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Introduction to Teaching

Hi, everybody, I'm Jeff... Um, Mr. Winger, and this is Fundamentals of Law.

Any questions?

You, red hair. I'm not gonna learn names.

Will there be a syllabus? "Will there be a syllabus?"

Is good example of a question. Moving on.

Ski cap. How are we gonna be graded?

Oh, no spoilers, ski cap.

Maybe we better do names. Dave.

What percent of our grade will the final be?

Come on, guys, percentages, grades, that syllabus thing...

Are we human beings or just question-and-answer machines?

We're students. And you're a teacher.

Yeah. I'm a teacher.

[♪♪♪]

Did you see that? That teacher just leered at me.

GIRL: Ew. Hey, look, it's the star of Head of the ass. Shut up, Leonard! Nice earring.

You look like the road manager for the California Raisins.

Whoa! What kind of teacher talks to a student like that?

Right? GIRL: Yeah.

Fresh meat, huh? Yeah, Jeff Winger, Law.

Buzz Hickey, Criminology.

You can have that half of the office, but come spring, that corner is stacked to the rafters with fetal pigs.

I won't be here that long.

This is a temporary gig for me. Mmm, I get it.

Teaching to make ends meet until a real job comes along.

Yeah, me too. Oh, cool.

How long have you been... 15 years. Ha, ha, ha.

15 years and counting. Heh-heh.

"Temporary gig." Ha, ha, ha.

Oh, I like you.

♪ Give me some rope Tie me to dream ♪

♪ Give me the hope To run out of steam ♪

♪ Somebody said It can be here ♪

♪ We could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year ♪

♪ I can't count the reasons I should stay ♪

♪ One by one they all Just fade away ♪

Oh, the new table turned out great, Abed.

Splendid varnishing.

"Table mark II"? I added that, and a few custom upgrades. It's voice activated.

Table, resume table mode.

Huh? Oh.

Mmm. Table, power down.

Wait! I got a cup on there.

ANNIE: Oh, teacher man! SHIRLEY: Ee!

It's Professor Winger! Mr. Winger.

Please don't razz me about being a teacher.

Teaching is the most noble profession in the world.

Yeah, tell that to the guy that shares my office.

He fixes cuckoo clocks for fun.

That sounds like Mr. Hickey, my Criminology professor.

I certainly hope you'll be a better teacher than him.

Annie, I don't know Law.

I wasn't a real lawyer, remember?

I can't just pretend I'm teaching.

I'm not Mythbusters. [ABED GASPS]

Two-day course called "Nicolas Cage: Good or bad."

I'm signing up. I've always wanted to know.

Nicolas Cage is one of pop culture's greatest mysteries.

There's a course on Cage, but if you mention

Jesus to your science teacher, you get a written warning.

Well, Jesus wasn't in 70 movies.

I'm in. Cage class, sounds fun.

Jeff, you don't have time to take a blow-off class.

You need to figure out what you're gonna teach.

Thanks, for one glorious second, I forgot I was a teacher.

[HUMMING "POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE"]

[CONTINUES HUMMING]

Oh! Look at Mr. Smarty Pants!

Ha, ha, ha. I am so excited!

Jeff is gonna help me save the school.

Not all by himself. I am learning Excel.

Jeff, do you know Excel? No.

Well, it looks like you do. Ha, ha, ha.

Yay, teaching! Ha, ha, ha.

I, as you know, am Dramatic professor Sean Garrity, and you are now embarking on an odyssey of discussion about an actor who keeps the world asking,

Nicolas Cage, good or bad?

Yes, young man? So you don't know?

Mr. Nadir.

Mr. Nadir drove our TV Studies professor out of his mind by proving that there was an answer to the question "Who's the boss?"

Angela. I admire your brain, Mr. Nadir.

I did not admire Professor Sheffield, but I promise you, this question has no answer.

Your homework is to watch five Nicolas Cage films by Wednesday, no marathons.

Space out your viewings.

Five, that's it?

Be careful, Abed Nadir.

Promise me you will be careful.

I have no idea how to make a curriculum.

Becoming a teacher was a huge mistake.

