"Your assignment for tomorrow is to read the remainder of Scared a Lot in Camelot, and we'll discuss it during class!" Velma instructed, just as the bell rang. "Thanks for a great class, everyone!"
Everyone quickly gathered their belongings, and headed out of the room to wherever they were going next. Everyone except Madelyn, that is. Velma's sister walked right to the front of the room where Velma was currently putting the day's assignments in the bag in which she kept her notes and books.
"Umm…hey." Madelyn greeted her sister in an awkward fashion.
"Hi." Velma replied in an equally strange demeanor.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" Madelyn asked. "Did I do something wrong?"
Velma immediately felt horrible. She had spent the weekend working things up in her head, thinking that Madelyn thought she was foolish or that Madelyn was frustrated with her for humiliating her in front of her friends.
"I'm so sorry." Velma apologized. "I'm sorry for everything."
"It's okay, sis…just please talk to me." Madelyn pleaded. "I don't understand what happened. We went from talking and hanging out together all the time to you suddenly avoiding me for days."
"Nothing happened." Velma promised. "Nothing except my own stupidity. I made a fool of myself in front of you and all your friends."
"None of us thought you being there was remotely weird. In fact, I think people thought it was more weird that you freaked out and suddenly said you had to leave." Madelyn presumed.
Suddenly, Mr. Mistara came into the room. He had apparently overheard the conversation, given his next remark. "Yeah, even I can tell you that was some pretty weird crap, Velma. Why'd ya do that?"
"I guess…I've always thought of a teacher as somebody who was supposed to be prim and proper. Teaching has always seemed like a prestigious career, where you have to be…" Velma was interrupted by Mr. Mistara.
"Staunchy?" Mr. Mistara guessed. "You don't want to be like that guy, cuz they fired his derriere!"
"I wasn't trying to be staunchy in my attitude, or Staunchy the teacher…I just think teaching should be a field where students look at you with great admiration and respect." Velma argued.
"I agree. Does respect and admiration have to mean that you can't ever connect with your students, or relate to them on a personal level?" Mr. Mistara challenged.
"You know, you make a really insightful point. What's the line between relating to them on a personal level while still maintaining some level of professionality?" Velma inquired of her colleague.
"Oh, I wouldn't know." Mr. Mistara shrugged, as he typed a few words into the computer and it began playing "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio. The instructor quickly began dancing in place. "I always cross that line!"
"Umm…okay, thanks for the advice." Velma quickly gathered her belongings and hurried out. Although Mr. Mistara's advice had made her start thinking a bit more about how she could better connect with her students, quite frankly he'd gotten a bit too casual for her liking.
Madelyn was quick to follow her.
"I'm really glad I didn't do anything wrong, sis." Madelyn seemed relieved.
"No, you didn't. I guess Mr. Mistara was right…to an extent. There's a difference between remaining professional and being too stuffy to connect with your students, and I just need to find my comfort zone with that." Velma realized. "I'm sorry I ever ignored you, sis."
Madelyn extended her arms out for a make-up hug, which Velma quickly reciprocated. She realized that maybe even the most skilled instructors didn't figure out every aspect of being a teacher right away. Maybe it would just take her a little time.
Velma opened her eyes to a bright and sunny February morning. She pondered upon what she'd be teaching in class today, and finally felt she was starting to get used to her daily routine at Whirlen Merlin's. Getting up every morning to run her book shop felt like sort of a distant memory to her. She didn't really think about it much anymore. Sure, it was a part of her, and it would be there waiting when she returned, but for the moment she just wanted to focus on her experience here.
However, the thought crossed her mind that she hadn't bothered to check in on Shaggy and Scooby at all, and she probably should have.
After putting on a pair of gray dress pants and a red top, Velma picked up the stationary phone in her room. It sat on the marble table near the microwave and stove top in her room. Whilst dialing the number to the bookstore, Velma wondered if anybody would even answer. She loved Shaggy and Scooby, but sometimes, they could be a bit irresponsible. She could easily see a scenario in which they didn't even bother to pick up due to oversleeping or going out for a big breakfast.
She was surprised when she heard a familiar voice on the other end of the phone.
"Like, hello! This is Dinkley's Mystery Books! Shaggy speaking." Shaggy greeted.
"Hey Shaggy! This is Velma."
"Velma! It's great to hear from you! How are things going at your sister's school?" Shaggy questioned.
"They've been going great...well, other than there's been a bit of a mystery over here. The ghost of the headmaster's ancestor is haunting the school." Velma informed.
"Zoinks! Like, I'm glad I'm not there!" Shaggy gulped.
"I do always seem to have a knack for going places where hauntings are happening." Velma chuckled. "How are things going at the bookshop?"
"They're going pretty well, Velma!" Shaggy informed. "Quite a few customers every day. It's a great job for Scoob and I, because when there aren't any customers, we can do whatever we want!"
Velma laughed. "I'm glad it's been so good for you. How's Scooby?"
"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Shaggy said. It sounded like he handed the phone over to his canine companion.
"Hi Relma!" Scooby greeted.
"Hey Scooby! How has it been working at the bookstore?" Velma inquired.
"Great!" Scooby informed. "Rhere's a rot dog stand and a rizza place right next roor!"
Velma let out a chuckle. "I remember. I'm glad you've enjoyed the job so much. Things have been great here too. It's been awesome hearing from you both again! Feel free to give me a call if you need anything."
"Re rill!" Scooby-Doo promised.
"Like, bye Velma!" Shaggy must have taken the phone back again.
"Bye!" Velma said, as she hung up.
It relieved Velma to know that all was good at the bookshop. It seemed like Shaggy and Scooby had it all in great hands. She only wished she could say the same here, as the Merlin issue still nagged at her anxious mind every now and then.
Velma heard a knock at her door. She wondered who it could be at this hour. She quickly scampered over to the door so as not to keep her guest waiting.
"Hey, sis!" Madelyn greeted. "Just wanted to check on you since you weren't at breakfast again this morning. Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine!" Velma assured. "I needed to call Shaggy and Scooby to check on how the bookstore was running without me."
"Oh, thank goodness." Madelyn breathed a sigh of relief. "After yesterday, I was worried something had happened again."
"I'm all ready to go to breakfast." Velma informed, as she headed out the door with Madelyn.
"I've already got our normal spot staked out." Madelyn replied. The two sisters headed down the hall together towards the breakfast area. When they arrived, the first thing they noticed was that Whirlen stood at the front of the room, facing everyone who was eating breakfast.
"Alright, everyone! I have an announcement to make!" Whirlen shared just as Velma and Madelyn sat down. "Tonight is our annual RS Dinner!"
"Dinner?" Velma said aloud, only intending for Madelyn to hear it. "I didn't know about any dinner."
"Of course you didn't!" Whirlen assured. "That's because RS stands for Random Spontaneous Dinner! Nobody ever knows when it will be! Now, I need you all to make sure you're here by exactly 4:54pm!"
"I've never heard of anything like this." Velma made sure to whisper her comment this time so Whirlen wouldn't overhear.
"It's a norm here at our school. We all love it." Madelyn whispered back.
"It's always our first event of the year, except when it isn't." Whirlen confusingly clarified. "In a few weeks, you can also look forward to Mrs. Rumbridge's Midterm Magic Show."
"The pleasure will be yours, I'm sure!" Doris shrilly added, as she popped her head in from another room.
Despite the - pardon the expression - random spontaneity, Velma was looking forward to going to her first school event. Perhaps this would be just the thing she needed to break herself out of her shell and get more involved with the campus life around the school.
Velma wasn't particularly sure whether this dinner was a formal event or not. Quite frankly, she wished she would have asked, but she decided to improvise a bit. She picked out a yellow skirt and a nice-looking top with flowers on it. It wouldn't look overly fancy if this wasn't a formal event, but it also didn't look too casual if this was an event that commanded professional attire. She supposed it couldn't have been too fancy of an event, given it was taking place in the cafeteria where she always ate all of her meals.
Once arriving at the cafeteria, she discovered that it wasn't a formal event at all - she saw students sitting around just wearing t-shirts, jeans and sweatpants. Velma was glad she hadn't dressed up in some elaborate way.
"Over here, sis!" Madelyn waved. It appeared she was sitting by several of her friends again - Sadie, Annabelle and another girl with red hair that Velma didn't know. Velma had a moment of panic, worrying about whether it would make her look too casual if she sat with students. Maybe it would be more professional to find the other instructors and sit with them.
She couldn't let Madelyn down though, so she ultimately decided to follow her heart rather than her mind.
"Hey, Ms. Dinkley!" Annabelle greeted. "You've probably never been to one of these before, but it's super cool. You just go up to that buffet and serve yourself."
"Oh, that's nice!" Velma noticed an empty plate in front of her. "I'll be right back."
