This teacher is going to tell the truth, the whole truth….

We want to look at how teaching school these days is like pushing that big rock uphill. We do a bunch of stuff in the classroom. With kids.

The piece de resistance is gonna be a diary. An anonymous diary, from a teacher telling it like it is. We spend a lotta time finding someone who’s mature, but idealistic. Young, but savvy.

Take her to lunch. She talks for hours about the frustrations. Every question sparks a litany.

All the kids do is memorization. The course work is relentless, stupid. They get to bring their notes to exams. Day after day, they won’t pay attention. They don’t care. They get drunk. They get stoned. They have sex in the bathroom.

They fight. She’s not allowed to do anything about it.

Nothing.

For most of the tests, they get a copy in advance. (They get a copy in advance.) Half of em, still flunking. Bottom line, she is not supposed  to flunk these kids and they are flunking in droves.

Don’t ask what happens when she tries to visit with mom and pop.

The lunch crowd has shrunk down to us. Nobody else. Except the waiter, who has stood just off to the side for the last two and a half hours while we talked.

Finally, the guy comes over.

I hate to do this, he says. I never eavesdrop. I never interrupt. But I’ve been listening this whole time.

I taught for 12 years, he says. I’ve got a master’s degree, a bunch of awards, job offers.

I just want you to know, he says, everything this woman says is true.

Everything.

So I wait tables.