High school hijinks
Teacher compiles comedic snippets in ‘You Suck, Sir’
It sounds like the elevator pitch for a comedy film — “He’s a standup comic whose day job is as a teacher in Vancouver’s biggest high school. Just imagine the antics he and his students get up to!”
The premise works surprisingly well for Paul Bae’s mild-mannered new autobiographical book of dialogue snippets, “You Suck, Sir”.
The author — who has an out-of-classroom career in standup comedy and podcasting, notably the awardwinning “The Big Loop” (thebiglooppodcast.com), and “The Black Tapes” (podchaser. com) — spent 12 years as an English teacher in Vancouver, and on the evidence of this amusing text, he had his notebook open most of the time to record odd, funny or illuminating exchanges with his students.
The result, “You Suck, Sir”, marks the second book Arsenal Pulp has published as part of its new imprint series Robin’s Egg Books, curated and edited by Canadian comedy icon Charlie Demers.
The origin of the book’s title, Bae explains, and the inspiration for all his later classroom note-taking, was an early exchange he had with a student who responded to a homework assignment by muttering “you suck.”
Bae confronted the kid and demanded “what did you say?” The contrite student amended his comment to “you suck, Sir.” And so a title was born.
The book is broken up into short dialogues between Bae and his students, best taken in small doses. The conversational vignettes are often warm, witty and wry, and reflect the genuine respect and affection Bae has for the kids in his classrooms.
One of these sections features his students enthusing about how cute the substitute teacher was who filled in while Bae was ill, and hoping the same substitute will show up on Bae’s next sick day. Fans of Canadian literary/political gossip will be charmed to learn that the handsome sub in question was Justin Trudeau.
And charm is abundantly on offer in this book, as are closely observed moments of student life. Few readers will be convulsed with laughter while reading “You Suck, Sir”, but every reader will find moments that evoke a smile or a quiet chuckle.
Bae’s obvious affection for his students, a good thing in itself, may work against full tilt hilarity. The text lacks the dark vein of cruelty that often informs comedy at its best. It is, nonetheless, well worth the reader’s time.