Velma spotted the buffet line, which was mercifully short at the moment. She took her plate and went to get some food. The buffet had two large platters, one full of scrumptious spaghetti noodles and the other filled with meat sauce. It looked incredible. She noticed that the meat sauce platter was nearly out. She hoped that some would be remaining when she got to the front of the line.
Thankfully, she did relatively quickly. She hadn't eaten much of a lunch, in order to save room for the presumed feasting tonight, so her mouth watered at the sight of the delicious Italian cuisine in front of her. She scooped a healthy serving of spaghetti on her plate, telling herself that it was okay to overindulge a bit tonight, since it was a special occasion.
Now, it was time for the spaghetti to meet its partner in flavor, meat sauce. Velma was just about to put a scoop of it on her plate, when a man in a chef's outfit came up behind her and plopped a serving of a white sauce with chicken over her noodles.
"Ha ha! Your spaghetti just got alfredoed!" the male teenager behind her laughed.
"And how are you enjoying the random spontaneity of tonight, Velma?" Whirlen inquired, as he apparently caught sight of what had just happened.
Velma wanted to mutter not very much, but she decided to express her disdain through vagueness instead. "Well, it's certainly interesting."
"I'm so happy to hear that!" Whirlen smiled in response. "There'll be lots more of that coming tonight!"
Feeling annoyed, Velma simply didn't respond and headed back to sit by Madelyn.
"I see they ran out of spaghetti." Sadie pointed out.
"You might say that." Velma rolled her eyes. "At least these salads look great."
Velma looked at the scrumptious green salad in small bowls that had apparently been placed on their table while she was up at the buffet getting food.
"I'm glad you like my lovely creation!" the same chef who alfredoed her spaghetti earlier said. "I hope you like this just as much! Yoink!"
The chef snatched Velma's salad and replaced it with a bowl of steaming brussel sprouts.
"Why does he keep doing that?" Velma lamented.
"All part of the fun of the RS Dinner!" the redhead who Velma didn't know said. "Hi, I'm Melissa, by the way. Seems like you all know each other, so I thought I should introduce myself as well."
Velma felt a little awkward. Not only did she not know the traditions of this school very well, but she also felt like she was imposing upon these students by sitting at their table.
"I'm not bothering you, am I?" Velma blurted. "If I am, I can certainly move over to another table."
"Not at all!" Madelyn assured. Velma would have preferred if one of the other three kids had said something, as Madelyn was bound to be biased as her sister.
"You're not bothering us, Ms. Dinkley." Sadie assured. "It's cool to have you sit by us!"
"Good." Velma smiled. This immediately made Velma feel a bit better, and less like she was intruding or overstepping her bounds. She was glad to know the students actually wanted her there, and that she wasn't imposing on them in any way. She glanced around and noticed a number of her students sitting at various tables. Kara and Katie were sitting with a group of girls; Owen was sitting near the buffet with someone; Parry was sitting with Mitch and Brian, and another girl she didn't recognize.
"Everybody, I have an announcement!" Whirlen exclaimed. "As we look back on this semester so far, I would like to take a moment to celebrate some of the new faculty we have here at Whirlen Merlin. First, we have Tibyll Srelawney, who joined us in the fall as a secretary. Tibyll has done an exemplary job here."
Everybody clapped for Tibyll, as did Velma, although she had never met the woman before.
"The pleasure is all hers, I'm sure!" Rumbridge shrieked in delight, much to Velma's annoyance.
"Next, we have Johnny Drubunka! He's currently teaching our Chemistry of Magic course." Whirlen introduced.
"Oh thank you, thank you! I'm so proud of how far I've come here!" Johnny beamed.
"Jonathan, I'm afraid we don't take kindly to narcissism at this school." Whirlen's expression grew serious. "Thank goodness we aren't a religious school, or you'd be thrown out immediately for committing the worst sin of all: pride! This will be a strike on your permanent record, Johnny."
"Ah man." Johnny hung his head in disgrace.
"And lastly, we have Velma Dinkley. She's been doing an amazing job here teaching our Magical Literature class, and she's only been here five weeks. Many students have come to me and told me they love her class!" Whirlen informed everyone.
Velma couldn't be more proud, although she wouldn't say it out loud for obvious reasons.
"Thank you!" Velma smiled. "I couldn't do this without my students. They're all amazing."
To Velma's surprise, Sadie stood up and blurted out a comment. "We couldn't do this without you either. You're one of the best teachers we've ever had here!"
This made Velma even more excited. She was always her own worst critic, but hearing that she was actually doing a good job from one of her students made her so excited.
