A long, long time ago I went to elementary school. At mine we had some pretty awesome teachers. Most kids looked forward to getting them the same way a cop looks forward to getting their next donut. Well, after about a few months of pure awesome with one of the best teachers in the whole school, she up and left on a hunting expedition to the Himalayas to track some rare white snow leopards.
There are lots of bad teachers, mostly those old bags that make it apparent they wish that after school they could slowly skin every child behind one of the portables and use their hides as a Snuggle. Well this teacher was worse. Enter Mr. England.
Despite the sophistication this name might imply, Mr. England was everything a bad teacher could be and more. He was boring, he wasn’t funny (despite billions of painful attempts), he was incredibly strict, completely incompetent and just plain evil.
Having passed his prime, Mr. England was one of those guys that half-heartedly tries to act a lot younger than they really are. He expressed this with cycling. He’d spend hours talking about his bike gear, his rides, his races, things elementary kids don’t give a damn about. We thought a $10 Tamagochi or X-Brain was the secret to life happiness so to us someone must have severe encephalopathy to spend thousands on a cutting edge carbon bike frame. We all knew in reality his riding accumulated to probably more like a few hours a week. This didn’t stop Mr. England though from disillusioning himself he was some Lance Armstrong type though.
Mr. England had a lot of really odd and even more annoying mannerisms. Some people crack their knuckles, pop their gum, or bite their nails. The habits Mr. England had made these seem like resume worthy character attributes. One of these was like every annoying hand twitch people could make rolled into one. It was sort of a finger snap, leg smack, index gun pointer all mixed together. He’d often even accessorize this by twirling his keys with his weak hand because he apparently wasn't being aggravating enough already. The worst of all these mannerisms however was far more terrible and still haunts my memories to this day.
Most people emphasize what they’re saying by a louder voice, more descriptive words or a simple exclamation mark. Mr. England however felt this just didn’t cut it. Instead, whenever he needed to make a point he would thrust his arms to the heavens as if holding two enormous light sticks and waving them, yell “AIRPORT LANDING LIGHTS!” Ultimately it tended to have that same derogatory sound as “HELLO MCFLY!”
I am not aware of a single student who enjoyed Mr. England’s sparkling personality. In fact, I’m fairly positive everyone (including the faculty) hated him more than a trip to the boys’ bathrooms. Since Mr. England attempted to rule his class with an iron fist and constantly threatened disciplinary action, we had to resist his authority in more subtle ways. A teacher like Mr. England needed more than mere spitballs and pencils lodged in ceiling tiles.
There was one student in particular, who excelled at these disruptive actions. Due to Mr. England’s sure irritation with him I’ll call him Thorn. The Thorn pulled a number of grade-A pranks on Mr. England that we respected more than any class letter grade. Sometimes these pranks were old classics yet Mr. England’s reactions were so ludicrous that they bear mentioning.
On one occasion Thorn attached a paper that said “Careful: Historical Site” to Mr. England’s back unbeknownst to him. Somehow the man managed to go a half-day of back crinkling before realizing there was entire 8.5x11 there. After taking it off and obviously seeing it for the first time Mr. England decided somehow that the best reaction would be to play along. He reattached the paper and for the remainder of the day did his iconic hand twitch at everyone while making a scoffing sound almost like Elvis’s laugh, jerking his thumbs at his back and saying, “I’m a historical site” as if he knew it was there the whole time. Obviously he missed the point that the joke would always be at his expense.
We finally graduated elementary but this did not diminish our burning hatred of Mr. England. We continued to try to make his life as much of a living hell as he made ours. Since the junior high got out earlier than the elementary where I lived and was right next to it we’d pay regular visits to the quack on our way home. Mr. England would constantly leave his portable for God knows what strange reasons so we would go sit in the classroom in some empty desks. His current students, who liked him as much as we did, were happy for the distraction. Mr. England would come back and often continue to lecture on about the chemical composition of bike spokes for a good 15 minutes. When we’d had as much as we could handle we’d raise our hand to ask a question and that’s when he’d actually realize we were there. He’d lose it and start a high speed chase out and around the portable till he realized an old guy running after a couple kids probably sent the wrong impression.
Later on, I got older and went to High School. I never saw Mr. England again and I don’t know what happened to him. I heard he quit to avoid a firing probably for gross incompetence or some unlawful behavior. Try as I might though I have never forgotten him. I suppose if a lesson can be learned from Mr. England it would be "Some people are just bad eggs".
