A screen play

Red for ED.

Scene 1

By: Michael T. Flanders

1. Int. – Living Room – Early Evening

A decent-sized living space with moderately kept furniture and a flat screen TV. PAM, a woman in her late-thirties, sits on a love seat with her eyes glued to the glowing screen of a tablet, her attention focused on a news article. The faint sound of keys jingling at the front door barely disturbs her reading. JOHN, her husband, enters. He is disheveled and exhausted.

JOHN

Jeez, what a day. What a day.

PAM

Mhmm. Hi dear.

JOHN

Hmph. Don’t get up. I’ll come to you.

JOHN walks over and pecks PAM on the cheek. PAM barely notices. He then plops down in a chair across from her, flicks on the TV and begins unbuttoning his shirt and taking off his shoes.

JOHN

Ol’ Larry boy did it again. Pissed off the secretary with his flirting.

(mockingly)

“No Larry, stop. I’m married. Stop. I said stop.” The poor dope is too oblivious to see how the world’s changed. All this “Me Too” stuff and not even being able to look at a chick without upsetting the P.C police. He’s gonna wind up with a lawsuit, and that’s if he’s lucky.

PAM

(half-heartedly)

Some people just don’t get it.

The news flickers across the TV screen with an update on the Red for ED. movement. JOHN looks on with subtle bitterness.

JOHN

Great. This stuff again. Why can’t teachers

just be happy with what they get? We all need a livable wage, they ain’t exclusive to money woes.

PAM looks up from her tablet to take notice of the news.

PAM

Oh, I was just reading about this. It’s terrible, isn’t it? Arizona is the absolute worst for teacher pay.

JOHN

Arizona’s the worst for a lotta things right now. Construction, self-driving cars, the one day of Winter we get, teacher pay is just seasoning in the stew. They want more money? They can go get a second job. It’s not like they don’t have the time, what, with all the Spring breaks and half days they get. Wish I got as many days off as they do.

PAM

Yeah, but it’s not like their jobs are easy. Look what they have to deal with-

JOHN

We all have nonsense we deal with at our jobs. They ain’t no better than me.

PAM

But their jobs are different than yours. They deal with overcrowded classrooms, buying their own supplies, even working on the weekends if they need to finish grading. They get a lot demanded of them.

JOHN

So do I! You think it’s easy doin’ what I do, tryin’ to sell insurance in the wake of all this Affordable Care Act stuff? You know how many times a day I hear about how Trump is the devil or the whole Obama administration was a conspiracy? It’s enough to make a person’s hair fall out. And it has. My widow’s peak has only gotten more like Dracula’s over the years. Gimme a cape and I’ll be covered for Halloween.

PAM

Oh John, stop. Your hair is fine. And no one said your job isn’t hard. I know it is. But being a teacher isn’t a walk in the park either, y’know? Back when I had my own classroom-

JOHN

Ah boy, here we go. I was waiting for this.

PAM

Waiting for what?

JOHN

For you to remind me of when you were a teacher. It was only a matter of time.

PAM

That’s not fair, John. That’s not fair.

JOHN

Neither is watching these people parading around asking for more money. They want more cash, they should take on more work, that’s all I’m sayin’.

PAM

They do take on more work, every year. Growing class sizes, higher academic standards, more trainings and certifications, they’re put through the wringer, all to help better the kids of today.

JOHN

Yeah, yeah, yeah, bleeding hearts of the world unite. Speaking of kids, where’s ours? I haven’t seen him.

PAM

He’s at one of the Red for ED. rallies.

JOHN

Are you kiddin’ me? Go get him! It’s almost dinner time and I’m hungry.

PAM looks on at JOHN and huffs. She then throws her tablet down on the loveseat and storms out, slamming the front door behind her. JOHNS looks around quizzically, then focuses his attention to the tablet. The words “WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT” are in bold red letters across the screen. He murmurs his disbelief under his breath, then exits to the kitchen to grab a drink.

