Millikan High School of the Long Beach School District was on the news yesterday. CBS was there to do a feature story about teachers losing their jobs and what they’re doing to find new ones.
Nothing new there. We see that story almost every day in the news. Been there, done that.
Right. Except that I really was there and sort of did that. It was 1976 and I was a student teacher at Millikan attempting, among other things, to teach a third-year English class the correct usage of there, their, and they’re.
Readers of Hell on Earth, a love story will recognize that school, although unnamed in the book, as the one that Hank Johnson left in order to seek out the wisdom of Foo Ling in solving the problem of what to do with his life.
The teacher in the CBS story is coaching basketball on the side and trying to get subbing jobs. That is probably the best way to attack the problem.
And what was Foo Ling’s advice to Hank?
Well. Foo Ling thought that the best thing that Hank could do was get into door-to-door vacuum cleaner sales. Hank didn’t stay in the vacuum cleaner business much longer than he stayed in the student teaching business and that was probably good for everyone. Nevertheless, Hank would just like all teachers and all door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen to know that they’re there doing their jobs a lot better than he could have done.
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