While addressing a classroom full of parents
on back-to-school night, a woman obviously drunk,
informs everyone that her daughter
doesn’t have to do the homework.
Talking on the phone with Mrs. Smith,
she tells me it’s my job to make her son
complete his work. I say have you heard
the old adage, You can lead a horse
to water, but can’t make it drink?
Then she accuses me of calling her son a horse.
A mother tells me it is an “abuse of power”
to make her daughter give a speech in front of the class.
I tell her it is a requirement
passed by the State Board of Education.
A father has a meeting with me to discuss
his son’s grade. He thinks his son, who hasn’t
turned in one assignment all semester,
should pass my class.
I ask him if he shows up at his job
and doesn’t do any work,
does he still expect to get paid?
I tell him, I can’t fire his son, but I certainly
won’t pay him with a grade he didn’t earn.
Mark Thalman is the author of The Peasant Dance, Catching the Limit, and Stronger Than the Current. His work has been widely published for five decades. Thalman received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. He taught English and Creative Writing in the public schools for 35 years.
