Week 16: Macbeth and Pay cuts

It had been a longstanding tradition that the last literary unit taught to the senior class at Peril County High School was Shakespeare’s Scottish Play. Mrs. Owens had loved Macbeth when she taught back in the 60s and started the tradition. When Ms. Jasper took over her class in the 80s, it was just part of the curriculum to have Macbeth taught before the students started working on research essays. That was the flow of things. So, when Mr. William Turner took over the class several years ago, he kept the tradition alive. Sure, he would have rather covered The Taming of the Shrew or A Midsomer Night’s Dream, but Macbeth had its charms. 

For the most part, his students didn’t mind Macbeth. It had murder and witches and a few curse words to keep them interested. Mr. Turner had done choral readings of the play in class for as long as he could remember, and hearing The Bard’s words spoken in an Appalachian dialect was surprisingly authentic. Mostly, the Macbeth Unit was going well; all but for his first period class. During his almost thirty years in the classroom, Mr. Turner had found that there were three class periods where teaching was the hardest: first thing in the morning, last period of the day and the class where the kids have lunch. This year, he was fortunate enough to have a planning period at the end of the day, so that wasn’t an issue for him. But this first class made up for it and then some. Getting them going was like trying to crank over an old engine; it might get going eventually, but it was gonna take a lot of work to get there. 

“Who says ‘Out Out Damn Spot!’ In Macbeth? Anyone?” The students look blankly at their teacher. “Anyone want to take this one? Anyone? Buller?” The students became even more confused and disengaged with his dated reference. 

Misty Dixon, a small girl wearing a green and black cheerleading shirt, slowly raised her hand in the far corner of the room. “Is it his wife?” she asked meekly. 

“I think you mean Lady Macbeth. But, yes, great job, Misty. Now, number two: ‘What does Macbeth see floating in front of him just before he kills King Duncan?’ Albie, you wanna take this one?”

Albie looked like a squirrel, his cheeks stuffed full of grapes. “Ah’m na suah, Misa T,” was all he could get out.

“Caught you with your mouth full. Sorry about that. Anyone else? I know it’s been a couple days since we read this section, but you should remember it. What did he see?”

A dark complected teen with dreaded hair and black rimmed glasses sitting in the front row raised his hand. “Was it some kind of sword?” he asked. 

Mr. Turner snapped his fingers and pointed and the young man. “Dawson, you are almost there. What do we call a short sword?” 

Dawson looked up in thought. “A cutlass?” 

Mr. Turner shook his head. “Yes, but not what we’re looking for. What else?”

“Sabre?” Dawson guessed.

“Try again.”

“Rapier?”

Mr. Turner laughed. “Son, are you some kind of bladed weapons expert? These are great guesses, but not the weapon we are looking for. Anyone else want to take a stab at it?” 

Albie swallowed the mass of grapes and called out to the class, “Pocket knife!” The rest of the kids chuckled and Albie played along that it was a joke, but Mr. Turner could tell he was actually serious in his attempt. 

“Little bigger than a pocket knife. Smaller than a sword. What could it be?” Mr. Turner was trying his best to coax the answer out of his class. 

“Dagger!” Dawson shouted out a little louder than he probably intended. 

Mr. Turner clapped his hands together in triumph. “That’s it!” he exclaimed. Seeing something click with his students, even a little thing like this, always gave him a warm feeling. 

After a few more review questions, Mr. Turner and his class read the next scene in the play. He tried to parse out which students were not feeling it that day and have those more engaged students read. They discuss the foreshadowing of “the Woods of Dunsinane” and “no man born of woman” in this scene and what the students think will happen next. After a time, the bell rang and the students gathered their belongings and headed for the hallway.

“Great job today, gang. See you all tomorrow,” Mr. Turner called over the din of the classroom. The rest of the day followed along around those same lines. Some kids engaged, some did not. He did his best to reach those on the outskirts of his class, with varying degrees of success. Some students just don’t like Shakespeare. Heck, some kids don’t like school. 

It was at the end of the day that Mr. Turner’s world would take a drastic turn. Coach Simpson, the head of the football squad, had just come in from bus dismissal and saw Mr. Turner making copies in the office. “How’s it going, Mr. T?” the coach asked. 

