Eccentric Teachers.

Throughout my life, I've had the chance to be the student of a few very odd teachers. Now, there's a different between "Good" teachers - there's a handful of competent and skilled teachers who are capable of utilizing the orthodox means of textbook and "Copy this" to educate a mass of unruly students. My hat's off to those men and women, because I'm certain they work fairly hard and get a fair share of disapproval from their students behind their backs, but those men and women aren't who I want to write about. Who I want to write about are the freethinkers and "Creative" teachers, and I mean beyond "We're busting out the colored pencils and construction paper" sorts, I mean the people who are likely under Big Brother's scrutiny for their methods which, while questionable, have not failed to stick things to my mind.

Let's have a look at Doctor Lawrence Pilgram. Doctor Pilgram was a Science Professor I'd had who I'm having a little trouble describing. Part of me wants to say he was an old ledger-monk of "Back in my day", but he used many demonstrations that weren't necessarily allowed by the board of education and even openly admitted trying to cheat inspections to insure he had the materials to do so. I often remember carting old equipment that would never see the light of day and conglomerates of glass beakers out to the trunk of his Oldsmobile (which, in some odd way, I compare to the Yugo GVX, I think.) and the circus-like atmosphere that sometimes followed him in as he took a metal rod and washer and promptly plugged them into a wall, blowing the washer skywards and promptly shorting the lighting in the room or dipped a raw wire into a tank of saline and offer a well-to-do smile on his aged face as he asked nervous students "Who will dip their arm in?"

I was one of the students keen to do so and, as he plugged the cable into the wall, my arm curled into itself and my fingers gnarled like his. "Open your hand!" he kept saying, "Open your hand!" I could not, and the class was treated to me trying to unwind some invisible snake from my arm single-handed which likely resembled a seizure or something.
"That," the Good Doctor said, "Is how the brain uses electrical impulses for muscle control."
I recall other oddities, as well, like his demonstration on how air moves in convection from a flame. Lighting a very tiny Bunsen Burner, Pilgram slapped shipping tube that threatened to touch the ceiling over it. A resounding didgeridoo-like noise hummed through the room which he called his "Moose Call".
The Doctor was an odd man who enjoyed his showtunes and jokes about Europeans and Soviets. As we addressed each other as "Comrade" and swapped terrible jokes that sometimes warranted me a "Oh, that was terrible!" and salutations of "Greetings! Have you money, or good news?" it's not impossible for me to imagine this is the sort of brilliant mind that would perish under the kind of mentalities of McCarthyism.

I also remember an odd time where he'd accosted me as I wandered the halls and asked, "Would you care to help me fix the door on the Girl's Restrooms?" I didn't much care for it, but he said he had arthritis in his shoulders, so I went for it. He said, "When I get lunch, there's always girls hustling in and out of there and the squeaking drives me mad. I've got to fix it or nobody will, because on the school's list of things to fix, it simply isn't there." So, I recall getting odd looks as I hammered a bolt loose, oiled it, and fixed the door that bothered him.

Another man I'd like to address is a Mister Derek Frieling. Frieling was quiet and reserved man well-known for his raging outbursts and the fact that he enjoyed listening to such esteemed bands as Megadeth on full-blast in the early hours of the morning. I recall being made to stand in front of the class to play the role of Hitler and having to hug another student who was made to portray the Soviet Union from behind in demonstration of the Schlieffen Plan and being made to kneel before people of questionable repute who were supposed to Knight me as a demonstration of Feudalism. I recall he often would catch students eating candy which he promptly snatched and pitched at a wall, scattering candy everywhere. People would be momentarily outraged saying, "You can't do that!" to which he would reply "Yes, I can" without further explanation. Sometimes, students would say "What about the poor janitors who have to clean that?" to which he would say "I'm insuring they have a job." I also recall a student falling asleep against their desk, which Derek promptly beat with a ball-peen hammer. The student didn't sleep for the rest of the hour.

Mister Frieling was keen to throw Megadeth and They Might Be Giants lyrics onto a board and explain how a line like "Tremble you weaklings, cower in fear. I am your ruler of Land, Sea and Air. Immense in my girth, erect I stand tall. I am a Nuclear Murderer, I am Polaris" is largely a by-product of Cold War tensions and the ensuing arms races. Similarly, I occasionally feel the need to throw TMBG into Youtube to hear how if I have a date in Constantinople she'll be waiting in Istanbul due to the same class. I remember Frieling wasn't above using a screwdriver to turn off his loudspeaker so he could teach uninterrupted and that he often opened up universally-dreaded tests with a witty joke and that if you were near-sleep as he talked, he would walk very close until he was face to face with you, still talking into the air you were breathing.

Frieling wasn't terribly unique in his approach. His projects and demonstrations were sometimes bizarre, but he often still fell back to "Copy this down, we'll test on it tomorrow". What made Frieling truly unorthodox was his complete disregard for the "Politically Correct" methods of handling things. If a student's sleeping, it's easy to say, "You there, go to the office," but they still miss the lesson. You're giving them what you'd wanted to avoid to "punish" them. Beating their desk with a hammer? They're awake. They're at least hearing you teach, even if it goes in one ear and out the other. His projects, probably the best being a construction demonstration, coupled with the handling of his own problems, helped Frieling get information to stick.

The construction bit was probably the "Doctor Pilgram" moment for Frieling, if you ask me. I recall we were discussing the differences of Communism and Capitalism. By random draw, I was assigned to a group of Communists. He said to us, "You. You'll get a piece of candy if you build a very sturdy structure out of marshmallows and toothpicks. You'll get a piece, regardless, for trying, too." before telling the Capitalists "You. I'll give you a piece of candy if you build the sturdiest structure out of marshmallows and toothpicks."

I ended up being the only "Communist" working. I am credit to team. I ended up with a pathetic structure that resembled a gooey rendition of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Capitalists had a pyramid-like thing that looked like it could probably withstand a light slap, which would inevitably crush mine. He asked us why we thought we failed. None of us knew, as he hadn't come out and said "You. You're representative of Communists", so naturally, we didn't have an answer.
He said, "And that is why Communism dies off if properly contained. At the end of the day, you know you're still getting a piece of candy, and that's why nobody tried." It hit me like a brick and stuck.

I don't know. That sort of teaching isn't going to get advocated too much, nowadays. You can't scream "STUPID" in a student's face because they're representing Hitler when Hitler makes a strategic error at Dunkirk. You can't short out the lighting because you want to show children why electricity must not be allowed to accumulate in one spot. You can't call marshmallows and toothpicks educational. You can't throw a raw wire into a tank of water and tell them to dip their bodies in it. It's all against protocol. It's all begging for some parent to go "What the hell did you do to my kid?"

But you know what I liked about it most?
It all worked pretty well.
Everyone in that classroom knew Hitler fucked up at Dunkirk and we got away. They all knew that muscles are regulated by electrical impulses, and they all knew that they wouldn't be able to eat or sleep in class.

All of them.