Wag More, Bark Less

Sorry for mixing metaphors, but Mickey Mouse once ruled our school

Long ago, on a planet very, very far away — in a suburban high school, in fact, circa 2010 — a hapless idiot was in charge of our school. He tried to be our “friend”, but was so awkward and dumb we wanted nothing to do with him. He decorated his office with Disney paraphernalia and wore Mickey Mouse ties — so of course, we called him “Mickey” behind his back. Over the four years he ruled our school, he was known mostly for his goofy pronouncements, and the alarming ineptness with which he governed his magic kingdom.

The stories I could tell you about Mickey and his Merry Band of Idiots would make your wig flip and your toes curl, as my Nana would say.

First off, under a schoolwide policy decreed by MM at that time, our faculty had been ordered to “Wag more, and bark less!” I think he even included a smiley face in his back-to-school memo, re: the same. Mickey, you see, thought the faculty was a tad too grouchy. Well, we might have been. He was not in control, even though he thought he was. And his attempts to preside over our campus were a failure at best, and a doubly dismal failure at worst.

I was one of those teachers who taught. Always been proud of that. I didn’t do a lot of gossiping in department meetings, nor prattling with my colleagues over lunch. I prepared my lessons, went in Room 215, and interacted with my students, over books and vocabulary words. What a novel concept, as it…