Since this is Labor Day weekend, it seems like an appropriate time to share a short film about one of our most valuable professions, teaching.

In 1947’s Maintaining Classroom Discipline, Mr. Grimes is a Math teacher who is disappointed in his stupid, stupid students.  How should he deal with them?  This short film gives us two options.  The first half of the film (which, if we’re going to be honest, is the more fun half of the film), Mr. Grimes is hard-nosed and sarcastic, telling the students that he’s very disappointed in them and giving them all detention when they make fun of him.  (One of them even misses football practice!)  This approach does not work and, instead, leads to montage of Mr. Grimes giving detention to student after student.  One student is kicked out of class and told not to return until he’s ready to apologize.  I mean, seriously, Mr. Grimes is basically telling him that he can just leave the school if he wants.

The second half of the film features Mr. Grimes instead being polite about the low test score and patiently explaining to his students how ratio works.  When one student tries to make fun of Mr. Grimes, the entire class rolls their eyes.  Earth-2 Mr. Grimes is a good teacher and his class would die for him!

Personally, if I was a teacher, I have no idea how I would maintain discipline.  I’d probably just make sure that my classroom was near the principal’s office so I can pull him in whenever I wanted to.  To me, the worst thing about giving a student detention isn’t the fact that the student will resent you for it but that apparently, you’re required to stick around until detention has been served.  Seriously, I enjoy working and all but I also like going home.

Anyway, let’s all learn from Mr. Grimes, shall we?