The Subversively Mild-Mannered Mr. Hancock

Paul Hancock had been a high school teacher for nine years. Within that time, his experience had been fairly uneventful in the way that being a teacher was like running a race with someone firing off the starting gun and then pointing it at your back with intermittent collapses called summer. Certainly some moments- which, in looking back, moments could be captured as weeks or even months- there had been times of disenchantment, wherein he’d been assigned a particularly loud lunch duty, or suffered an aggravating team member or just had an enduring head cold that lasted through February. Even as the winds of Covid had died down to usher in a new regime- the Age of Parents- Paul had glided through the cross winds like an albatross who conserved its energy by utilizing the gradients of wind. He did not rage in the teacher’s lounge or gossip about coworkers. He was polite and hard-working and generally liked by everyone.

There lodged in him, now and again, a burr of discontent, but that applied mostly to administrators, not students, as it seemed the good ones left after a few years and the ones who replaced them kowtowed to the district administration- the Suits, he called them, an example of synecdoche, he told his students. But he’d reasoned that corporate America would be much worse and he was content to keep his head down and teach literature as long as he could stand it. He had his hobbies- guitar and video games- but those were waning against his new obsession: his one-year-old son and his pretty wife who’d voiced no compunction that she’d married a school teacher with a slight stoop and premature balding.

Admittedly, he began the year with a bit more discontent, as the new department head was young and malleable and keen to worship at the altar of education; the district was of a wealthier demographic and touted themselves as being innovative, which really meant tax dollars thrown into the void of pedagogy swindlers selling their latest wares. She took from her leadership meetings a way to grandstand, in which she flexed her inexperience by switching up the grade levels, in which veteran teachers, higher up on the pecking order, now found themselves teaching freshman and sophomore remedial English, a spot reserved for new hires- a molting process from the furnace of misbehaviors. But this proved to backfire against her as the department balked and she retreated.

Indeed, when he’d received his assignments, Paul had stewed. He’d earned his spot in AP Lit, having done his due diligence and he had a finesse for preparing his students for the exam. She yielded by compromise, giving back three of his AP Lit classes but also three freshman English classes. So be it.

In the week before school started, he’d endured a week of PD training, in which the cult of education yielded its new fruit: standard based grading, upheld as the glowing peach of equity, in which accountability was now the low-hanging fruit, the one allowed to rot. Students had all quarter to turn in assignments; grades could be resubmitted over and over so as long as a standard was proven. That was the party line, anyway. No one really knew what it meant.

Having three remedial classes, he’d now have to spend many of his planning hours in 504 and ARD meetings, in mind-numbing repetition of legalese. In truth, it was a racket- a glorious brass band that trumpeted the rights of disabilities, when in reality, it was a weak bugle of exhaustion, of meaningless paperwork, of overworked caseworkers who pestered teachers with emails asking for goals and data, linking Google docs to a point system that didn’t recognize students’ apathy, the IDGAF data. (Not all students, of course, of course.)

And so it began with Seth Collins, who started off the first period on the first day of school with: “Yo, Mr. Handcock.”

Paul was caught off guard. He made the mistake of asking, "What did you call me?" Until he was ensconsed with his beloved AP students, no longer was he the chill teacher who’d extolled the virtues of metaphor and symbolism. Here was the slightly stooped, slightly balding teacher who’d plastered his classroom with posters of his favorite novels and pictures of his wife and son.

Hoots from the classroom. His brain trawled through facts about classroom behavior and came up blank. Was he supposed to ignore him? Send him out of the classroom to meet with his principal? Wasn’t there a list of principals somewhere? There were five associate principals and this kid would be assigned to one of them. He’d have to look up his information, find the principal, find their email. And during this time of indecision he’d already lost his power.

Power. He didn’t come into this profession for power. The class was still hooting, waiting for him to react. He remained flummoxed. His name was Paul Hancock and no one had ever managed to twist his moniker into a sexual innuendo. It would never have occurred to him.

