You all know what gallows humor is, right?
When you’re stuck in a situation that is so upsetting and stressful that you start making jokes about just how awful it is. I hear that emergency room nurses use this type of stress reliever a lot.
Teachers these days are getting into more and more gallows humor, too. I know because up until recently, I was a fifth grade public school teacher. Now I’m the Mom of a teacher and I hear the stories.
Gerry Brooks is the Principal of a school in Lexington, Kentucky. He also describes himself on his YouTube Channel and other social media sites as a “Dad, husband, fun maker, public speaker and American’s Next Top Model Educator’s Season.”
He’s hilarious, especially if you’re a teacher in the age of testing overload, underfunding and Besty DeVos.
Principal Brooks took a gallows humor approach to the probability that DeVos will end up running the Dept. of Education under President Trump. The thoroughly unprepared candidate for the job rather famously stated during her Senate hearing that there should be guns in school in case of “grizzly bears.”
You have to laugh. Even if you’re banging your head against the corner of your desk or weeping in the Reading Corner, if you’re a teacher, you have to laugh. In fact, if you know a teacher, or have kids, or know any kids or if you ever went to school, you have to laugh.
Gerry Brooks will help. In the fabulous video below, the bearded, middle aged Principal is seated in the front seat of his car, where a lot of his videos are shot. He is frowning, serious, and begins by announcing that he wants to discuss a “struggle that schools are havin’ these days.”
It’s all about how to respond if a bear shows up while you’re at the copy machine, or picking up your kids from PE, or if you have a bear lockdown and the intruder smells the pizza on the kids’ breath.
I’m not going to wreck this for you. You have to watch it and laugh while you groan. All I can say is, his approach to handling bears is safer than DeVos’ would be.
After you spend an hour or so on Gerry Brooks’ YouTube channel, grab your phone and call your Senator. Tell him or her to vote NO on confirming Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary.
Featured image via YouTube Screengrab.
