The First Amendment doesn't protect a douchebag teacher from pissing off the wrong student (recap episode 3-5 "Front Page")

Folks, this is among my favorite episodes of Facts. It’s one that I remembered but didn’t catch on TV in syndication for a long time. Either I kept missing it or the stations that were showing it at the time didn’t show it because it mentions cocaine. They kept “Dope” off the air for a long time, after all.

But I remembered this episode because, like Jo, I had some teachers who graded me more harshly than my peers because I had shown I was better. I get it, but it also kind of sucks. In my case, I didn’t deserve the C my senior year English teacher gave me on a paper, and when I challenged him about it, he said that he just wanted to keep me on my toes since I got in early to all the colleges I’d applied to. That was bullshit and I went to the head of the department and got the paper upgraded to the A that it deserved. I told the teacher to let me know when my work started sucking, and not to penalize me until then.

In Jo’s case here, I can see now, from an educator’s perspective, how Mr. Gideon thought he was just challenging a good student. But you know what? He was a total dick about it. If he’d been a better educator, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me introduce you to our key players in this episode. We have:

Jo Polniaczek, Junior at Eastland School for girls. Angry, competitive, has to finish the story she’s writing before journalism class even though all that’s due today is the topic. Wants to impress journalism teacher, who she believes is out to get her.

The Cats of Life

I love animals. When my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I moved to the mountains last year, we were very excited to introduce a dog into our family soon. But I had the bar exam, and then the wedding, so we said we'll get the dog when things settle down. We're still dogless, because we have imposed upon ourselves the condition that we must be home for thirty days straight before we can bring in the responsibility of a dog. We haven't managed that yet. Wish us luck.

But you know who else never had a dog? The Facts girls. But they did briefly have a cat in the two-part final episode of season five. Jo was none too pleased.

Recap episode 5-4: "What Price Glory" or Student athlete blog crossover

My husband has gotten used to the phrase, "There's a Facts of Life episode about that." Readers of this blog likely know that in its nine seasons in prime time, Facts covered a wealth of serious and poignant issues, including a number of Very Special Episodes generally of excellent quality.

Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a story on the front page of the Sunday sports section about a particular athlete and program whose academic abuses cost the basketball program their shot at the postseason and may have cost the student his education. 

There's a Facts of Life episode about that.

Jeff was the longest-recurring Facts boyfriend, making appearances in seasons five, six, eight and nine. By the end of the series, Tootie and Jeff were engaged, and other than some rando named "Rudy" who shows up for one episode, Tootie doesn't date anyone else after she meets Jeff.

But do you remember that when they first met, Jeff was illiterate?

Recap Episode 4-23(2): "Take my finals, Please!" or Tootie > Barbri (Part 2)

When we left our intrepid heroines last post, they were in the midst of an all-night cram for finals. They'd made the mistake of "resting our eyes for ten minutes" and had just woken up two hours later due to an unplugged alarm clock. The pizza they'd ordered three hours earlier had apparently just arrived, and Mrs. Garrett walked through their bedroom door with it.

The girls attack the pizza like they've never seen food before.

Recap Episode 4-23: "Take My Finals, Please!" or: Natalie > Barbri (Part 1)

This is this episode with this:

The episode itself is a popular one. It's one that my sister, a casual Facts fan at most, remembers vividly, and I suspect that if I did an informal poll of which Facts of Life episode people remember most, it would be at least a contender. Mostly for Natalie's hat. I remember it for a different reason: Natalie Green is the reason that I will always remember that Au is the chemical symbol for gold, and I appreciate that, particularly because I am studying for the bar exam with professors whose suggestions for mnemonics are lousy.

We open with the girls returning to their room at 8:00 p.m., laden with books, a bag of groceries, and a coffee pot. That reminds me of the weekend I spent last year just churning out a paper - I didn't leave the house and I barely did anything other than work and take the occasional bathroom and sleep break. My biggest lesson of the weekend was that pasta and coffee are not food.

Our Eastland girls don't have papers to bang out, but they do have final exams tomorrow and Blair has already misplaced a book Jo needs for her modern history test. Her big concern is studying World War II. Blair offers her the helpful information that Germany lost. I bet today Jo could have done all the WWII studying she needed via Wikipedia. Kids these days have it easy.

Graduation: Part 2 or: Some things never change

When we last left our heroines, everyone was fighting with everyone on the eve of Blair and Jo's high school graduation. I mentioned that a giant multi-family fight sounds like an average graduation to me. I also noted that my family didn't have even one fight during my law school graduation, and speculated that perhaps when the graduate is old, the family is less likely to fight. A few days after my graduation, I went to my niece's high school graduation, and gathered another data point in support of my hypothesis: we fought. I'll keep my eyes open for more data.

Now, though, we'll return to Eastland, where it is graduation day, and Natalie and Tootie handle the entire breakfast service while Jo and Blair sullenly pick at their food. Tootie and Natalie are clearly still hurt from the previous day's drama. Blair and Jo's apologies are on the aggressive side, and it appears that things are about to get heated again, but the graduates realize that the graduation is just making everyone tense. Blair sincerely apologizes to Natalie for mocking her diary, and Tootie drags an apology out of Jo for saying that there's nothing about Eastland that she wanted to remember.

Graduation: Part 1. No subtitle necessary

If you are reading this, you probably know that I've been in law school. I started the blog during the lag time between the end of my summer internship and the beginning of school last summer, then progress dropped off last semester, because it was a horrible semester. This semester I finally did #3lol right, and I was able to keep up a weekly post pretty regularly.

On Friday I graduated. I put on the goofy cap and gown and walked across the stage of the Chicago Theater.  

That whole ritual with the expensive robes and silly hats and solemnity and all is pretty weird, but it was kind of exciting to get to be on stage at the Chicago Theater. Not as cool as it would have been singing with Follies Band, but still pretty cool.

I've been trying to recap a graduation episode for over a week now; it seemed apropos. My complete series DVDs are in my mountain home in Colorado, so I can only recap episodes in seasons 1-5, for which I had backup DVDs in Chicago. So I will be recapping Blair and Jo's high school graduation, and that DVD has traveled with me from Chicago to the Denver metro area to New Mexico, where I am now for my neice's high school graduation. It's a busy time. The important part of this paragraph is that I have backup Facts of Life DVDs.