END SCENE

AUTHOR’S NOTES

For lack of a better term, education is a battlefield right now. Whether it’s budget cuts, watching Betsy DeVos act like she knows what she’s talking about in regards to higher learning, or picking a side in the ever-growing debate about guns and their role in schools, education is probably more prominent in people’s media intake than it has been in years. And though I could’ve tackled one of these topics through the narrative of the scene here, I felt the subject of teacher pay most touched me at this moment, as demonstrated through the interactions of the husband and wife duo in Red for ED.

Pam and John are cliched characters that construct a nuclear family model in today’s modern society. John is the breadwinning, overly-obnoxious and opinionated alpha male stereotype, while Pam is the stay-at-home mom who reads about the world’s issues and feels passionate about them, even though she’s disconnected due to her assumed role as a trophy wife. They’re both two sides of a coin, but very rarely do they ever see eye-to-eye, especially when it comes to education. John’s attitude is an exaggerated reflection of the argument against higher teacher salaries in Arizona, while Pam’s former background makes her compassionate to the ordeal, as she knows just how much blood, sweat and tears can be poured into the job. The cliffhanger, although subtle, is a representation of how either side of this debate feels like the slighted party. If I were to continue the scene, the unnamed son would be the deciding factor in the argument between Pam and John, as I specifically made it ambiguous which side of the disagreement he resides. Does he believe teachers should be paid more? Is he at one of the rallies in support of his educators? Or is he perhaps against the Red for ED. movement? As of now, this extension of the story is up in the air, and doesn’t even necessarily need to be addressed.

While I admit the idea for teacher pay popped into my head before reviewing the The Three Cultures, I was surprised to find in the pages the exact underlying issue I wanted to hint at throughout the scene: status. If it’s not obvious, John is very disgruntled in Red for ED., and I wanted to suggest part of it is because of his own personal issues with status. He’s a middle-class guy who regularly compares his own workload to the same degree as teachers, without ever revealing if he’s a “guy in the trenches,” just like an educator might be, or if he’s in some type of position of power. I’m more inclined to say he’s not in a role of management though, and this frustration bleeds through to the rest of the world. This runs parallel to a concept directly from the chapter Social Sciences 1, “Individuals who believe that they have less privilege, or occupy a lower status, often experience self-doubt, anxiety, envy, anger, or a combination of these emotions” (Kagan 115). With John’s status undefined, he’s caught in a bit of an identity crisis, which he openly contends with rather harshly. What makes people so better than him that they should make more for what he views as less work? Why does his wife’s teaching background automatically put her on the side of the debate he doesn’t agree with? Why can’t society see it’s not just teachers struggling, but other people too? John is frustrated and has lumped himself into a “me versus them” scenario, where he feels his job has just as much conflict within it as teaching because of the stain left behind on insurance companies due to the government. This is the common thread though, as John and the teachers are largely affected by outside factors, whether at a state or federal level, yet he fails to see this because education is the prominent concern in the public’s eyes currently.

Pam is also having her own type of identity crisis with status. As stated above, she’s a stay-at-home mom, although she was once a teacher. She knows what it’s like to be paid next-to-nothing, but take on the hefty workload that comes with educating. Unfortunately, she’s in limbo right now. She’s not a teacher anymore, but still feels strongly about how much an educator should make. The fact she’s not teaching plays out towards the end of the scene too, and shows a shift in her demeanor. Kagan writes “social conditions at work, in school, and in the neighborhood, which remind each person of his or her relative rank and degree of autonomy in these settings, can affect physical and mental health” (115), and up until John demonstrates anger towards her previous position, Pam seems somewhat resolved, yet unhappily resigned to her rank as the trophy wife. His comments though, seem to stir action within her, and she grows frustrated with her husband, so much so that she storms off, slamming doors in the wake of her silently brewing rage.

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