Beyond School

The following is rough transcript of my introductory remarks to two Advanced Placement Literature classes about a month ago.

I have two important announcements. Please pay attention.

One: I’m forming a Smoking on Campus Committee.

I’ve had enough of all the wrong-headed anti-smoking hysteria in our school. Smoking is not a social evil; it’s a social good. The world is over-infested with humans, and any habit that decreases our numbers is a long-term good for the planet. Further, any habit that saves us from the miseries of octogenarian decrepitude - dentures, incontinence, senility, and so forth - should be embraced, not shunned. Therefore, I’m announcing the Smoking on Campus Committee. Our platform consists of, first, promoting the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products at the student store; and second, asserting students’ rights to smoke in the classroom, hallways, cafeteria, and anywhere else on campus.

Any students interested in applying for leadership positions in this committee are urged to see me after class.

Two: I’m offering One-on-One Conferences in Remedial Cheating

Cheating is an important skill for school. Done successfully, it saves you from wasting hundreds of hours of precious developmental time on mindless homework, and gives you the opportunity to devote that time instead to the pursuit of your own interests: music, sports, real reading and writing, friendship, navel-gazing, sleep, romance, whatever. As a teacher, it is my duty to equip you with the real-world skills you need to succeed. So I want to see the following students, whose plagiarism skills are not adequately fool-proof, for some remedial one-on-one lessons after school: [names withheld].

April Fool’s? Yes, for this post. But not for my class. I really did deliver something like this a few weeks ago, as an introduction to Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Rather than try to explain how Wilde’s characters utter the most outrageous, radical things - but with such straight faces that the humor and social criticism go right over the heads of switched-off audiences - I thought I’d attempt to give them a taste of Wilde’s method by making the above announcements with a straight face of my own.

I wish I’d filmed the students’ faces. Typically blank at first - another teacher yammering away - then the eyes get a little wider and more focused; then the glancing at other students with “are you hearing what I’m hearing?” looks. A few students nodding their heads in agreement with my “logic.”

A one-minute discussion of “Why did I make these announcements?” and “Were they entirely ridiculous?” (-”No.” -) “Why not?”, and they were ready to watch Wilde. Here’s a clip from the 1952 film adaptation by Anthony Asquith - as perfect a film as you’ll ever see. Enjoy the (not so) foolishness as the respectable Lady Bracknell interviews “Earnest,” a suitor for her daughter’s hand in marriage :