P.E. Teacher Destroys 5th Consecutive Laptop Hitting Fly Balls To Remote Learning Students
TELLURIDE, CO—Local P.E. Teacher Doug Dougie is in hot water after destroying his 5th school-issued laptop with a solidly-struck fly ball earlier this week. Mr. Dougie has been a P.E. teacher for the last 50 years and says the adjustment to distance learning has been tough on him
"I can see the kids on the screen. They wave, I wave back. They talk, I talk back. So how come when we start the lesson and I hit the ball it just smashes my computer all up? That don't make no sense to me."
Dougie, 85, has been a dedicated physical education instructor since back in the days when they were simply called gym teachers. A lot has changed in his time as an educator but the one thing he didn't see coming was the inexorable march of technology or a global pandemic.
"Had this happened 10, even 20 months ago," explained Dougie as he ate a hoagie on his lunch break. "We wouldn't have all these computers around mucking things up believe you me."
Many of Dougie's students have taken it upon themselves to help coach their coach on how computers work, to no avail.
"After the first laptop we figured, well, that won't happen again. Then when it did happen again we figured okay now it really won't happen again, Mr. Dougie has to know better. But then he picked up a ball for the third time and we all kept saying NO! NO! MR. DOUGIE, NO! But it was too late. He's hard of hearing."
The School Board is lost as to how to deal with the aging instructor. During a contentious meeting between the board and Dougie where the idea of a possible resignation was floated around, Dougie promptly stood up and yelled: "No, and you can't fire me! I have tenure!" A claim that is likely untrue, but has so far been unable to be disproven due to the rapid evaporation of low-quality paper used at the time of Dougie’s hiring back in 1972.
Dougie remains optimistic that he will live to see the day where a ball hit on one side of a laptop travels all the way through and exits another laptop as far away as the other side of the world, or that he may once again play catch with his students in-person.
"There isn't yet a technology out there that is better than playing catch. Except for maybe a fast-food drive-through. Get a whole meal without getting out of your car? That's the future! But still," Mr. Dougie continued wistfully, "Playing catch is the best."
