Hunkered down in Bawlmer

      Yesterday morning's light snowfall was only a harbinger of the storm to come a few hours later in the day.  A full scale blizzard blew in to snarl the afternoon rush hour traffic and it kept up for several hours, accompanied by thunder and lightning, and has left Charm City more or less paralyzed this morning.  Thousands of people have no power, all the schools are closed---including Johns Hopkins---and automobile traffic is almost non-existent during the morning rush hour.  This is not a problem for Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. because they are well-supplied with food and drink but they do have tickets to tonight's concert by the Baltimore symphony which will present a challenge if it isn't cancelled.  Stay tuned.

      Uncle Jack did another trawl through the archives and came up with this chestnut he wrote a few years back.


                                                               From the Mailbag

Dear Uncle Jack,
     Next week I start my first job as a schoolteacher and I'm really looking forward to it because I love children and I want to do good things that will make the world a better place to live in. But I am also a little bit scared and I know you used to be a teacher so I was wondering if you had any good advice for a beginner.
                             Nervous Nellie
                             New Jersey

Dear Nellie,
   It is too late for Uncle Jack to give you the advice he always gives young people who want to be schoolteachers which is the same advice his Aunt Esther used to give him back when he wanted
to be a teacher which was "Don't be a fool."
   But even if it was not too late and he did give you that advice you would probably not pay any attention just like Uncle Jack did not pay any attention to his Aunt Esther even though he knew that she knew an awful lot about schoolteaching after doing it for 30 years.
   Anyway you sound like the kind of person who has not gone into schoolteaching just for the money and prestige so Uncle Jack is glad he did not have a chance to talk you out of it. Somebody has to teach the children so it might as well be persons like yourself who actually like children and want to make the world a better place for them instead of witches like his old fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Stonebreaker. Maybe someday the Japanese or Bill Gates or somebody will come up with a computer robot (Mr. Chips?) who can take attendance and make up the cafeteria list and teach children how to do the train problems and all the vital things that teachers do but in the meantime human beings have to do it and he is glad that you are willing to put your head in the noose.
   As for advice to a beginner he has been racking his brain to try to come up with something helpful but all he could think of was the following:
   (a) On opening day count the number of children in your class and if you have more than 20 children go right to the principal's office and tell him he has made a mistake and he cannot expect you to teach more than 20 small children at one time and do a good job.
   When he gets through telling you where you can go you should ignore what he told you and go straight to the superintendent of schools instead. If he will not listen to you either you should go right
to the chairman of the school board and tell him your class is too big and the principal and superintendent should be fired because they won't do anything about it. This will establish you right off as a dedicated teacher who wants the best for her children and the school board will probably give you a big raise.
   (b) If they make you teach your class anyway, even though it has 38 children and 24 of them are insane, remember not to hit the children, even in self-defense. Hitting children is illegal in many states and it is also dangerous because you never know when a lawyer might be hiding under your desk.
   (c) Also never hug the children even if they surprise you and do something really nice which makes you feel like you want to hug them. Nowadays if a child goes home and tells his mother
or father (or both if by some chance they actually live together) that his teacher hugged him the parent might not understand and even if the parent does understand the lawyer under your desk may not understand so either way you are safer not hugging the children.
   (d) Stay out of the teachers' room at all times, especially if it does not have any windows which is usually the case. You will be depressed enough already without having to listen to the morbid conversations of experienced teachers and also you could be overcome by cottage cheese and yogurt fumes and die in there.
   Seriously, schoolteaching is only about 90 percent as bad as Uncle Jack has made it out to be and he is actually glad that he was a schoolteacher for a while because it did a lot for his self-respect. Someday when you have to quit teaching and go into some disreputable line of work like picture framing or selling timeshares in order to make a living you will be able to say, "I am not all bad. I was a schoolteacher once."
   Also as long as you are a schoolteacher you can count on getting a good night's sleep every night because you will be too tired to do anything else. Uncle Jack knows.

                         Doesn't this look like fun? (From the Baltimore Sun this morning)