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Resentful Rubber Room Resident Remains
February 05, 2004The New York Post calls chemistry teacher Elihu McMahon the 'Teflon Teacher.'
McMahon is currently being paid his $77,000 salary for sitting in a "rubber room" in a Bronx district office following the latest allegations - students at the prestigious Bronx HS of Science have accused him of sexual harassment and making insensitive remarks.We first wrote about rubber rooms a few weeks ago, where teachers who can't be fired languish on full salary. (With all that time on his hands, we hope the guy put it to good use, such as polishing off the entire Great Books series.)
By his own admission, McMahon has spent about 12 of the last 15 years - with full salary - in offices awaiting disposition of his various cases. The city has paid him an estimated $600,000 over those years for doing absolutely nothing.
In the case of Mr. McMahon, we can't say if the guy's an average teacher who's getting railroaded, or if he really is the lout the school district says he is. To be honest, some of the accusations leveled against him don't sound terribly unprofessional, and a few even show evidence of administrative spin--such as the fantasy charge of "verbal corporal punishment."
From our reading of the Post article, the three worst charges against the guy are these:
1. After he says a black girl cursed at him, McMahon, who is black, lectured her that some black men marry outside of their race because of disrespectful treatment by some black women. Racially insensitive? Or just speaking the truth? And since when can people of the same race, speaking about people of the same race, be accused of being "racially insensitive?"
2. He once said to a heavyset student, "Get your big body down here." Heavens to Betsy, that must have been a shock for the poor young man, having never before known about his size.
3. At Bronx Science, he once gave an exam to students to see what they'd learned under a previous teacher, and learned that there was rampant grade inflation. That stunt earned him the charge of "improper grading." Pass the smelling salts!
Our recommendation? Let the guy go.
While we do have our doubts as to the administrators' case against him, it's possible that they're in the right. But he can't be that terrible of a teacher, for he won two teaching awards in the 1980s. We're firm believers that quality people are always scarce, so even if this guy is unjustly terminated, hey, life ain't fair. But if he is who he says he is, he'll land on his feet.
The Board of Education isn't the only employer in the Big Apple.
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"But he can't be that terrible of a teacher, for he won two teaching awards in the 1980s."
Back in the 1980's, I won all sorts of 10K races. I couldn't finish one today. Successful teaching 20 years ago does not mean that he isn't a rotten teacher now.
My first thought was of my 8th grade English teacher, who hated students, taught nothing, and had been teaching nothing for 20 years. If they couldn't fire him for incompetence, better that he'd been in the "rubber room" than setting 30 students back a year, every year.
Kids were continually trying to get him in trouble for looking up girl's skirts. The reasons:
1. It was hard to believe he spent all that time doing nothing at all.
2. Sometimes it looked like he WAS trying to peer up the girl's skirts. (OK, some people did learn one thing in his class - sit with your knees together!)
3. But mainly, we wanted to get rid of the useless so and so.
This was in the sixties, so getting him fired on a misbehavior charge would take real evidence, which never existed. For proof of incompetence, all they had to do was to check with the 9th grade teachers that got unprepared students every year, and compare that with the 7th grade records - but apparently the union wouldn't allow that. Nowadays, I think someone would plant a tiny digital camera with a few up-skirt shots on him...
markm February 5, 2004 02:04 PMOTOH, after reading the whole article, it sounds more like it's the administration that is after him. He isn't always 100% blandly politically correct. He maintains grading standards, which apparently makes the school look bad. (It could also get the students after him - it wouldn't have caused trouble for a good teacher where I went to school, but they've probably been trained to expect passing grades for little effort now.) Possibly he even uses teaching methods that work, rather than following the fashion.
And "verbal corporal punishment"!!! Someone should have flunked out whoever said that long before they became an administrator.
Finally, why in heck would anyone (except a champion of laziness) be willing to continue working for a place that treated him like this? Why not send out resumes to private schools, who usually will jump at a chance to hire an "award winning" teacher. Oh, wait. $77,000 salary. For doing nothing. And I thought teachers were underpaid.
markm February 5, 2004 03:07 PMHold it Mark, that's doing nothing for 9 months out of the year... ;o)
Eric Holcombe February 6, 2004 09:35 AM