Do Small Town Teachers Still Use Adhesive Tape to Silence Their Students?
The farmers would laugh and nod and approve of the abuse
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1982.
A school in rural Wisconsin.
Mr. Drizzle said, “If you speak during class I will cover your mouth with a piece of duct tape.”
He held up the roll of tape for emphasis.
Teachers liked to include a visual to illustrate the lesson.
The roll of duct tape was menacing.
Mr. Drizzle had thick glasses, a short haircut, and a tiny mustache. Every day he wore a sweater vest. He had three that he alternated, but would sometimes wear the same sweater vest for a week or more.
He also had a Christmas sweater vest that he wore in December to be “festive.”
All of December.
The same vest.
“If you continue to speak even after I’ve used the duct tape,” Mr. Drizzle continued, “I will upgrade to this.”
He held up another roll of tape.
This roll was brown and thicker and even more intimidating.
“This is called boot tape. It has a much stronger adhesive than duct tape. If I put this on your face, it will peel off the skin when it’s removed.”
Kip sat in the back of the room trembling.
He tried to make himself appear small.
He tried to shrink into the shadows.
The classroom was half boys and half girls.
The girls were all pretty and nice, but Kip didn’t feel he was allowed to talk to them.
Nobody told him he wasn’t allowed to talk to them, that was something he felt.
It was as if his body knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to them, the same way his body knew there were houses on his way home that he should pass by at a run rather than a walk.
His body knew a lot of things his brain didn’t.
The girls were pretty with their bows in their hair.
They were all trembling too.
Kip shared eye contact with a few of them and could tell they felt the same way as he did. Jenny looked at him and nodded.
It helped.
Mr. Drizzle continued to hold the two rolls of tape.
Eric Dunderson began to laugh.
Mr. Drizzle’s head snapped in the direction of the noise.
Eric Dunderson’s face was perpetually wet. It was as if he smiled and laughed so much that his spit crept out and slithered up his cheeks.
Water also poured from his eyes and nose.
Kip didn’t like him.
Eric Dunderson was one of those kids who pulled his pants all the way down to his ankles when he used the urinal at the bathroom.
“You don’t have to pull your pants down that far,” Kip said. “That’s what your fly is for.”
Kip had figured out the thing about the fly on his own, his dad never told him anything.
“Shut up pervert,” Eric replied, punching Kip in the chest. “Quit looking at me. What do you want me to be your boyfriend or something.” Then he went off down the hallway chanting, “Kip wants a boyfriend, Kip wants a boyfriend.”
Kip could not understand Eric. Yet he somehow knew Eric was one of the kids that the girls were destined to pair up with.
Why was that?
Why did he know that?
Now Eric was giggling like a madman.
Shut up, shut up, shut up!
Kip had seen it before. Mr. Drizzle wasn’t their first deranged, madman teacher.
They were all deranged madmen.
And madwomen.
Something about the school made them crazy.
Even though this was obvious to everyone, there was always one oblivious kid with a wet face who thought he needed to provoke the madman.
They knew they could get away with it because they were of the class that couldn’t be touched.
Kip didn’t know how to get into that class.
He only knew it existed.
They would be the ones to have girlfriends.
They would be the ones the madmen teachers never punished.
All the bad stuff would fall to kids like Kip.
When the bomb went off, he’d be killed by the shrapnel.
Eric Dunderson kept laughing like he was out of control. Water poured down his face from all five holes.
Slowly, Mr. Drizzle turned to regard him.
He didn’t say anything at first, he just gave him a threatening look.
Eric thought this was even funnier.
Kip was surprised Eric hadn’t gotten up and run around the room already. He didn’t think Eric had ever sat down for this long.
Eric laughed.
Kip began to worry that he’d get bodily fluids on him.
He hated spit.
He hated mucus.
He hated sweat.
He hated tears.
He hated pee.
The kids he was with couldn’t seem to keep their fluids to themselves. The thought of them made Kip queasy. He felt as if he were about to vomit.
“Eric,” Mr. Drizzle said. “Be quiet.”
No, that was the worst thing Mr. Drizzle could have said. Didn’t he know? Didn’t he know that Eric thought orders were funny?
Eric was laughing so hard now his face turned red. Water was literally pouring out of him. He was snorting and slobbering with his laughter.
Good lord, the kid was going to drown!
What was so funny?
Was it funny that every other kid in the classroom was about to get killed?