Without a doubt.

That said, there are certain perks.

Excuse me. Didn't know teachers could cut.

I can actually experience this food warm and disgusting.

Winger, what are you doing?

This line is for food, not for Lionel Richie tickets.

[LAUGHTER]

This is my house.

Come here.

This man's name is Mr. Winger, and Mr. Winger is a teacher.

You know what that means?

It means he gets your meatballs.

Ah, please. That's all I have.

Get outta here.

Place is a zoo. The trick is, you gotta show the other baboons you got a bigger, redder ass.

Let's hit the lounge.

[SOFT JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING]

Whoa.

Everybody, this is the new guy, Winger.

He's having trouble planning his curriculum.

[LAUGHTER] What?

Here's all you need to know.

Break into groups, grade each other's papers, and please enjoy the seven-disk edition of Planet Earth.

[KNOCK AT THE DOOR] PELTON: Yoo-hoo!

Is there a Mr. Winger in here? Heh-heh.

Jeffrey, we need to carve out some time to learn Excel.

Do you guys know Excel? I'm learning.

You know the rules, Pelton. Drop the checks and move on.

I'm gonna boot up my computer and download the tutor...

[LAUGHTER]

What was that about? Union rules.

Management's not allowed in the faculty lounge.

I could get used to this.

[NICOLAS CAGE YELLING AND FIGHTING]

Nicolas Cage is so weird.

I mean, he seemed scared to smell that flower but happy to get shot.

He's a complex performer. He'll give you The Rock,

Con Air, then Face/Off, and you think you understand, but then Windtalkers, Guarding Tess, The Wicker Man.

He begs you to stop watching, but you can't.

[NICOLAS CAGE YELLING]

That was an odd choice.

Would you say it was odd good or odd bad?

Maybe he's just good in good movies and then acts crazy in crap to make drug money.

But is he good, or is he bad?

Every actor is something.

Robert Downey Jr., good, Jim Belushi, bad.

Van Damme, the good kind of bad,

Johnny Depp, the bad kind of good.

There's a spectrum, and Cage is on it.

I just have to find him.

I'm gonna go check on Jeff.

Oh.

[LINE RINGING] JEFF: Hello.

Hey, Jeff, how's the old curriculum going?

Great. Consider our nation's youth pre-inspired.

Want a refill, Winger? Mmm.

Is that Hickey? Yeah.

We're working on syllabuses.

Hey, let's turd some lockers!

[ALL CHEERING] Gotta go! Teacher thing!

It's "syllabi."

Guterman. Droppin' mad science?

Ooh, Elaine, take it easy on the Oxford commas.

Hey, walk, don't run, Mister! This isn't a racetrack!

Okay, dangerous minds, let's break into groups, discuss chapter one, and if you are lucky, we might sneak in a little Planet Earth.

Any questions? Ahem.

Just a few.

Ah, she in your class, yo!

So I guess, just... Read chapter one.

And memorize the federal rules of civil procedure.

Class dismissed.

Not so fast, Jeff.

I assume you know why I'm keeping you after class.

Not really. Ski cap and white Dave got lots of stuff wrong too.

You're the teacher, Jeff. You don't have to rub it in.

What I saw today was embarrassing.

[SCOFFS] You were late, had no idea...

Hey! You had no idea what tort reform meant, and when I asked you to explain the sixth amendment, you pled the fifth! I know my rights.

No, you don't. That's the problem.

Here. I gathered some materials.

Tomorrow morning, before class,

I need to verify that you know enough to teach.

You're gonna quiz me? You're the worst.

I wish Troy was in my class instead of you!

I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her,

I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

Hey, wait, I warned you to separate these worlds.

She's lead, we're chalk.

She needs to be taken out.

Of your class. I say minus her.

Minus her? Give her A-minuses.

It'll drive her nuts, she'll drop.

She'll call me on it. She'll report me.

Teachers don't have to explain minuses.

Why do you think we invented 'em?

She's my friend. Eh.

You like the Leonard meatballs?

They added something special.

It's Leonard.

[LAUGHS]

Come on, I'm just messing with you.

