The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [48]
Mandy wasn’t a typical teenager. Neither was Regan. Or Wyatt, Theodore, or Tess. All of them were James Johnson teachers. At twenty-four, Regan, an English teacher, might have been the youngest of the bunch, but she was experienced enough to realize that the same school setting that stifled unique students could make teachers feel badly about being cafeteria fringe too.
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TEACHER CLIQUES
All of the James Johnson characters in Regan’s story—Wyatt, an English teacher; Mandy and Francesca, history teachers; even the couple that hooked up in the parking lot—are teachers or administrators, unless I specifically identified them as students.
In too many ways, the Johnson staff adopted the same behaviors that schools often disapprove of in their students. Teachers were cliquey, and divided by department and race, a practice the administration did not discourage. In fact, at the staff assembly on the first day of school, the principal told the teachers to sit with their department and to come up with a name for their group. (Before Regan and her colleagues even pulled their chairs together to discuss it, the African-American English teachers had already decided on the name of a black celebrity.)
Teachers gossiped about each other on a daily basis—and, worse, they gossiped about students. One teacher asked Regan whether she taught a particular student; when Regan said she did, the teacher sniped, “She’s a cunt.” Regan said to me, “Being a high school teacher is the same as being a high school student. Teachers act just as badly as the students do.”
As a reporter, I was surprised to learn that some of the adults who are supposed to be role models, mentors, and above all, educators openly form exclusive cliques themselves. With names.
Several teachers hailing from an Illinois junior high school, for example, told me about the ruling clique there. The group called itself the PIGS, for People In Good Standing. They invited certain teachers—young, good-looking, fun, outgoing, “usually the cheerleader or good-old-boy types”—to a social event or two, and would let them know if they had “PIGS potential.” If they didn’t make the cut, the PIGS no longer invited them to happy hours, weekend outings, or school-event after-parties that they discussed in front of uninvited teachers.
When the PIGS got together outside of school, they apparently spent much of their time making fun of other teachers and playing drinking games. In school, they were worse. They ostracized non-PIGS, sometimes calling them derogatory names or turning other colleagues against them. When an older teacher’s beloved dog died, they stole a photo of the dog and built a mock shrine to it, pretending to mourn. They persuaded the principal to place a teacher on remediation, a probationary process for low-quality teachers, during her last year before retirement because they claimed she wasn’t working collaboratively with some of the PIGS members. The devastated teacher, who had worked for the district for thirty-five years, had won several awards for her teaching. A non-PIGS teacher explained how the PIGS made her feel. “I remember thinking that this is how I felt in high school. It was so strange to get those feelings again, self-conscious, unsure of myself, flawed,” she said. “Then I was angry. I should not be feeling this way. I’m an adult, a professional, someone who teaches children to not feel this way.”
Barb, one of the teachers whom the PIGS often berated, left the school because the PIGS’ behavior affected the services the school was supposed to provide to students. As the “at risk” teacher, Barb worked with all of the teachers to help struggling