The iCandidate Read Online Free PDF Page B

I was about to pat myself on the back when the voice of my arch-nemesis shattered the revelry.
    “The Great Depression and the lead up to World War II, huh? I am amazed, Michael, that you’re the only history teacher in the entire school to get this far,” I hear Principal Howell say.
    I turn in my seat to find him gawking at the assignments for each class detailed out on the whiteboard. I never heard him come in. Well, slink in might be more descriptive.
    Robinson Howell has been principal of the school for the last three years. He was still easing into the job when I interviewed with him, and he has regretted the decision to hire me ever since. If I am Ferris Bueller, he’s my Edward Rooney. I wonder if he likes warm gummy bears.
    “I wouldn’t know where my colleagues are in their lessons.” Not exactly accurate as I know where each one of them is. “I measure the speed of teaching by the effectiveness of the students to learn.” That part is true however.
    “Yeah, right,” he responds, moving toward me.
    Recognizing my productivity will be zero, both during and after the lecture I know is sure to come, I put the quizzes I was grading back into a folder and begin to pack up my stuff. “Is this a social call, Robinson, or are you just going to sling derisive comments my way until I leave?” He smirks, perhaps thinking I might seriously think he was making a social call.
    “I heard some concerns voiced about a few of your recent lectures. Things you discussed outside of your approved lesson plans.”
    “Really?” I feign surprise. “Concerns from whom?”
    “I am really not at liberty to say.” Of course he isn’t. “But I heard you dedicated class time to the history of shopping. Is that true?” Howell folds his arms across his chest, the body-language way of saying I don’t care about your explanation.
    “Oh. I thought you were here to scold me for something not included in the lesson plan,” I reply, barely able to contain the smile desperate to emerge on my mouth. Robinson Howell, for all his bluster and banter, is a schoolyard bully at heart. First he preys on the weak, untenured teachers with little capability or guts to fight back first.
    Once that appetite is satiated, he moves on to making sure the department chairs are forced to do his bidding, thus the conversation with Chalice this morning. Finally, if he feels he has something on one of the stronger personalities in the school, he will confront them individually. Today is one of those days.
    He gives me a puzzled look, trying to recollect what he read in my lesson plans. “You never mentioned–” I don’t let him finish his sentence because I know he finds interruptions irritating.
    “We talked about the evolution of shopping as part of the lesson on the economic boom during the Roaring Twenties. We also discussed the chronology of the skyscraper and the urbanization of America, in case you’re curious.”
    The discussion was a nother end of the week causality example for my students. Fridays are always the toughest days to teach, so I like to reserve them for topics of interest. A necessity if you want to keep students engaged when they are all looking forward to the weekend.
    The lesson was a simple one. You start with a product one of the students happens to be carrying, in this case a girl’s purse, and talk about how she bought it. In this example, the bag was purchased at one of the countless women’s accessory stores in the Danbury Mall.
    We traced how she would have purchased the same item back through American history. Strip malls, online catalogues, the department store, and so on to the local village merchant who imported the item from England prior to the American Revolution. The whole exercise was exceedingly interesting for the girls, although the boys got something out of it too.
    “I don’t think the State of Connecticut would approve, nor do I believe parents would think much of it either,” Howell says,