"I don't agree with that!" Parry snapped.
They were currently having a class discussion on one of the Merlin books they had read, Merlin's Journey by Mark Jones. Sabrina had just made a point about how Merlin seemed mad with power in his later days, which Parry apparently disagreed with.
"What part exactly don't you agree with?" Velma questioned. A week had passed since the RS Dinner, which had given her a boost of confidence in the classroom. Moreover, Merlin hadn't appeared in her class in a few weeks, which gave her hope that maybe he had lost interest in spooking her students. However, all despite this, she was still averse to conflict, so she didn't exactly like how heated things were getting.
"The part where he was mad! He wasn't mad, in fact, he seemed pretty happy to me!" Parry defended.
"Ugh, you're ridiculous." Sabrina harrumphed, slumping down in her seat in frustration. Sabrina had always been the theatrical type, so her reaction was not surprising to Velma. She had mastered names at this point, but she was still getting to know their personalities and hobbies. However, she believed Sabrina's love of drama was because she was a theater kid, but Velma couldn't exactly remember.
"Parry, Sabrina just meant that Merlin was consumed with power. She didn't actually mean he was frustrated." Velma clarified. If there was one thing that she was surprised how often she had to do, it was explaining the most simple of things to students. However, she supposed they were young, and she was growing an appreciation for the fact that every student was different.
The bell rang. Velma had intended to reserve a few minutes at the end of the class for students to turn in the paper that was due today, but she had gotten distracted with the flow of the discussion.
"Alright everybody, make sure to turn in your papers on your way out!" Velma said.
All of the students came up to the front of the room and handed her their papers.
"Here you go!" Madelyn said, handing her paper to her sister. "See you at dinner!"
"Thanks!" Velma appreciated. Even though it was her sister, she tried not to be overly informal and call her "sis" in the classroom, given it was such a professional context.
Every student had handed her a paper, other than John, who was absent today. She quickly noticed that Jake also had not given her his paper. Rather, he simply sat in his seat digging through his belongings. He looked completely disengaged from the course. He rarely turned in any assignments ever, but this assignment was such a big one that he must have felt obligated to do it.
"Here." Jake said, as he picked up his backpack and sauntered out of class.
Velma was really concerned about Jake. Even just glancing at his paper, it was so short that there was no way he was going to get anything better than a C on this. Velma had clearly said the essay needed to be two pages, and Jake wasn't even able to fill a page.
"Here you go, Mrs. Dinkley." Ramando handed the instructor his paper. Velma had admittedly forgotten she hadn't gotten a paper from him yet.
"Thanks, Ramando, but it's just Ms. Dinkley. Looking forward to reading your paper. Have a good weekend!"
"You too, teach." Ramando said, as he picked up his belongings and headed out of class.
Velma quickly gathered all the papers and put them in her book bag before heading out of class. She knew it would take a long time to grade these papers, so she planned to get a head start on it immediately.
As she walked through the drafty hallway, a thought crossed Velma's mind: maybe she should work outside of her room today, so as to enjoy the school atmosphere more and break out of her shell. Ever since the night of the dinner last week, Velma had felt more comfortable and confident in general. It was almost as if she needed somebody to tell her she was doing a good job, because she didn't really believe it herself.
"Velma, may I have a moment?" the familiar voice of Bumbledore asked when she was about to pass by his office.
"Sure." Velma shrugged. "I was just about to grade papers."
"Excellent, I caught you at the perfect time then. Since we are approaching midterms, and it seems you are about to grade a major assignment, please report any students that are currently failing your course to Whirlen. Do you think there will be any?" Bumbledore inquired.
Velma's mind immediately turned to Jake. "Unfortunately, yes. I'll let you know once I grade these papers."
"Wonderful. Grading your first big assignment is an exciting milestone in a new teacher's career, so please let us know if we can be of any assistance to you." Bumbledore offered.
"Thank you. I really feel like I've grown teaching here over these past six weeks." Velma smiled.
"That's stupendous! I remember starting off as a teacher here myself. I was quite nervous about mucking up. And in fact, I did. It took me 67 times just to read the roll call. In fact, the 43rd time required two firefighters and an ambulance." Bumbledore shared.
"I was admittedly a bit nervous myself for a while. I was so worried about crossing that line between being personable to the students and remaining professional." Velma opened up a bit, given Bumbledore had trusted her enough to share such an embarrassing story.
"Oh, I can assure you it's quite normal. In fact, I still haven't quite mastered where that line is!" Bumbledore revealed. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go to my weekly listening session with some students."
