“I’m not sure whose twisted idea it was to put hundreds of adolescents in underfunded schools, run by people whose dreams were crushed years ago… but I admire the sadism.”

Wednesday Addams

I loved “Wednesday,” a short series of eight episodes, four of them directed by Tim Burton.* Episode one opened with Wednesday protecting her brother from bullying classmates, beginning with the comment on sadism above, reality thick on the ground. Kudos to the episode’s writers for sharing a truth that hits close enough to the bone to make those middle school and high school corridors both menacing and somehow funny.

I laughed anyway. Packed into those thirty words I catch a glimpse into millions of struggling, young lives. And not-so-young lives. I see so much irony — fiercely dedicated professionals struggling to help children realize their dreams, even as they crush each other’s dreams. Just how many pages are in that evaluation rubric? What are the odds that all those line items on those pages will actually be observed? If a category is not observed, what are the odds that a number (1= excellent, etc.) will be inferred? Administrators tend not to leave blanks. Sometimes, I’m pretty sure we are not in the category of “inference” at all. Try “wild guess” instead.

What’s up with that? What’s up with the combative, sometimes punitive atmosphere in many schools today? We talk teams. We talk talk talk teams, but I remember an extremely capable young colleague who cried so loudly when she got her rubric results that I could hear her in my room below. After a bit, I went up to join the crowd consoling her, as she said things like, “Well, maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be a teacher. I guess I should look at what else I can do.”

Meanwhile, we give kids all these tests that many of them cannot do, seeking to get data that often goes unused SINCE ANY TEST THAT KIDS CANNOT DO GIVES DATA THAT WISE PEOPLE DO NOT TRY TO USE. And let’s not forget the emotional impact of effectively failing test after test.

Sadism at its finest.

*The second season has been given the thumbs up, although we won’t see more of Wednesday in the near future.