The Shrimp

There's this teacher that works with me. I've dubbed him "The Shrimp", not only because of his height, but because of his personality. My view on the other teachers is if they can teach, and the students learn, good. Some people seem to think that there should be some sort of heirarchy, not based on seniority, but on their evaluation of you.

I was asked to work with this certain group of students, alongside The Shrimp. We each had half of the group to work with. I was told that he would give me any assistance I needed. Although he seemed helpful at the beginning, I soon realized that he wasn't really being helpful. He told me that there was no real course outline, or lesson plan, that I "just needed to go over the basics with them." (computer basics, the internet, word and excel) When I asked him what exactly they had to learn, he said "Don't kill yourself, just teach the very basic stuff you teach in the basic classes. Most of these students have never touched a computer and they probably won't retain much anyway." I thought "Poor attitude". All he told me was that I had to test them atthe beginning and at the end of the program to show that they had learned something, "any little improvement would be enough."

After about four weeks, I was going good. I had showed them computer basics, taught them about the internet, we were breezed through Word, and were starting Excel. I patted myself on the back, for doing a good job. The Shrimp then gives me a course outline, THE course outline. When I asked him why he hadn't given it to me earlier, he said he thought he did. BS! Then I started to realize that he either disliked me, or felt threatened by me (I was popular with my students, they bragged to his students that they had learned so much more). I didn't really care, it's not like he's my boss or anything.

I'm friends with a lot of people in our office, and some of them have told me that they've overheard him talking bad about me. "He's never prepared.", "He doesn't know the material as well as he should.", "He makes us look bad.", etc... So instead of confronting The Shrimp, I had decided to keep a mental note of everything people tell me, and just ignore his crap.

Last week, The Shrimp found himself in a bind. he had a scheduling conflict and would have to miss a few classes. He couldn't find anyone to teach those classes, so who does he come to ask to help out? Yep, me. When he asked, I thought about just having it out with him, confront him with all the crap I've heard he's said about me. But then I thought about it, and thought the students would be the only ones to lose out. So I decided to be the bigger man, do a great job and just be the best teacher I could. That if I did a good enough job, someone would realize. "Hard work is it's own reward." Today was the first of classes I'm substituting for him, and the students loved me (at least I hope they did). They told me that I was definitely friendlier and helpful than he was. I hope he finds out, and curses me.

I don't really wish him harm, just that he contract a nice case of oral hemorroids.