While it may come to the attention of some of you early on in the year, I assure you that also due to the incompetence of our schools, most of the complete crap that I'll be teaching this year probably won't come to light until the second semester.
And I'll be acting as dumbfounded as you
I have prepared this 7 part apology to go ahead and explain my incompetence and severe lack of lesson preparation and planning as part of your child's all-round education.
1 - Sorry For My Choice Of Texts
I am sorry that your child had to read the June 2002 issue of Power Slam magazine (the one with Goldberg on the cover), my own censored version of Animal Farm where Boxer the horse decapitates Napoleon and impales Squealer on an iron fence post, and let's not forget the time I'm going to show them the short edit of The Big Lebowski.
Analyse the composition of this cover, you little shits.
Please also allow me to apologise in advance for calling Ernest Hemingway a hack and forcing each of my students to read The Da Vinci Code without cringing.
2 - Sorry For The Lack Of Resources
So my classroom didn't have any actual chairs for the students this year. Well, to be honest I really needed the money for my $100 a week habit of pipe tobacco, and that teacher's salary ain't gonna get me a whole lot of White Ox.
And questioning my methods is a leading cause of my fist on your face!
I would also like to take the chance to apologise for the lack of desks and even curtains for the windows. You see, I like to think of children's minds as a open and blank slate, ready to be filled with information. My classroom is the same, except that it just won't be filled with anything other than uncomfortable teenagers.
Hey, at least they'll have pens and paper to write with...
3 - Sorry For Not Supplying Stationery
I can't be blamed 100% for this one. When you have capitalist pigs - yes PIGS! such as Big W and K-mart shoving back to school specials down your throats then YOU should be the one buying all that loos leaf A4 lined paper, pens, pencils, erasers and all the other assorted junk that your kids won't use anyway because everything is done on computers these days!
4 - Sorry For The Shitty Computers
Who needs and iPad or even an expensive iMac taking up all that space when you can have a standard 486 processor running MS Windows 3.11 - which takes up even more space so there's less chance of your child running amuck in my classroom.
Yes, I'm sorry for the lack of modern computer technology. Who knew that saving over $15000 worth of computer equipment would actually turn out to be bad in the long run?
And I'm sorry for the vision that your child will always see in their nightmares
5 - Sorry For The Inappropriate Viewing
I'm sorry, but I really thought that showing The Rock vs Mankind in an 'I Quit' match at the 2000 WWE Royal Rumble would have some lasting benefits for your child and maybe even teach them some life lessons - you know, like 'don't quit'.
I also apologise for my plans to make them analyse the training montage from Rocky III and get them to write a response essay on Vanilla Ice's film debut - Cool As Ice.
I'm still waiting for his follow-up sequel
6 - Sorry For Mathematically Confusing Assessment Outline
Now this can't be completely my fault, I mean, my own math teachers from when I was in high school were rubbish - so my own failed ability at maths isn't my own doing.
If I said your student received an 'A' grade for the year, then that means they achieved a percentage of at least 80% - this was arrived at by tallying up all their assessment results, then dividing them by 5 because there were far too many assessments and I lost count of how they should have all added up in the first place so I'm just going ahead and guessing that if we divide the scores by 5 then we'll come to their real score out of 100 as a percentage. Oh wait... crap, I tallied up their scores, not their percentages. Oh, crap, they actually didn't all do the same assessments. Oh, crap - I didn't record any of the scores...
7 - Sorry That Your Child Didn't Receive A Grade
So I didn't record anything or 'write it down' as you and my principal both say, but come on, do you really expect me to have to write anything down at all when I have a perfectly good computer on my desk that I can use to put all my data into.
Now hang on, let me just find that 3.5 inch floppy disk that had all the grades on it. Does anyone remember how to start up a Commodore 64?
When Simmo isn't failing as a teacher, he's writing this blog or trying hard not to fail as a parent. You can follow him here on Twitter.
