Not fired up: fired.
Here's what I need. I need creative ways that the (fictional) director of a high school band could go about trying to get fired. Let's say his pension is at stake. Let's say he's got four months to be given the axe or he loses the bulk of his retirement benefits. What should he do?
And remember, he doesn't want to get arrested, just fired.
10 comments:
Crash into the principal's car? Um, let the band play "Sexual Healing" at a half-time? Show up drunk at school?
I know how my band director got fired.
He made his daughter the drum major and pissed off a lot of parents!
at my high school, it was probably a lot easier to get fired than most and it was still really hard.
Ten things that I have seen or heard of teachers doing at my school and not get fired.
1. Call a kid gay
2. Give people a violation if they don't clean your yard
3. Put a working big steel trap on a kids desk.
4. Bring a gun to school(he left it in the car)
5. Tell all of the LDS kids to stand up
6. Throw a music stand across the room.
7. Throw a conductor's baton at a kid.
8. Telling the LDS kids that their religion wasn't true.
9. Bearing their testimony that the LDS church was true.
10. Insulting the administration
The one teacher I did have that was fired for something he did was a PE teacher that got fired for looking at porn. There was also some allegations about the girls in his classes, but I never got the full story about that one, so I'm not sure if it was the porn or the story about the girls. I think it was the porn.
I just googled it and apparently the best way to go about it is offend people's morality(i.e. posting nude pictures of yourself on the internet, teaching creationism, and encouraging students to swear).
So it depends where you are. In Utah, it's porn, other places it's nudity, profanity, and evolution/creationism. And apparently politics sometimes.
Probably the best way to go about it is to teach evolution/creationism, depending on which is more offensive to your given audience. And then make sure that parents complain. In fact, to be safe he should just ask his kids to help him get fired. I'm sure they'd be happy to help him out.
Now days you could just post video of your (personal) band performances with profanity in the lyrics or pornographic lyrics. Then you give your students a sticker with the band name and the web address.
Amanda
When you get fired you lose your pension. When you get laid off you keep it.
dear anon: it's a *fictional* situation. and in this fictional world, the schoolboard accidentally left a quirk in the system that allows fired people to keep their pension. (There is no real band teacher that I'm trying to protect here; I'm brainstorming because the character in my book needs to try to get fired.)
show up late, let students leave school early, dress trashy, march the band up and down the hallways playing loadly as students are taking a big exam
good luck!
hmmmmm, lemme think!
Create a pre-existing quirk or obsession in his personality. Ramp that obsession up to a degree whereby the principal feels he has to "let him/her go."
Alternatively, this character could have a unwarranted hatred of the school mascot (normally a pig, a cow or a chicken if American TV programmes serves me well.) They kidnap the mascot, turn up at the doorstep of a school-dropout, cltuching the mascot, rocking back and forth and repeatedly muttering the words "not well, not well" - the rest writes itself!!
Either way, you're on to a winner!
Perhaps I should start writing again.... :-)
Mark (for the foolhardy amongst you some old (but not gold!) examples of my scribbles can be found here)
I've been in education for twelve years-- all of which dealing with high school students in some way, shape or form.
None of these years did not include fine arts drama (band drama, drama drama, choir drama, etc.)
Things that got people either fired, yelled at, or sent to the junior high:
1. Leading a band prayer over a megaphone on the band practice field (parking lot) at six in the morning.
2. Sueing a superior for a poor evaluation
3. Giving the poor evaluation for inappropriate reasons
4. Calling the president of the booster club a "white trash trailer skank" (she was, but it still seems wrong)
5. Screaming at the Choir director for using the stage (in front of kids)
6. Screaming at the Drama teacher for not allowing her to use the stage (in front of kids)
7. Using a real gun as a prop gun
8. Taking eighteen- year- olds to a bar
9. Screaming at the superintendent of schools over the library being in the band hall and the band practicing in the library (Yes, it was obsurd, but what can you do???)
I could go on and on, but what's the point? Anytime you need a school scenerio, let me know. I've worked with some doozies!!!
Karen
Make it a requirement for the band members to get military style haircuts, etc... in fact, make the rules of being in band like being in the military, complete with regulations for how they clean their instruments, standing at attention, saluting the band director...
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