron Cohen is cool (as cool as anyone who needed rescue by Hugh Laurie could be) and he's almost as old as I am. (Dammit, that "almost" almost killed me right there.) So it's okay if you like Borat and can bond with the kids over Borat.

Best not to have an expressed opinion on whoever's on the cover of Tiger Beat or whatever the modern equivalent is, though.

Knowledge of pop culture is too cool for school, Labs. You need to spend more time reading those moldy old Greek guys.

bond with the kids over Borat

So you can talk about Jessica Biel's ass as long as you say "wawa wooah!" right?

Tiger Beat was never cool, Slol. If you weren't such a geek, you'd have known this.

105: No, you can't talk about Jessica Biel's ass.

And rightly so.

I think of the "cool" teachers as overlapping significantly with the "cult of personality" teachers.

So do I, but then, we're also mentor-averse, and perhaps aren't good at judging teachers.

Half-seriously, I think that, e.g., Brad Pitt's bad decisionmaking illustrates several valuable lessons.

If you weren't such a geek

But I'm not arguing with you over this, B. In fact I think I'm insisting on it. Also, as 101 indicates, I'm additionally graceless.

And I personally dislike referring to students as "the kids." Also, there are too many states these days.

Brad Pitt's bad decisionmaking

In Twelve Monkeys? Troy?

I personally dislike referring to students as "the kids."

Me too. I was trying to be a little sardonic.

I beg your sardon.

110: Precisely. Therefore, we cool teachers are JUST FINE, THANK YOU and NOT AT ALL like that guy in the video.

No, you can't talk about Jessica Biel's ass.

Yeah, not cool to kiss and tell.

I've thought about changing the way I dress etc. in class entirely because I've been previously been adopted as `the cool teacher' and I think it gets in the way. Some of it isn't very easily changeable though -- and I don't want to feel like I'm pretending in there, either.

In re Aniston/Jolie. Next year will surely bring some other spectacular failure of practical reasoning.

And I personally dislike referring to students as "the kids."

This presents me with a problem, since I habitually greet groups of, say, more than three people with "kids".

117: This outfit would solve your problem.

AWB has some really good posts in her archives about being or not-being the Cool Teacher.

sweet

119 -- You'll outgrow this.

117: Be an asshole in the first week. Takes care of the problem, and the associated problems ("she won't mind if I'm late to class; she's cool").

119: That's because you're trying *too hard* to be cool, Ben.

we cool teachers

I wasn't pointing any fingers, B.

124: I've done this. It doesn't help. Nobody thinks I'll be a pushover. But maybe we're talking about a different variant of `the cool teacher'.

125, see 71. And we both *know* that I'm way more invested in being not-geeky than you are.

Honestly, I missed 71. I was thinking of Herr Professor Doktor Robert Plant.

But trying too hard to be liked is the *essence* of uncool.

129: It works the other way too .... if `they' are convinced you are cool, it doesn't really matter what you do. Even if you try pretty hard to be uncool.

Eat your heart out Stephen Colbert.

Did he actually say that he uses the word 'nigga' to "feel more comfortable with black students"? Someone make this man faculty advisor for the local Gay-Straight Alliance, stat.

I wish to go on record as having seen Robert Plant in concert in or about the late 1980s, when he was starting to do Zeppelin material again. But the topper in this giant helping of uncool is that the opening act? were Cheap Trick -- and they were awesome.

5, 12: Oh. I see.

I think I'm the kind of teacher my students feel some pity for, because they realize, if I was their classmate, they wouldn't date me, but, as they get to know me throughout the semester, they realize I live a rather full life and are totally impressed. Even the students who tried to seduce me at the beginning of the semester would turn in in-class writing that said, "I think everyone in the class thinks you're pretty weird, but I think you're amazing."

I go out of my way to wear clothes that are a little frumpy, and, if cool, cool in a Gen X way (ancient sneakers, untapered jeans, button-down shirts under sweaters). I refuse to borrow their slang, and relentlessly use my own very outdated slang in the hopes that I'll bring it back into fashion when they realize how bitchin' I am.

Outdated slang is the best kind.

w-lfs-n using outdated slang defines inauthenticity about as succinctly as I've seen it done.

It's nifty.

130: Don't waste time trying to change their impressions of you; just use your coolness as a force for good.

(AWB using outdated slang: hip and sexy, authentically so.)

139: Take that, w-lfs-n!

(Reckon 139 applies to neil, as well.)

Be honest, though, Bear. Using supposedly outdated slang is the new hip.

Spiffy!

Important distinction: outdated could mean either the slang which was in use when was approximately the age of one's students (or some other formative age), or it could mean you're talking like, e.g. Philip Marlowe.

My paralellism is improper.

Using supposedly outdated slang is the new hip.

Boy howdy. Oh, you kid!

145: Like your spelling.

142: My father-in-law has a new hip; and, he uses outdated slang. I think you're on to something!

You mock, but you know it's true.

At the risk of being mocked mercilessly, I actually do something like what Dawson claimed he does: I parrot certain locutions as an object lesson in academic discourse. If a student claims a scene is "phat," I'll rattle off a philosophical inquiry about what does and doesn't constitute "phatness." By minute seventeen, I've created a classroom environment in which no one proffers non-descriptive descriptions. (Typically, the students see what I'm up to and start playing along.)

I also have a spiel about "like" and "you know," but I'll spare you.

you know it's true

Only with a farily loose reading of "new".

that is to say, a fairly loose reading.

150 -- but do you make with the slurs?

150: God, you're a geek.

153: I once did this to the word "fucker," but no, i save my discussion of "nigger" for when we hit Huck Finn or Native Son.

154: Yes, but one with a classroom of students whose prose occasionally reflects their actual intelligence.

Fair enough. Actually I'm going to totally swipe that little exercise, should I ever find myself in front of a classroom again.

They realize I live a rather full life and are totally impressed.

Plus, you can give them hives whenever you want to.

I once spent about fifteen minutes on "The Man"; it's possible that twenty percent of the students eventually understood that it was a rather vague phrase.

The part of Paul Dawson will be played by Brian Atene.

157: Low, JE.

Actually, being able to get hives from me is what marks the special ones.

What aspect of "The Man"? I still fondly remember the opening line to a paper a friend of mine was grading in his first semester as a TA: "In Roman times, the man was 'The Man'."

I said something over there I meant to say over here.

I also have a spiel about "like"

I want to hear it.

138: Oh, that wasn't a personal anecdote .... just inarticulately noting that while people who are attempting to be cool often try by mimicking behaviours --- there really isn't a cool/uncool behaviour list that is that solid. If someone is already perceived as cool, others will pretty much take whatever they do as acceptable (within reason). So they can get away with doing things that would be socially disastrous for others.

164 me.

6: I dislike that phrase too. But (now having watched the video) I am thinking, would it have been possible for them to squeeze in one or two more usages? the "n-word"s were flying fast and furious. Particularly lovely was the WHAS anchor's enunciation of "the n-word" the first time in the clip that locution occurs.

there was a teacher like this at my junior high who got fired.