Period five
All right, boys, let’s make a start.
Mr. Andrews, Advanced English. Cool dude even though he did have the same name as the school he worked in, a fact one intelligent individual or another reminded him of every day.
Andrews looked in my direction. He raised an eyebrow at me and said, So I hear you have added more legend to the folklore of St. Andrew’s College, Mr. Armstrong.
That’s one way of looking at it, sir.
I grinned at him, encouraged by the laughs around the classroom.
You only serve to demean yourself and others around you by engaging in such acts.
Instantly the laughing stopped. Dead silence.
Don’t you think that young men get enough bad press without you adding to it?
Feeling more and more like a loser with each second, I gave it another go.
Come on, sir, it was just for laughs. It’s not a big deal. I thought you’d at least get a kick out of it.
No, Will, I didn’t. It appears that I happen to think far more of you than you obviously do of yourself.
Slammmmmmed!
Man, that came from left field. Normally Andrews was really cool about everything. You could mention all the teacher taboos around him—girls, the fact that you haven’t done your homework (for other subjects, that is), and parts of what you did on Saturday night—and you would only get a raised eyebrow. But not today. Well, he needed to go back home and have a look around for his sense of humor, because he sounded just like every other boring teacher.
So, gentlemen, if we can draw our attention away from Mr. Armstrong’s amazing feat, we need, ironically, to get back to the idea of looking at the male stereotype and in particular the young male stereotype.
He was always on about that type of stuff, about the evils of prejudging and typecasting, and insisting that we be critical learners. He reckoned young blokes got a bad rap in society, especially on those lame current affairs TV shows. I didn’t know what he was so uptight about. It wasn’t as if I was a walking stereotype who was going to go on some sleazy guy’s bullshit TV show. He needed to lighten up. I’d tell him where he could put his irony …
Mr. Armstrong, do you intend to do any work this lesson?
Just not right now.
Yes, sir.