“Eric,” Mr. Drizzle said, holding up the duct tape. “You’re going to get this!”
“No!” Eric said.
Oh, so he was a human being after all. He did feel fear. Kip was surprised.
But Eric didn’t stop laughing and slobbering and drooling.
Kip couldn’t stand to watch it anymore. He looked away.
There was silence for a moment.
Then there was the distinctive sound of a piece of duct tape getting pulled off the roll.
It crackled like television static.
When Kip looked up again, Mr. Drizzle held the dangling bit of duct tape and was advancing on Eric.
Surely, Eric was about to run? Eric always ran.
But no, Eric just sat there lifting his hands and laughing with water pouring down his face. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. Parts of his face were red and other parts yellow. He looked like a piece of candy corn dropped in a mud puddle.
Mr. Drizzle’s right hand shot out with terrifying speed and grabbed Eric by the back of the head. He got a good grip on Eric’s hair and with his left hand he slammed the duct tape across Eric’s face.
A couple of the girls gasped.
Kip watched too with terrified fascination.
Mr. Drizzle had actually done it! He’d taped up Eric’s mouth!
A trail of snot trailed down from Eric’s nostril to cover the duct tape. His whole body quivered as he laughed.
“Now we should have some quiet,” Mr. Drizzle said. He was about to get back to whatever lesson he had planned for the day when Eric held up the piece of duct tape.
“It came off,” he said.
How big of an idiot do you have to be? Kip thought. Just sit there and shut up.
“Put it back on,” Mr. Drizzle ordered.
“I can’t it keeps sliding off.”
Well, of course it was sliding off! Eric’s face was a hot mess. There’s no adhesive in the world that sticks to water.
Mr. Drizzle had met his match. He’d found the kid whose face couldn’t be duct taped!
But this conflict was about establishing authority.
Mr. Drizzle couldn’t let any sign of insubordination stand!
He reached for the boot tape.
The girls and Kip gasped.
Eric started laughing again.
Mr. Drizzle gripped the edge of the tape and pulled it apart. It seemed to take more effort than the duct tape had required. In fact, Mr. Drizzle had to brace himself to free a section.
This one didn’t make a static crackle.
It was more like a croak.
Like a dying frog.
“No!” Eric said.
Now Mr. Drizzle advanced again.
Again he grabbed the back of Eric’s head. He caught a big handful of hair. Blond tufts sprouted out from between his knuckles.
Again he slapped the tape on Eric’s face, but now it was the boot tape.
Eric’s eyes closed.
The tape hit.
Oh no! When he went home to have it removed, the tape would take the skin from his face! He’d come tomorrow with half his skull exposed!
At least, that had been the warning.
In reality, the boot tape wasn’t any better than the duct tape.
Eric’s face was too wet.
The tape slipped off.
Eric stood there holding the boot tape dangling from his fingers, a symbol of Mr. Drizzle’s impotence. A reflection that summed up the man’s wasted life. The piece of threatening boot tape hung there limply in Eric’s hands for the whole world to see.
Pathetic.
Mr. Drizzle let out a long sigh.
A whole year’s worth of intimidation had been completely dismantled in one afternoon.
The bell rang.
Kip gathered up his things and sprinted toward the door.
Mr. Drizzle would have to come up with some more terrifying way to threaten them tomorrow.
Kip wasn’t looking forward to it.
That was just a typical school day in rural America.
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I didn't witness this in my school, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came from a lived experience. Teachers (and parents) often used intimidation to invoke fear rather than respect.
The very worst school system I was in was during my final year in a suburb of Dallas, Texas (7th grade). It has been preceded by one year in Oxford, England, easily the happiest year of my childhood. The contrast between the two was astonishing, breathtaking, stupefying. In Dallas, No corporal punishment but a lot of obvious teacher ignorance and evasive answers. It seemed like a little red schoolhouse even if it was in a suburb,
Oxford is a classic example of a town which is politically quite progressive, but culturally conservative.
What I eventually came to see as the difference between Oxford and Dallas, was the Oxford embodied the conservatism of enabling a tree to put down deep roots, while Dallas was the conservatism of gratuitously amputating the limbs and branches of the tree for no good reason.
Disclosure: 5 years before my final year in Dallas, I was there (age 8) during the assassination of JFK.
2 months later, I lost an election for homeroom President to John Hinckley Jr, who 19 years later would fail attempting to shoot Ronald Reagan.