So he let it go. But inwardly he stewed. This kid, Seth Collins, was on his list of 504’s, not for the ones he needed to pay attention to- the ones for emotional dysregulation or autism or physical impairments- but for the garden-variety kind: dyslexia, ADHD. And did those even matter? Extra time? Everyone had all the time in the world. Late assignments were no longer. Preferential seating? He didn’t care where students sat.

In the Age of Parents, keeping them in the loop meant notifying them through phone calls as emails were strongly discouraged. (They’re your customers, keep sweet, they pay our salaries- not directly stated, but implied.) In reality, no one answered their phones anymore. So emails were sent. Documentation was required. Mandated! Most didn’t answer, some golden parents apologized, and some took great offense. The Collins were of the latter.

In fact, Seth Collins was charming. He was lanky and good looking, with just a minimal spray of acne across his forehead, and he luxuriated in amusing his classmates. And smart. (If smart meant wilier or shrewder. Paul would have him beat in an essay about Nathaniel Hawthorne.)

What Paul did not do was debase himself by making meaningful connections. He knew Seth was far too clever for such obvious machinations. So he’d been forced to battle for dominance in which he was wholly unprepared.

“Seth, come up here for a second,” he said to him one morning.

Seth strolled to his desk. Loquaciously. Impudently.

Paul pointed to his computer screen, stabbed at it really. “Is this your work?”

Seth grunted something in return, perhaps an affirmation.

He tried not to sound triumphant. “Well, it doesn’t sound like you. You used the word nihilism. Can you define it for me?”

Seth answered, “Certainly. Nihilism is the philosophical belief that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.”

No, that’s not what happened. He’d merely smirked and mumbled, “I dunno.” That afternoon, Paul received an email from Mrs. Collins:

Mr. Hancock,

I’m appalled that you would accuse my son Seth of plagiarism without any real evidence, and then proceed to humiliate him in front of the class by demanding he define a word from his own paper. That kind of performative power trip is not teaching - it’s bullying. I expect a written apology to Seth immediately.

He did not email Seth an apology. In fact, every week Paul dutifully emailed Seth’s parents to document his failing grades. After his copy and paste AI trick, Seth refused to do any work at all. Nothing. Not even the thematic statement that was supposed to be a full sentence to apply a universal idea to the literature presented, but was, in this case, a whimsical cartoon of a father-son relationship. It would conceivably only take a minute (it took the class the whole period). If a student just gave him a word- love, fear, anything- he gave them a 70. Seth couldn’t be bothered. Not a damn word.

Paul found himself quite enthusiastic at the prospect of failing Seth for the quarter. He told his classes that he would accept no work past 4:30 on the final day they were due. Not the week before. Not the day before. Up to the minute, up to the second, they could still turn in an entire quarter’s worth of work that he would then be required to grade and have no penalties. He could not shave any points off for this extra labor. On Sunday evening, he received an email:

Mr. Hancock,

Seth has a 504 Plan that grants him extended time, so I’m not sure why he’s being penalized for turning in work “late”- unless, of course, his federally protected accommodations are being ignored. Please correct this immediately before I escalate it further.

On Monday morning, Seth handed him a stack of illegible papers, some with streaks of food, aggressively ripped from a notebook. Paul told him he wouldn’t accept it. Notwithstanding the work was supposed to have been turned into Canvas, as all students were required to do, it didn’t matter anyway, because the next quarter had already started. Seth merely shrugged.

The rest of the day, Paul felt knots in his stomach. He was waiting for the email. Sure enough, it came from admin:

Subject: Action Required: 504 Accommodations for Seth Collins

Dear Mr. Hancock,

I’m following up regarding Seth Collins, who has an active 504 Plan that includes extended time on assignments as a documented accommodation. In accordance with this plan, you will need to accept his late work without penalty and submit a grade change form to reflect the updated evaluation once his assignments are reviewed. Please ensure all future grading and deadlines align with his approved accommodations to remain in compliance.

Thank you

Angrily, he went through the laborious process of the grade change form. He gave Seth a 50%. He received another email. Grudgingly he gave him a 70%.

Annoyances became a part of his first period: Seth got up to throw away trash five times an hour. He sashayed, he twerked, he dabbed across the room. He dunked his Dunkin Donuts bag; he always missed; he missed on purpose; he left crumbs on purpose. He called him Mr. Hancock twenty times a class.