Velma glanced in the main office to see several students sitting up against the wall, apparently waiting for Bumbledore to return. She thought it was quite a nice idea to offer a session to listen to student concerns. That is, until Bumbledore plugged in a boom box, which began playing loud music. Bumbledore slouched against the wall and joined the four male students, bobbing their heads up and down as the first few notes of "Gangsta's Paradise" played.
Velma simply chose to ignore Bumbledore's odd behavior and continued looking for a place to sit. She quickly found a comfortable-looking table near an art classroom, and decided to set her bag down. It appeared to be a suitable place to grade papers. The table had almost a booth-like look to it, like you might see in a restaurant. There were two cushy looking leather seats on either side of the table, affixed to the floor.
Velma glanced around her, and noticed several abstract paintings hung around the table. One featured some sort of weird deformed-looking human feet, while another had a monstrous-looking rabbit coming out of a hat.
The instructor took her students' papers out of her bag and began looking through them. She already sort of knew what the general quality from each student would likely be. She had sort of lumped the students into categories: Kara, Sadie, Mitch and Kennedy were still in the good category, although Kennedy was beginning to slip. She hadn't turned in her assignment from last week, and seemed a bit distant when she came into class this entire week. Katie had sort of taken Kennedy's place, as she'd greatly improved from the first weeks. She was starting to become more detailed in the answers she gave, and actually explained what she meant rather than just assuming Velma knew what she was talking about. Sabrina still didn't quite follow Velma's guidelines to a T, but Velma always could tell she understood the materials and thus gave the blonde-haired drama lover an A.
Madelyn was also in this 'A' range. She was quite proud of her sister, but still, Velma found herself feeling a bit weird grading her little sister at first. However, Velma could quickly tell she had mastered the materials, which made grading her much easier than if she had done poorly on the assignment.
As Velma read through each of these individuals' papers, she found herself pleasantly unsurprised with how excellent their work was. Even Sabrina, who regularly didn't follow all the instructions, stayed relatively in line with what she had asked this time.
Towards the middle of the spectrum, Ashley still struggled with getting the concepts; Velma could tell she was thinking, but her mind hadn't quite made it from point A to point B. Velma felt bad about it, but she ultimately had to give the paper a C. It was extremely average, nearly to the point of being dull and requiring very little critical thinking beyond what was explicitly stated by the author.
She found Owen's paper surprisingly good; not in the sense of being particularly well-written, but he was at least making more of an effort now. In the first several weeks, it was beginning to seem like he put in more of an effort trying to come up with excuses why he couldn't do his assignments than actually completing them.
Velma felt bad about this, given it was her sister's friend, but Annabelle usually did extremely poorly on the assignments. She had gotten just enough D's to escape failing, but not by much. Her paper was no different; she sort of rambled on about nothing for two pages, connecting her arguments to what the author said in the most tangential ways.
Velma's face fell a bit when she read Ramando's paper. While he typically struggled with paraphrasing the author, this was a new level of low. His paper was full of long quotes directly from the author, with almost no critical analysis of anything that had been said. He had seemed so happy about successfully completing his paper when he had turned it in too. However, Velma had no choice other than to fail him for the paper. It was completely unclear to her if he even remotely understood what the authors they had read so far this semester had said in connection with one another.
On the other hand, at least it wasn't as bad as Parry's paper, who appeared to have written her a six-page ramble that had little analysis at all. It simply said what he thought of each of the books, even down to giving them rankings.
"Scared a Lot in Camelot - 2 / 5. I didn't like that one so much. The author seemed like a complete jerk!" was perhaps the worst line in his paper. Although it wouldn't completely wreck his grade, Velma would have to give it a D. He at least showed he read the books, but didn't bother to adhere to any of the analysis.
Mike and Ron were about in the same boat. While at least they didn't write rambling reviews of the book, they could have taken a note from Parry to make sure they had written two pages. Velma now regretted saying in class that if they were very confident in their work, they could go slightly under the two pages. Mike and Ron had taken that to an extreme, apparently.
John was absent today, so there was no paper from him. Velma hadn't noticed it at the time, but Brian hadn't turned one in either, which was concerning to her. His work was usually amazing, but that was when he turned it in, which he didn't half the time. She was becoming increasingly worried about both of them, as she thought they both had potential as students, particularly Brian. She wondered what could make a smart student like him so irresponsible and not keep up with his work.
