A few weeks ago, I sat down to introduce my kid to the survivor game series on TV. I had been asked about it after she read a Foxtrot comic strip that mentioned the game. After watching an episode, my kid lost interest and went along her merry way to investigate a pile of books from the library.
But that episode of the survivor game got me to thinking about the nature and character of people. Why was it that the player who in real life is an elementary school PE teacher was so fundamentally cruel and heartless? And so after the kiddos were in bed, I scanned through a number of seasons of the survivor game only to find that every player I could find in all those 20+ episodes who was employed as a K through 12 teacher, exhibited an extraordinarily cruel streak far beyond any of the antics of the other players.
Huh…
Why is it that the elementary public school teachers that have played the survivor game are almost exclusively the absolutely meanest and most vicious people?
Could that game actually be revealing the true character of the players? And why would you be drawn to spend your days with children if you held such a nasty inner disposition?
No wonder children in public school come out so terribly scarred.
Perhaps it is not unruly children that bully other kids, but the teachers themselves that set the stage for bullying to happen. I know for a fact that both my children were actually bullied more by their teachers than the beatings my son took from other kids while in public school. I thought it was just that particular school, or the district.
But maybe it is all over. Yes, there are really great people who are drawn to teach children. But there are also really cruel monsters who are drawn, perhaps simply by the need to be cruel.
And who better to bully than a defenseless child?
Just a thought.
