No Jedi Left Behind

Scene: Dagobah. Yoda sits beneath Luke Skywalker's X-Wing, calmly chewing his walking stick. In the distance, Luke can be heard doing calisthetics and crying.

LUKE: Uhhhhh, this is taking forever! I wanna be done nowwwww!

Suddenly, the blue, glowing form of Obi-Wan Kenobi appears.

OBI-WAN: You're having him stand on his head again?

YODA: Good practice, it is.

OBI-WAN: What is it with you and the head-standing?

YODA: What help can I be for you, Master Obi-Wan?

OBI-WAN: Oh, well, just a few things. There's some paperwork you need to fill out for the Council.

YODA: Paperwork?

OBI-WAN: You know, just the usual progress reports, standardized test scores, and, uh, Luke's IEP. It needs to be updated.

YODA: A whiny little bitch, he can be.

OBI-WAN: Yes, well... (spreads documents on a log) Okay, let's see. How is Luke getting at saber fighting?

YODA: Progressed that far, Luke has not. He must still learn--

OBI-WAN: You know, uh, maybe if you cut it out with all the rocks...

YODA: My own counsel I will keep on how I am to train! (swats Obi-Wan with his stick)

OBI-WAN: Okay, okay. I'm just saying...

YODA: Yes?

OBI-WAN: Well, it's not like he's going to be fighting the Empire by heaving boulders at them, is he?

YODA: What else do you want? Valuable time, you are wasting.

OBI-WAN: Rightrightright. Um, this is sort of hard to say, but...

YODA: Well?

OBI-WAN: Well, Luke didn't make Adequate Yearly Progress.

(beat)

YODA: You are speaking of what the hell now?

OBI-WAN: He didn't leap the minimum required distance in his fitness test, and he still can't throw people around with the Force. You failed him, Yoda.

YODA: I failed him?

OBI-WAN: Look--

YODA: Came to me at the age of twenty-two, he did! Normally, training starts at age five. Undisciplined and uncouth he was. A complete fricking slack-jawed yokel! And now he can use the Force and react faster than anyone else alive!

OBI-WAN: I know, but--

YODA: My fault the Empire took over, it was not! My fault he comes from an unstable home, it is so not!

OBI-WAN: Look, guy, demographics are not destiny. You can't use all that as an excuse.

YODA: Excuse! (seriously pissed now) You were the one who offed his father! Nice job, professor.

OBI-WAN: Um. (clears throat) I mean, the Council is spending all this dough to keep you here on this planet. We paid for the logs, the rocks he's throwing around, the gruel you have him eat and that nifty white t-shirt of his. We need to see some quantifiable results.

YODA: To have him at a Master level by now, unrealistic it is.

OBI-WAN: That sounds like the Union talking...

YODA: Something you want. The hell what is it?

OBI-WAN: I...uh, I didn't quite get that...

YODA: Spill it, hippie!

OBI-WAN: Look, I didn't want it to come to this. But the Council is going to have to take over if you don't get him ready to fight Vader by the spring semester. We feel that, by making this a mandate, you'll be forced to deliver and your instruction will improve more readily. (pause) Merit pay, you dig?

YODA: (heaves deep sigh) A proposal, you have come to give me?

OBI-WAN: No, look, this is totally bitching! We've got this program called Jedi Mastery Manager, and all you have to do is set your learning goals to whatever assessment you give him!

YODA: More paperwork up your butt, you can shove--

OBI-WAN: Like, say, when he does that whole fight-in-the-tree-and-it's-your-own-face thing? If he fails, we key in the skill he's supposed to be learning--

YODA: (looking over Kenobi's shoulder) "Acknowledge your own weaknesses so as to face your shortcomings and achieve inner peace"?

OBI-WAN: That's labeled JC-24.7. And we plug it into the computer and we can tell where you totally suck--

YODA: To hell, you can go.

OBI-WAN: I mean, where you rock as a teacher, right? And where, you know, uh, you can use a little help...

YODA: The student, Luke is. Up to him it must be. A Jedi must know discipline.
OBI-WAN: Rightrightright. No argument here, guy. Except...

YODA: Except...?

OBI-WAN: I mean, this is Response to Intervention we're talking, right? So what have you done to get him to take all this seriously?

(Long, awkward silence. Yoda stares angrily. Obi-wan shifts uncomfortably.)

YODA: Are you high or something?

OBI-WAN: Not since before I died. Anyway. Guy. The Council is totally behind you. We think you can accomplish miracles. Except, you know, unless you don't. Then we'll have to contract this school out to a charter.

YODA: What freaking charter? All the other Jedi are dead! He's about to fight his own father and you idiots want me to document whether or not he can walk a straight line!

OBI-WAN: Well, obviously you haven't been keeping up with the reform literature, guy.  Haven't you heard of that Hutt Success Zone on Tattoine? They're working miracles with those underprivileged Jawas. And, oh! There's also the KIWP schools!

YODA: Kiwp?

OBI-WAN: Knowledge is Wookie Power, man! They've got those hairy bastards levitating two inches off the ground! And they have kickass t-shirts too.

YODA: Yes. T-shirts.

OBI-WAN: So? Can the Council count on your assured success in the face of impossible odds?

(one more long pause)

YODA: I quit.

OBI-WAN: Ok. No problem. We've got a replacement lined up anyway. Graduated from the Harvard School of Business! Meet Professor Jar-Jar. He'll be materializing in just a--

YODA: Thank you, no. (impales self with lightsaber, falls to ground dead)

OBI-WAN: Hmm.

The End

"Paper and pencil, you do not have. For this, sorry I failed you I am."

Inspirational Quotes for the Class of 2011

Today is the senior picnic. Administration told me to cover it as a news story. I laughed in their faces and wrote this instead, to be published next week.

Over the years, a lot of things are said to young students about to leave school and embark upon a lifelong journey of learning and growing in the real world. It would be near-futile to try to capture two thousand years-plus of wisdom and boil it down to a 300-word article. But I’ve done it anyway.

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.” Francis Bacon.
This philosopher/humanist of the Renaissance was undoubtedly trying to say that whatever we accomplish in life is determined more by our own individual will rather than circumstance. And those are inspiring words to live by. Of course, this is the guy who caught pneumonia trying to freeze a chicken in the snow and subsequently died, but he was on to something. We make our own way in the world. As long as we remember to wear a winter coat. Or come in from out of the cold and warm up. Or, you know, not die freezing chickens.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” Henry Ford.
Now here’s a maxim we can all adapt. Anyone who ever had aspirations can’t be daunted by anything, but rather focus on what can be done to make them happen. Especially a guy like Ford. Eliminating bathroom breaks and forbidding loud conversation in the lunch room enabled him to build 10,000 cars a day in his manufacturing plant and find himself time for his true life’s goal: publishing anti-Semitic newspaper articles in the Dearborn Independent.

“Courage is the price the world exacts for peace of mind.” Amelia Earhart.
Totally a fair point. In order to stand for what you believe in, you can’t wait for convenience, and you can’t be beholden to the opinions of others. It takes a lot of courage to uphold one’s convictions. Earhart wasn’t afraid of tackling the odds and attempting to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane. And she…oh yeah...

“Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Jedi Master Yoda.
The little guy could fight pretty good, after all. Okay, I’m going with this one.

So out of those two millenia of learning, wisdom, accomplishment and industry we’ve got, what, one wrinkled green hand puppet who’s worth listening to? Yeah, that sounds about right. So long, losers.