RED DEER, AB – A class game of dodgeball at West Valley Elementary School was rocked this past Thursday when the gym teacher decided to vent his frustrations by joining in the game.
Students in the fourth grade class report that their teacher, Mr. Albert Morris, burst out of the equipment room after a loud phone conversation with his mother’s boyfriend, gripping two dodgeballs in each of his hands. “He looked like the bad guy walking out of a saloon in one of those old Western movies, except sweatier and in track pants”, said student Marcus Ramsey.
Though the sight of the teacher joining the game was thrilling initially, things soon took a turn. “My friends and I were super excited because he was playing on our side, so we were definitely going to win”, said Ramsey. “Like, he’s a good two feet taller than everyone in the class and built like a bearded tank. But there are laws that we follow on the court of dodgeball, and Mr. Morris decided he was above them all that day.”
According to Ramsey, Morris was quick to turn on his own team, firing at any student who made eye contact with him while shouting what seemed like nonsense to the children. “At one point, I’m pretty sure he said ‘Who needs to grow up now, Mom?’ before he hit Billy square in the face”, recalled Ramsey. “Then, when Sarah tried to tell him that he wasn’t playing by the rules, he said ‘you’re not my real dad, Dennis!’ And I mean, he was right, that 10-year-old girl was not his dad.” Unsurprisingly, the dodgeball game resulted in a record number of injuries. “There aren’t enough wet paper towels in the world to soothe what happened that morning”, said a haunted Ramsey.
Morris was quick to brush off concerns for the wellbeing of the students – and for himself. “Kids need to experience things like that, it toughens them up”, said Morris. “That’s what my dad always said, anyways, from what I can remember of him. He was a man of few words, and few hugs, and few birthday cards, but he knew what he was talking about.” He then stared off into the distance and crushed a tennis ball in his hand.
This is not the only exercise Morris has been seen using as a coping mechanism – last Tuesday, he reportedly paused a class to make the students watch him do chin ups to show them what a ‘real man’ he was, then made everyone do three consecutive beep tests when they laughed at him for not being able to complete one. A few weeks prior to that, the Kindergarten class had to be escorted out after Morris went under the giant parachute during a game and then refused to come out. “Have you ever heard a grown man cry into a whistle?”, said Kindergarten teacher Ellen Hayes, recounting the sight. “It sounds like a third-grader playing the recorder, but somehow more haunting.”
Morris was last seen in the school field, lurking ominously near a game of Red Rover after a particularly bad argument with his partner.
