I’m not the guy who writes floral prose, and I’m not the guy who polishes anything. I operate on blunt, deadpan, cynical, spade-is-a-spade logic. I am basically Daria Morgendorffer with ADHD and no filter.
In the world of education, professional development and TED Talks should be like peanut butter and jelly, but since nuts are banned, it’s more like apples and staples. Most TED Talks are just twenty-minute time-killers where people tell you how great they are. My students—kids who require a calm, small classroom to function—are largely spared these “soft hits” to the brain. They should thank me.
I don’t show movies in class, either. Movies are a gamble. Kid movies are too childish, and grown-up movies get you called into the principal’s office. How do you explain showing Schindler’s List or the unedited version of The Shining in an urban school? Even Academy Award winners can leave you crying in an administrator’s office.
I’ve witnessed classroom chaos that would make a sitcom writer jealous. This “Daria” mentality is exactly how I navigate it. When a mouse ran across my room recently, a student with severe emotional disturbances—a kid who would fight you over a smile—jumped onto a table and shrieked, “I want to capture this bitch and stab it with a pencil.”
Without thinking, I asked, “If you were the mouse, and the mouse were you, how would you feel?”
“I’d want to kill myself,” she said. “That’s how much I hate mice.”
I shrugged. “Well, maybe if you weren’t near his house and the twenty glue traps, he could escape.”
“Good point,” she said. The mouse survived.
I’m not a cynic just for the hell of it. This tougher sentiment helps me cope with the weight of seeing generations of uneducated kids slipping through the cracks. I don’t wear my cynicism as armor to hide; I wield it to challenge these kids to push beyond their bubble of hopelessness. I want them to question and rebel—not just against me, but against the systems that have already written them off.
This blunt, deadpan voice isn’t an act. It’s how I survive.
Shaped by the grit of New York City, I obsess over authenticity. Once I sense something is fake, I lose all respect. My lack of respect for “the way things are done” makes people uncomfortable. I’ve been told my cynicism makes me unqualified to teach. I’ve been told that in any other era, I’d be at the end of a rope.
I’ve proved them wrong. Ten years in P–12 education, and I’m still standing. I’m the “Technical Specialist” in a room full of managed crises, using a lack of filter to find the only truth that matters: the one that’s sturdy enough to survive.
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