“Fine as frog hair as one of my student’s likes to say,” he replied with a smile.

“You hear about the new budget reform bill that got passed today?” Coach asked, looking pretty forlorn.  

Mr. Turner shook his head. “No, I didn’t hear anything. What happened?” 

“They slashed our retirement out. Moved it to a new model based on 401k’s from what I can gather. Looks like a bloodbath.” The coach hiked up his polyester shorts and headed out of the office.

Grabbing his stack of copies, Mr. Turner shuffled down to his classroom. He was shaken by what Coach had told him and needed more information. A quick check of the WEKT website confirmed what he had learned. “Kentucky Legislature Votes to Decimate State Worker Retirement” read the headline at the top of the page. He read the article detailing how state lawmakers feared defaulting on pending debts and that emergency actions were needed. It went on to state that the Governor planned to sign the bill into law that afternoon. 

Mr. Turner sat back in his desk chair and let out a long, slow breath. He was unsure exactly what this meant in terms of his finances going forward. There was a buzzing in his pocket. He reached down to see his wife was FaceTimeing him. “Hi sweetie,” he said, sounding a little defeated.

“Have you seen this shit?” Alma said, angrily. Mrs. Turner was also a teacher at one of the local grade schools. She was about five years younger than her husband, but had only been teaching for fifteen years. “They are about to screw us out of thousands! Tens of thousands of dollars.” 

He nodded his head. “I just read an article. Governor’s going to sign it into law, so it looks like this is happening. What have you heard at your school?”

“Ms. Hellier across the way was in tears. Her husband’s a lawyer and according to her, it’s gonna cut our retirement in half. Like, you’ve got thirty years in. She says you’ll have to work fifteen more to get it built back up to where it is right now!” 

“Fifteen years!” Will thought. He wasn’t sure he had that left in him. He’d be sixty-seven in fifteen years. He was tired already; beaten down and frustrated with a system that continued to berate and belittle teachers. Things weren’t like they were when he started. He was going to change lives and turn around this community from his classroom. He was young and naïve then. Thirty years ago, Will Turner had returned to Peril County with an education degree and a big heart. Today, he had his Rank I degree in Library Sciences and a stint in his heart from a clogged artery. And if he were being honest, how many lives were really impacted by all of those years’ work? A dozen, maybe? 

He was seeing the children of some of his former students now float through his classroom. He could remember Albie’s mother sitting in the back of the classroom, eating oatmeal cookie pies two at a time when she was his age. Misty Dixon’s dad was a star quarterback when he was at Peril High during Mr. Turner’s first few years there. Now, he runs a car lot over in London and sees Misty every other weekend. 

Retirement had been weeks away. There was going to be time. Time to write, to read, to exercise. But he could feel all of that slipping away. “Are you listening to me?” he heard his wife say through the phone. He looked down to see her scowling face staring back at him. 

“No, sorry hon. Got lost there for a sec. What was that?”

“I said somebody should do something about this!”

Will leaned forward in his chair. “I think you’re right. I’ll call you back in a little bit. Might be a few minutes late for dinner.” He tapped his phone off and spun around to face his computer. After a few minutes of typing he read back what he had written. Mr. Turner was putting out the call to his fellow teachers in the district. “We will not tolerate this kind of blatant disrespect. I ask that you contact anyone in your district to reach out to their representatives and let them know that this kind of disregard for the wellbeing of educators is unacceptable.” It had taken him only a few minutes to find the contact information for Tom Baker and Stewart Walker, the Representatives from his district, and include their emails, phone numbers and social media links. 

Almost immediately, his computer dinged with incoming emails with fellow teachers answering the call to action. Soon, dozens of emails were coming in, with promises to share this plan across district lines. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. Perhaps the government couldn’t steal away his retirement. He had allowed himself to wallow, if only for a moment. But hope shot through Mr. Turner again. Hope that a lifetime of working would allow him to retire in peace and prosperity. Hope that something could be done so that no one would be left out in the cold. Hope for a better tomorrow. 

But for now, he had a lesson to prepare for and Macbeth Act 5, scene 6 was a doozie!