Most people can agree that it is great to have friends, but what about enemies? Isn't it wonderful to worry about how someone might be plotting behind your back? It’s fantastic when you finally find out, either before you’re supposed to, or when it’s too late to stop their evil plans.
Such is the case for teachers and faculty members at Edgemont. Sometimes they vie over favorite teacher or funniest teacher status. Out of the fierceness of such contests, faculty members have developed “enemies” in order to inspire themselves to keep improving their performance and the value of the education you receive at Edgemont. A laugh can be a great stress reliever, and competition can arguably improve the quality of education.
In upper D, Mrs. Egan and Mr. Rendich occupy the Social Studies rooms while Mrs. Reinmuth occupies the math room. Mrs. Reinmuth claims to only know upper D teachers, trying to keep her friends close but her enemies closer. When asked about her relationship with these teachers, she said, “I like them, mostly.”
When she doesn’t like them, it’s a food fight. She declares that Mrs. Egan is her biggest enemy (with a few smaller enemies in the children) but “only on the days that she doesn’t share her food.” However, Mrs. Egan has her eye glaring at a different teacher: Mr. Rendich. Her reasoning is: “He’s always showing off how talented he is, but he never offers to help me, and he’s very well-liked by everyone.” Mr. Rendich is an excellent Geoguessr player, against whom his students struggle to compete. Mr. Rendich chose not to comment on the situation, particularly on the point of never offering to help Mrs. Egan.
A seemingly underrated faculty feud involves our principal Mr. Hosier and a certain Latin teacher named Mr. Hansonbrook. When asked about their relationship, Mr. Hosier said, “I think Mr. Hansonbrook and I enjoy each other’s company and joking around with each other. There are times where he’ll do something and I’ll mess with him a little bit.” Mr. Hosier recalled, “I was walking by his classroom, we all know he builds catapults with kids, and anytime I walked by, I heard a hammer from down the hallway. It was really loud, so I walked into the classroom, and he was hammering on a desk. So I took the hammer from him. It became comical because he went to the drawer and grabbed another one and another one. I think I ended up walking out with seven or eight of his hammers. It was like, ‘Why do you have all of these?’” The next day Mr. Hosier gave his daughter’s plastic hammer to Mr. Hansonbrook. Take that how you will.
Mr. Hosier identified the source of aggression from when he was in Mr. Hansonbrook’s room and shut off the overhead projector. He thought that he was helping and effectively saving Mr. Hansonbrook from having to get a chair.
Mr. Hansonbrook responded, “That’s a lie. I have a very different memory of it. I don’t think it happened. I think he’s confused. He’s trying to distract from his embarrassment of the time that I dunked on him while playing one-on-one basketball at the morning faculty basketball game at school. I had to show him my moves. It had to be done. He thinks because he’s so tall that he’s naturally gifted at basketball, but I consider myself an Edgemont iteration of Spud Webb [one of the shortest NBA players who nevertheless won the Slam Dunk Contest]. I don’t like to flaunt it because that would be arrogant. But he was trash-talking. He’s mad because I built a giant snow panther in the back of his truck a couple of years ago.”
When asked about plans to prank Mr. Hansonbrook, Mr. Hosier said, “We look for small opportunities to get a chuckle. That will continue, but I'm not going to show my hand because I wouldn’t want him to expect it.”
However, Mr. Hansonbrook has a different outlook on their relationship. With a concentrated look, he said, “I think I’m moving on. He’s too easy a target. I think my pranking days are over. I think I’ve done all that I can do without getting fired. There’s a certain level of professionalism that I have to pretend to hold myself to. It’s not fun to watch Mr. Hosier try and fail, and there’s nothing fulfilling about a forgone conclusion like that. I always win, so I got bigger fish to fry now.”
Another memory shared by the two was a recent Halloween when they agreed to dress up as each other. Mr. Hosier wore a red ETA shirt and put glasses on. He was expecting Mr. Hansonbrook to wear a suit of some sort. Mr. Hansonbrook had other ideas, choosing to show up in a clown costume.
Halloween seems to be an eventful day for teacher enemy attacks. On a different Halloween, Ms. Brandon dressed up as Ms. Goodliffe. In response, Ms. Goodliffe claimed that Ms. Brandon is trying to be her. Faculty members have relationships that can be serious when necessary. Nevertheless, some are capable of being lighthearted (which can require some imagination for students to fathom). Let’s hope that teachers challenges their personal nemesis with plenty of trash talk and pranks.
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