Finally, it was time to read over Jake's paper. This was the first thing Velma had ever read from him, given he hadn't turned in any of the prior assignments. When she looked at the paper, she was shocked. The paper only had three paragraphs, all of them only three to four sentences. Even worse, the paper started with the most horribly written introduction she'd ever seen.
I liked all the books, but all of them seemed different, so no comparison here. The book cover was colorful, so there was lots of contrast there.
Velma had never seen a worse paper in her life. While a few of the poor papers had just barely failed, this was a hard fail. Velma didn't realize it was possible to write a paper this shabby.
Although Jake clearly didn't bother to understand the materials at all, Velma experienced an odd feeling in the back of her mind. She didn't feel angry that he had done the assignment so wrong, or amused at how bad his attempt was. Velma realized that strange feeling was sadness. She felt bad for this student. Learning was such a wondrous and transformative thing, and Jake failed to even bother to open his mind to it. From the first day of class, Jake never engaged like the other students and always seemed like he'd rather be anywhere else. While she was going to talk to John and Brian before telling Whirlen about them, Velma realized she would have no choice other than to report Jake as a failing student to Whirlen.
Velma was incredibly glad she had graded all the papers right after class that day. The weekend had refreshed her, and she was excited to begin yet another week. She had informed Whirlen of Jake's currently failing status in her class, but she was planning to talk to Brian after class today, and hopefully John would be here to turn in his assignment as well. If neither of them turned anything in, they would fail too. Brian's case weighed a bit heavily on her mind. While she knew there wasn't anything she could do if he did fail, Velma didn't want to fail a student with such potential, and hoped he would be open to telling her why his assignment submissions were so inconsistent.
As per usual, the classroom was dark when Velma arrived at it. She assumed it was because nobody taught in that room before her, but she wasn't entirely sure. Velma turned the light on, but was surprised when it quickly turned off again. She presumed it must be an electrical short. She knew there was a phone on the wall by her desk, so she tried to maneuver over there so she could call Whirlen and inform him of what had happened. It was so pitch black that she couldn't see much, so she tried to feel around for the phone with her hands. After a bit of frustration, her hand felt something which appeared to be about the same weight as the phone would be. Her eyes had just barely adjusted enough to the darkness that she could see that her sense of touch had not failed her.
Suddenly, she felt an icy burst on the hand which held the phone. Velma's heart nearly stopped when she realized that the sensation wasn't from something she had bumped into; it was another person. Her terrifying presumption was proven right when a ghastly figure appeared before her. It was the ghost of Merlin.
"Hello Velma." the wizard rasped. "I've been waiting for you!"
Author's note:
So this chapter deals a lot with the concept of what the line is between remaining professional and being personable as a teacher. I don't believe I've mentioned it yet, but recently, I had the amazing opportunity of teaching a course for the first time. I really enjoyed the experience, and while I had the idea for this fanfic long before I received that opportunity, it's definitely informed some of what I've written, and it's been fun to work some of my experience in.
Anyway, what I was trying to get at here is kind of this notion that we have that teachers always have to be staunch, uppity and authoritative to the point of making students feel stupid. I wrote it in a very satirical way in this chapter, but at least in my experience, I feel like the best teachers (at least of the ones I've had) are always the ones that genuinely make the students feel excited about learning through telling some of their own stories, or inviting students to connect their own real-world experience to what they've done in the classroom. This is so much more rewarding, in my opinion, than teachers that stick strictly to the theoretical realm of learning to the point of making students feel stupid when they don't understand the material. I believe there is a line between being professional to the point of being stuffy and acting like you're better than others, and being personable and actually invested in your students' educational journeys. This is easier said than done, though, as in my experience it was difficult letting go of the notion that society and the media represent teachers as people who "must know everything and act like they are above students." Granted, I wouldn't exactly recommend for teachers to listen to "Gangsta's Paradise" with their students for non-educational purposes haha. Although it was done a bit satirically here, my point still stands. I'm sure the majority of you who aren't teachers probably could care less about any of this, but I wanted to explain my intention behind including that bit of plotline there.
A couple references to debrief with this chapter. One of the new teachers that Whirlen introduces, Tibyll Srelawney, is a reference to one of the teachers in the Harry Potter franchise, Sibyll Trelawney. In addition, the writer of one of the books Velma teaches, Mark Jones, is a reference to the writer of The Richie Rich / Scooby-Doo Show episode "Excalibur Scooby."
The reference to Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise" was not intended to be a homage to him, as he passed away two days before this chapter was published. This chapter was written in June, so ironically, it was a complete coincidence the publish date happened to align with him passing away.