F called me today to ask how come teachers feel like they have to be [crude expression]s.

I said, to prepare you for the rest of your life.

: (

It's not all teachers, of course, just this one. Perhaps F will not mind if I tell her story.

F is unnerved by this teacher anyway b/c she is the only person whose name he seems to know. When he wants to ask the class a question he always calls on her, by name. Half the time she doesn't know the answer, and then he pulls out the roll book and starts calling on other people, who, she says, never know either.

This teacher is from another country, and English is not his first language. F doesn't have a problem understanding accented English. Perhaps this is why he calls on her first. Or maybe because she's smart. I would suggest, or because she's cute, but I think she'd be horrified at the thought that her teacher, who you understand is probably older than dirt in her eyes, and who acts like a [crude expression], would notice such a thing.

So today she had a test in which she was supposed to draw a thing. The wording, as she described it to me, was ambiguous. She asked him for clarification: do you want X, or do you want Y? His answer was to take her test and carefully read to her, word by word, the test item. They stared at each other. So, she said, do you want X, or Y? Draw as many as you want, he said. They stared at each other. He called upon the class to hear him read out the test item; the other students were like, "What?" F wanted to throw her test on the floor in frustration, but she did not, because it would not be ladylike.

I told her that I was gratified that she was not unladylike.

So she went back to her seat in defeat, and drew both X and Y. It will be interesting to see how he grades that.

Now I ask my readers: is this not excellent preparation for life in the adult world?