fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, January 6, 2nd period]

Anakin walked into his classroom precisely on time and gave the students assembled there an appraising glance as the door clicked shut behind him. If you were late, you weren't getting in. "I'm Master Skywalker," he said in a voice that was intended to carry, "this is Ethics, and we're going to skip the introductions--I'll figure out who you are--and move straight to our first discussion."

He paced around the room, cloak flaring out behind him, as he handed out the syllabus. "Today's topic," he said. "Self sacrifice: knowing the difference between saving people and being a pretentious twit."

"Any time I ask a a group of people what they would do to save someone they love, they all blither on about how they would set the world on fire, lie, cheat, steal, kill, die, et cetera, et cetera. I've been at this school too long to believe that half of you haven't already been put into this situation and I'm in no mood to hear adolescent ramblings about how wonderful you were or might hypothetically be. We're going to ground it in reality.

"Last summer there was a woman who was in charge of this school. She had been placed in power legitimately, was allowed to punish in accordance with that power, and began pushing the boundaries of her authority almost immediately. She called students to her office, punished them for slights genuine or imagined, and began escalating the severity and frequency of her punishments, going over the line into what was no longer acceptable."

Anakin crossed his arms over his chest, the scars across his face very evident in the light coming through the window. "It eventually took a team of highly qualified adults to take her out. Today's topic: when do you draw the line? When do you admit to yourself that a problem cannot be solved, that to sacrifice yourself isn't a statement, it's merely pointless? How long does it take for you to realize you can't fix everything by yourself?"

He would hear the replies and choose his TAs from there.

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"As opposed to 'getting smushed like a bug'?" Anakin replied.

He tips his head to the side. "Getting smushed like a bug is a bad plan. I never take that route." There might be a smirk dancing at the corners of his mouth.

Anakin might have wanted to slap the smirk off of that mouth. "Which brings us back to the question I asked," he said. "How do you know when to back off?"

He was wagering on "when I wake up in the clinic thinking 'I shouldn't have done that'."

It would be a well-deserved slap, indeed.

"When you're no longer winning." This might, in fact, be part of the reason he's been sent to Fandom - his previous instructors were tired of his 'discussion techniques'.

Anakin blew out a frustrated breath. "And how do you know that?"

"Usually when you're three hits away from needing a stretcher."

"Very helpful," Anakin said shortly, stalking away.

"I do my best," he returns, nodding his head in what might appear to be a show of respect, but probably isn't.

"I do understand sarcasm," Anakin said, glaring back over his shoulder. "Do that again and you'll lose a Saturday."

He gives a confused, yet pensive look. "What does that mean?" The lack of formal education is showing.

Edited 2009-01-07 03:09 (UTC)

"The nod that's only pretending to show respect. Either get better at faking it or try it on a different teacher," Anakin snapped. "I spent decades pretending to care what my teacher thought. I can spot a fake a kilometer away."

Still confused, he waves a hand and says, "No, actually, I meant the Saturday thing." Funny, the sarcasm part he understood very well, detention... not so much.

"You annoy me, and in return, I can waste one of your Saturdays by forcing you into detention," Anakin replied before he stalked off. "Read the student manual."

"What'd I do? I asked a question. Wait - what's detention?"

Edited 2009-01-07 03:50 (UTC)

Anakin stopped walking and turned around. "I will use very, very tiny words," he said, obviously displeased. "On Saturdays, there is something called detention, where you sit in a room for three hours and a teacher who clearly has more important things to do with their time will punish you in whatever way they see fit. I will send you there if you are impertinent, disruptive, or more annoying than the average teenager. You are already treading dangerously close to the maximum amount of annoying I can take on this, the first day. Understand me now?"

"There's no need to be condescending. I asked because there was nothing known as 'detention' where I was taught before here." Though, if he thinks about it, there may have been something similar, but was used more as a training aide. "I wasn't meaning for my questions to be annoying. Though I was under the impression that asking questions and getting the answers is how one learns. Was I mistaken there as well?"

"You'll learn by doing," Anakin snarled, slapping his hand on a nearby desk. "Detention. The next Saturday it's offered. Enjoy."

His cloak flared out behind him. "Here's a hint: never call a teacher condescending. Questions are fine. Tone is everything."

"Crap," is his eloquent reply as he rests his chin in his hand. At least the discussion had been interesting - until that whole detention part.

Ethics [Tuesday, January 6, 2nd period]

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