COLUMN: I wasn’t saved by the bell
Television lies.
I’m sure this doesn’t come as some grand revelation. Anybody who’s watched CNN or FOXNews for more than 10 minutes can figure that out. But there are some topics that should not be lied about. One of these is school.
Having been in school for nearly my entire life – depressing, isn’t it? – I’m somewhat of an expert on school. This doesn’t necessarily mean I’m always a good student, but I’ve learned how the game of school works. Really, it’s a game. The teachers try to force you to do things against your will and you try to find a way to either get out of it or procrastinate it. Sadly, teachers always seem to hold the trump card, and there’s no “get out of jail free” card with homework or tests.
This is unfortunate because the way I learned about the game of school was the likely the same way all of you did – through television. And it was all a lie.
Since I can remember, there have always been shows on TV about school: “Magic School Bus,” “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper,” “Doug,” “Recess,” “Boy Meets World” and the all-time school classic, “Saved by the Bell.”
As a young child, these shows left deep impressions on me, so much to the point that I can still sing the opening song to “Saved by the Bell”: “When I wake up in the morning and the alarm lets out a warning, I don’t think I’ll ever make it on time. By the time I got my books, I give myself a look, I’m at the corner just in time to see the bus slide by …”
“Saved by the Bell” taught me a lot of important things about school. I learned I could goof off all I wanted and get into trouble on a daily basis but it would be OK because I would have a large group of politically correct, ethnically diverse friends who would bail me out of the principal’s office and steal his toupe.
Growing up, I wanted to be like Zack. He was charming, witty, mischievous and most of all, he was always trying to hook up with the beautiful Kelly Kapowski. She was easily the most gorgeous teenage girl on television. Who wouldn’t want a girl who was a cheerleader, played volleyball, was on the swim team and could make your heart melt every time she smiled? Sigh.
As much as I wanted to be like Zack, the only character I could really relate to was Screech. Although I don’t have a white-man fro, I was quite similar to Screech in junior high. I wore those crazy elastic waistband pants with bizarre patterns on them, frequently carried pens, pencils and an occasional calculator in my pocket and squeaked all the time. It was a sad time in my life.
Going into junior high, I was terrified for what awaited me based on Screech’s experiences. As I walked down the hallway, I was jitterier than an Enron executive with the Feds after him. I kept waiting for a Hulk Hogan-sized football player to shove me inside my locker (I was particularly scared of this because I was pretty sure I couldn’t fit inside my locker without breaking multiple bones) and keep me in there for hours before reappearing after school was out to meet me at the flag pole and beat the ever-living daylights out of me, followed by a healthy swirly.
I was amazed when none of this happened. I couldn’t believe a TV show would lie to me like that. But I still held out hope for a gang of friends to show up at lunch with some plan to set off the fire alarm in hopes the cheerleaders would scramble out of the gym and I would get to see the Kelly of the school. Again, I was disappointed when my only friends were a bunch of science nerds who I spent my lunch hour with sitting in the library reading fantasy novels, and the cheerleaders were the ones who shoved me in my locker.
Even though my school experience was nothing like “Saved by the Bell,” I still loved the show. Looking back though, I wonder why. Nothing was realistic about it. Even the school looked way too clean to be a real high school. There was nothing real about any of those school television shows.
I never got to ride on a magic school bus, although there are plenty of places I would like to go in a magic school bus, like going back in time to see Frodo throw the ring of power into Mt. Doom. There was nothing magic about the school bus I rode except for the fact he never got us killed. I think my bus driver was a relative of Otto on “The Simpsons.”
The only thing on TV remotely resembling my school experience was Ms. Finster, the recess monitor from “Recess.” The recess monitor at my school must have been part of the Gestapo in a previous life because she had eyes on the back of her head. She knew what every student was up to. No matter how sneaky I thought I was when I tried to scale the chain link fence to freedom, she would be there with her little red fanny pack to catch me.
Similar or not, TV shows about school falsely shaped my perception of school. I’m not so upset that I was lied to as I am about spending so much time watching these shows. Think about it. I go to school for most of the day, then come home and watch TV shows about school. Something’s sick and wrong about that. I think it was part of Nancy Reagan’s lesser-known policy, the “Just say yes” to school program, taking up valuable airtime to rot my brain with pro-school programs.
I may have fallen for the school-is-so-cool-it’s-on-TV trap, but I hope future generations don’t. If so, we’re going to have a whole bunch of kids expecting their peers to spontaneously burst into song and dance and be part of the drama club when they reach high school.
Seth Hawkins is a junior majoring in public relations. He hopes people won’t think less of him for watching reruns of “Saved by the Bell” on Friday nights. Comments and questions can be sent to him at seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu