[PRINCIPAL:] Mrs. Barglegalls, will you go ahead and send
in Mr. Hoopengardner, please?
[TEACHER:] Nice to see you again.
[PRINCIPAL:] Good afternoon.
Nice to see you again, too.
Thanks for coming in.
[TEACHER:] Thanks for the opportunity.
[PRINCIPAL:] When we spoke before you said something about
being from out-of-state?
[TEACHER:] Yes!
I’m originally from Pennsylvania.
I just moved to Florida a few months ago.
[PRINCIPAL:] Welcome to the Sunshine State!
[TEACHER:] Thank you, thank you very much.
[PRINCIPAL:] So.
You probably know, this interview is really just a formality.
You’ve already run the gauntlet.
Administration likes you.
The job is basically yours.
We just need to have a conversation so that I, as the principal, can sign off on you joining
the faculty, and then it’ll be official!
Sound good?
[TEACHER:] Sounds very good, yes, thank you.
[PRINCIPAL:] All right.
I just need to run through this so I can say we talked about it — you already know a
lot of this, obviously.
The opening is in our social studies department.
You would be teaching eleventh grade history, which means U.S. History and AP U.S. History.
[TEACHER:] Right, right.
[PRINCIPAL:] I just need to ask you a few questions about
American history to verify that you have knowledge of the material and so forth.
[TEACHER:] Fire away.
[PRINCIPAL:] You’re gonna want to be careful using gun-based
metaphors — we had a shooting here this past spring.
[TEACHER:] Oh, god, I’m so sorry.
[PRINCIPAL:] Don’t be too sorry — it’s the reason
we had an opening.
Anyway, here we go.
U.S. History.
Most of this is pretty basic.
For instance, I’ll just ask you, who was the French aristocrat and military officer
who joined the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War?
[TEACHER:] (singing)
Lafayette!
[PRINCIPAL:] . . . What was that you did just now?
[TEACHER:] The song!
From Hamilton?
[PRINCIPAL:] Don’t do that in front of the students.
[TEACHER:] Not a problem.
[PRINCIPAL:] Who was the Union general who accepted the
surrender of the Confederacy at Appomattox Courthouse?
[TEACHER:] Ulysses S. Grant.
[PRINCIPAL:] Good.
Just a normal spoken answer.
Which constitutional amendment officially abolished slavery?
[TEACHER:] The Thirteenth Amendment.
[PRINCIPAL:] What were some of the benefits of slavery?
[TEACHER:] . . . Sorry?
[PRINCIPAL:] What were some of the benefits of slavery?
[TEACHER:] . . . Uh . . . I guess . . . if you were to
ask a plantation owner at the time, he would probably have said free labor.
But, I hardly think that excuses the humanitarian —
[PRINCIPAL:] No, no, I’m sorry.
I should have phrased that more precisely.
That’s my fault.
[TEACHER:] Okay.
[PRINCIPAL:] It’s been a long day.
[TEACHER:] Understood.
[PRINCIPAL:] What were some of the benefits of slavery
to the slaves?
[TEACHER:] . . . I don’t . . . think I comprehend the
question.
[PRINCIPAL:] The state U.S. history standards require that
students have an understanding of the ways in which the institution of slavery was beneficial
to the slaves.
So, I just need a few examples of how slaves benefited from slavery.
[TEACHER:] I’m sorry, I cannot even begin to fathom
what the benefits of slavery to the enslaved could possibly have been.
That’s . . . Wow.
[PRINCIPAL:] Okay.
Off the record — because I’m not supposed to give you the answers, but — hypothetically
— we might be talking about, for instance, skills slaves learned which they were able
to use later in life, after slavery ended.
[TEACHER:] Such as?
[PRINCIPAL:] . . . Hypothetically?
[TEACHER:] Hypothetically.
[PRINCIPAL:] Hypothetically: farming techniques.
Carpentry.
Blacksmithing.
Some of the ones who worked in the house learned how to cook.
[TEACHER:] Was slavery the only way they could have learned
those things?
[PRINCIPAL:] I wouldn’t think so.
[TEACHER:] Then why are we teaching students that learning
those skills was a benefit of slavery?
[PRINCIPAL:] Because that’s what the standards say.
[TEACHER:] Then the standards should be changed.
[PRINCIPAL:] They just changed them.
To this.
[TEACHER:] Then they should be changed again!
Slavery was the darkest chapter in American history.
Its existence was inexcusable, its abolition was an absolute good for people of the time
and for all succeeding generations — it’s wrong to teach children that it had a silver
lining!
It was a brutal institution, not a job-training program.
That’s repugnant.
That’s like saying Auschwitz was a weight-loss camp!
[PRINCIPAL:] I can’t count that, unfortunately, because
“benefits of the Holocaust” are part of the World History standards, but we have an
opening at that position, as well — did you want to apply for that one instead?
[TEACHER:] Must have been a pretty bad shooting.
[PRINCIPAL:] Depends how you look at it.