Louis Roney: Reasonable expectations?

• After being interviewed by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect says: “Let me see if I’ve got this straight:

1) You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love of learning.

2) I’m supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and even censor their T-shirt messages and dress habits.

3) You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check backpacks for weapons of mass destruction, and raise self-esteem.

4) You want me to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, fair play, how to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, and how to apply for a job.

5) I am to check their heads for lice, always maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of anti-social behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others, and oh, make sure that I give the girls in my class 50 percent of my attention.

6) My contract requires me to work on my own time after school, evenings and weekends grading papers.

7) Also, I must spend my summer vacation at my own expense working toward advance certification and a master’s degree.

8) And on my own time you want me to attend committee and faculty meetings, PTA meetings, and participate in staff development training.

9) I am to be a paragon of virtue, larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority.

10) And I am to pledge allegiance to family values and this current administration.

11) You want me to incorporate technology into the learning experience, monitor websites, and relate personally with each student.

12) That includes deciding who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit a crime in school.

13) I am to make sure all students pass the mandatory state exams, even those who don’t come to school regularly or don’t complete any of their assignments.

14) Plus, I am to make sure that all of the students with handicaps get an equal education regardless of the extent of mental or physical handicaps.

15) And I am to communicate regularly with parents by letter, telephone, newsletter and report card.

16) I am to do all this with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a big smile – and on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps!

17) You want accomplish all these things, and yet you expect me to abstain from praying!”

Summary: A teacher must, in fact, be a mother, father, guardian, minister, rabbi, priest, philosopher, doctor, nurse, politician, coach, sociologist, psychologist, psychiatrist, CPA, lawyer, mediator, criminologist, cop, family counselor, dietician, and a teacher as well! What’s next? Perhaps God would fill the bill?

• The text and melody are frequently credited to Henry Carey, 1740, but there is argument from other quarters, including the British monarchy, who like “anonymous”.

The tune has been commandeered by lots of countries for their own anthems and hymns.

According to the French encyclopedia, “Quid,” the music is by Jean-Baptiste Lully (born Giambattista Lulli). It was loosely based on a hymn, “Domine Salvum Fac Regem,” sung when the French king arrived at an event. When Louis XIV was ready to start the educational institution at St. Cyr (1686), his mistress (later, queen), the Marquise de Maintenon, commissioned Lully to write the tune to be sung by pupils as “Dieu Protège le Roi.”

The French seemingly laid the tune aside until 1745, when the Old Pretender, claiming to be King James III of England, was organizing his rebellion from France.

Madame de Maintenon presented him with the words and music as his national anthem.

No one is certain who wrote the English words, “God save the King (Queen).”

Madame de Maintenon may have written them, or commissioned them to be written.

The song was sung for the first time in Britain when Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland.

You may have known it in your early school days as “My country, ’tis of thee...”

• I have never figured out why anyone bothers to write me an unsigned letter. What am I supposed to do with it?

Other newspaper writers might agree with me that anonymity dooms a letter to “the circular file.”

If curiosity makes us wonder who the faceless writer is, we: 1) “Look to the money,” then ask, 2) “Who could gain anything from a pro-active response to what’s written?”

Persons or causes who win by our taking their cryptic words to heart are enigmatic. Logically, one projects the imagination into the future to spot an ultimate winner. But how can advice-merchants who remain incognito ever be hailed as winners?

•“Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us to tamely surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have the right to receive from us.” – Thomas Jefferson