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Viva la Vazquez!

Yesterday in European History we had a clueless sub, and so Mr. Firestone, whom I’ve previously had for Global Studies and Psychology, was called in. Now that he’s Mr. Head of the Social Studies Department, he’s all important and stuff… or, he thinks he is, at least.

He’s explained that although he loves teaching, he’s trying to climb his way up to being an assistant principal or something so that he can make enough money to support his wife and kid (who, by the way, is two years old now; man, do I feel old). In order to kiss enough ass to be rocket-boosted into the principal’s chair, he’s got to maintain a professional attitude at all times. In other words, he has to keep up a force field of arrogance while remaining icily condescending to students.

Anyway, he came in to handle the critical situation. Someone asked who had been hired to replace our teacher, who was going away. As far as I remember, he flatly ignored the question while trying to set up a lesson or something. Then as he was walking out (Give them a video! Mission accomplished!), he stopped in the doorway, did one of those dramatic turns, and said pompously, “Oh, and to answer your question… You’ll find out tomorrow.”

Don’t get me wrong; he’s a great guy once you’ve had him in two classes, but those moments give me a bad impression of him. Mrs. Vazquez was the same: I remember seeing her for the first time, during my freshman year. She stormed into my English class to talk to the teacher and yelled at some random students in the process. I became afraid of her. But this post is not as much about Mr. Firestone as it is Mrs. Vazquez.

Today was Mrs. Vazquez’s last day as teacher of the European History class. Her recent announcement that she was moving was totally unexpected because she loves teaching the class and the people in it. (She picked most of them herself.) Our new teacher, as it turns out, is going to be the substitute teacher that we had had last week, to whom I erroneously referred as Mr. Whatever in the linked post. His name is actually Mr. — oh, I forget again. It’s been a long day. It’s some common name like Griffiths or Richards or Roberts or something.

So at the beginning of class we were reintroduced to Mr. Whatever, and Mrs. Vazquez personally introduced him to each of us. It was then that I realized that we’ve got a whole cast of characters: geeks, tree hugger(s), the Harry Potter nerd, the foreigner, some kind of punk kids, blondes who (in their opinion) are really awesome, and all the people who never talk. Ms. V. told Mr. W. something about each and every one of us. She called me her “pride and joy.”

For the rest of the period, we pretty much talked amongst ourselves and stuff while the outgoing teacher showed the incoming teacher “the ropes.” Oh yeah, and Schindler’s List was playing, but only a few people were really watching it. I tried to.

Mr. Miller! That’s his name. Did I mention I’m not good with remembering names?

After the bell rang, Mrs. Vazquez exchanged hugs with everybody who was hanging around. She said she’d miss me. I said I’d miss her too. I really will. I had lunch next and was willing to stand in a long line just to get some time to say goodbye.

I had said that I might switch out if I didn’t like Mr. Miller. But if he is bad, I doubt he’ll be so bad that it’ll make me want to switch out. I’d just have to get used to him. If I did switch out, Mr. Firestone would jump on me about taking his AP Psychology class next semester (he’s done it before). I’m pretty sure that this is going to be his last year — I’ve heard he’s going to be a school administrator somewhere else — but I feel that I’ve spent enough time as his student, and I want to or have to take all the classes I’m having next semester. After all, 2004 was Year of the Firestone. And 2005 will be remembered as Year of the Vazquez.