Mr. Monahan is Insane

So I’m having my students write essays about school.  As I have written previously, “Edison” is currently grappling with its school culture, and so we have been engaging our students in a conversation about what they experience at school.  Building on that energy, I’ve been having my students write about school, what they see and hear and feel in their classrooms.

So far they have been relatively interested in it.  It’s not as engaging for some of them as I thought it would be, and I’m starting to understand why: mostly they take school for granted.  They just sort of swim in it.  The other day I told them a little parable about fishes.  It goes like this. 

Two young fish are swimming through the sea.  They come across an older fish, who stops and asks them: “Hey, how’s the water today?”

They both stop, look at each with a confused look and, not wanting to look stupid, say: “it’s fine,” and then they all swim away.  When the older fish is out of earshot, one of the younger fish says: “what the hell is water?”

And the other fish just shakes his head.

A couple of my students thought the story was “stupid” or “weird”, but a few of them were able to pick out the pieces.  One student blurted out: “so...school is the water, right?”

**

What has been most interesting so far is what they have to say about the relationships between teachers and students.  I keep hearing about two teachers: Mrs. Dryer and Mr. Monahan.  Over and over again I have heard them say or have seen them write things like “Mr. Monahan is crazy” or “Mr. Monahan is mean” or “Mr. Monahan hates us”.  And, of course, I always take what students say about teachers with a grain of salt--as I would hope my colleagues would for me.  I am not present in his room and do not know what his goals or values or habits or procedures are.

Because I don’t have a classroom of my own, I work in the library when I’m not teaching.  I sit here and read papers and plan.  The library contains 40 computers that are used for testing and for some classroom activities.  Yesterday I was working in the library and Mr. Monahan brought his class in to work on the computers.  Many of my students were in his class.

Mr. Monahan is, in fact, insane.  In the 25 minutes I observed his interactions with students (I tried not to, but it was like trying not to watch a four headed owl devour a six headed snake), he let loose an unending stream of admonitions, directions and reminders.  The students were supposed to be working quietly on some math project, but the students were never granted even a moment of silence; Mr. Monahan ensured that by raising his voice and yelling at a child to “sit still” when a child moved in his chair and the legs made a squeaking sound.

At one point I observed him talking to the clock on the wall.

He became irrationally angry at a child who had a question about how to login to a website: “if you
had been listening last week when I told everyone then you wouldn’t have to ask me that!”

He has hair like Albert Einstein, and he wears khaki shorts and sandals with socks (I kid you not) and a plaid shirts pleated with wrinkles, giving him a sort of mad scientist impression.  But when I think of Einstein, I always imagine him with a smile.  Mr. Monahan does not appear to know how to smile.


Seeing him with the students reminded me of one other thing: I pass this man every morning in the hallway, and every morning I nod and smile and say “hello.”  Not once has he looked up from whatever path on the floor he was following.

All of which leads me to the conclusion my students have already reached: that he is, in fact, insane.