Paul Hancock began losing sleep. He’d lost more hair. He’d begun to fantasize about knocking that smug look off Seth's face. He, a mild-mannered man who’d never gotten into a physical brawl of any sort, fantasized about violence! A full clock to the face. Anything to relieve himself of that smirk.

Finally, he thought of a way to rid himself of Seth Collins.

Every class period, at almost the minute to the hour, Seth Collins asked to go to the bathroom. This was the only power Paul seemed to have over him. Because it was clear that whatever Seth was vaping to sustain him through the day, he needed to go at that particular time. As a rule, Paul refused to take upon himself the role of bathroom monitor. He taught literature, he was not a police officer, he refused to comply with the administrator's zeal that teachers should be actively patrolling. It was a fact however that new legislation decreed that those who were caught vaping were sent to an alternative school for ninety days. No exceptions. A student could destroy school property, threaten the lives of other students, even burn the world down- but to be caught vaping, despite (mostly) hapless students caught in a snare of addiction, they would be upheld as criminals.

Seth was not hapless but he was certainly vaping. And so Paul planned the offensive. He planned his gotcha moment. He enacted his revenge. That morning, after Seth left, he waited for exactly one minute and then he strode into the bathroom.

Seth was drying his hands. He gave a “What’s up?” jerk of the chin. He didn't even look surprised to see that his teacher had just run into a student bathroom looking wild-eyed.

Paul floundered. He mumbled something. He went back to class. He felt a moment of shame that maybe he’d been wrong about Seth all along. Maybe he was just a kid who needed to the bathroom at the same time every morning, that he'd been saying his name correctly all along, that his dyslexia caused him debilitating anxiety, and that Paul really should try making a meaningful connection.

A few minutes later, an email from admin:

Please see me immediately after school.

The assistant principal, Donald Griffen, assigned to students A-D, wouldn’t look him in the eye. He looked down at his desk and said to him, “I got an upsetting call from Mrs. Collins that you made her son feel uncomfortable in the bathroom this morning. He claims that you were watching him in what she called an unseemly manner.”

Everything slowed. Blood pounded into Paul’s head, making his thoughts vacuous and slow. “That I was watching him?”

Mr. Griffen stated robotically, “She said that this wasn’t the first time you’ve made him feel uncomfortable. That you’ve been singling him out.”

Paul could only stare at him. “Are you being serious right now?”

Mr. Griffen’s demeanor softened a bit. “Look, man, I know, I know. But I can’t ignore this.” He sighed. “I just have to file a report. It doesn’t mean anything. It’ll go nowhere.”

“About what exactly?” Paul couldn’t find enough air, he could only sputter: “That I’m…what, what. Like spying on him? Like I’m some child molestor?” His voice became shrill, it quivered with fury. “He was vaping!”

“Did you see him vaping?”

“No. But isn’t that what you tell us to do? To look for vapers?”

“And you left your class in order to do this?” Mr. Griffen’s tone had noticeably chilled.

“You mean I walked across the hall for ten seconds?”

“Teachers are not to leave their classrooms unattended.”

Paul laughed. And within that laugh he felt a freedom that carried it from a sneer to a cackle. He grinned rather maniacally at the principal. He'd reached the point-of-no-return. “Fill out your report then. What do I care? I quit.”

Now Mr. Griffen's gaze hardened. “You quit and you can have your license revoked.”

Paul repeated: “I quit”. He felt righteous. Sanctimonious. And in an act of subversive purity, he took from around his neck his security badge and keys and laid them on Mr. Griffen's desk. He didn’t slam them down, it wasn’t quite gently, but it was firm. Firmly he laid down his keys and his security badge. Honorably.

And then he walked out, realizing that in doing so he didn’t have a key to return to his classroom to retrieve his posters and photos of his family. But he did have his car and house keys jangling in his pocket. And so, Paul Hancock, no longer henpecked, no longer cuckolded, joined the throngs of students leaving for the day; he revved his Honda Civic, smiled at the student who’d let him into the line, and in an act of final defiance, gave the bird to the school. He hoped Seth Collins had seen him.