You done with your bit? I'd like my earring back.

Yeah? Mm-hmm.

Go get your earring, you piece of human garbage.

[LAUGHS]

[♪♪♪]

[LAUGHTER AND CHATTER]

Uh...

[GASPS] Oh, my God.

Okay, hey, I have a working theory, and don't react until you've heard the whole thing.

If you watch closely, at the seven-minute mark in Snake Eyes, you'll notice the moment where an alien arm could've come up and... Abed, this isn't worth it.

Maybe Nicolas Cage is just...

Crazy.

All actors are crazy, Annie. Some crazy actors are good, some are bad, but none of them are neither.

There's no such thing as both, so which one is...

[NICOLAS CAGE VOICE] Nicolas Cage, huh? Oh! Oh!

Okay, so break into groups, and then, you guys quiz each other.

Mr. Winger, is that really the best use of our time?

Seems like the value of having you here is...

I think my value as a teacher is to teach you how to learn.

You're telling us teach ourselves.

I don't think you'll learn if I tell you.

If you tell us what you think, we'll learn that.

I thought you should break into groups, but you failed to learn that, so your theory's invalid.

[STUDENTS JEERING AND LAUGHING] BOY: Ooh, snap.

Break into groups.

Mr. Winger, how did you do that? Do what?

You won an argument against Annie Edison.

You don't argue with Annie, Garrett, you let her argue with herself until she loses.

You can win by not arguing? Yeah, ski cap.

Anyone that tries to argue has already lost, because they pick an argument to lose.

I mean, that's why I never lost a case.

Prosecutors beat themselves, because they-- Here.

Because they draw a circle around something called "the truth," and they say that everything outside it is a lie.

[♪♪♪]

JEFF: Annie, don't cry, you were right.

I actually might enjoy teaching.

I'm not crying because of you.

I got this from Professor Hickey.

What the hell? He gave you a dead rat?

No, this is my witness intimidation project.

He gave me this. JEFF: A-minus.

I guess I overextended my schedule.

I'm sorry, Jeff. I have to drop your class.

Okay, thoughts on Nicolas Cage.

I think he's a genius. I mean, he keeps getting hired for some reason, and it's not because of his hair.

I don't know, if I was in 70 films over 30 years, and I spent each one talking at random volumes,

I might accidentally win an Oscar.

I think our opinions about pop culture are fed to us by machines designed to criminalize human autonomy. Good one.

Dear God. Abed.

No, stand back. Give him space.

[♪♪♪]

Nicolas Cage, good or bad. A challenge, certainly, but not unsolvable, because all actors have distinct values, which I use to find answers.

Abed, how much Nicolas Cage did you--

Enough!

I watched enough to find... Heh-heh. The answers.

Ha, ha. Because this... This is my reality, this is how I learned to be, and my being doesn't allow for Nicolas...

[NICOLAS CAGE VOICE] Freaking Cage, okay?

Oh, yeah! Ha, ha.

Yeah! Oh! Oh!

[YELLING LIKE NICOLAS CAGE]

Oh, I'm a cat. I'm a sexy cat.

[LAUGHING]

Oh! Oh! Oh!

O-o-oh!

Abed? Think of something safe, like Holly Hunter or Don Cheadle!

[FOOTSTEPS RUNNING] Abed? Abed!

That was brilliant.

JEFF: You gave Annie an A-minus? How could you?

What were you thinking? Are you drawing a peanut?

It's a duck, and it's none of your concern, actually.

Are you trying to cartoon?

Trying and succeeding. State your business.

I want to know what kind of monster minuses the best student in his class.

I'm a monster? I was in the storm drain lair of the Black River ripper.

I have seen human heads used for things other than heads, so you best not be calling me a monster.

Okay, you're a bad teacher.

I got her off your back. I was handling it.

Unlike you, I know how to engage my students.

I mean, I may not love teaching, but I did fool around with it today, and I may hook up with it again a few more times even if I do dump it right before Christmas.

We do not work for them. Maybe we do.

That does not count as an argument.

Yeah, well, drawing ducks doesn't count as cartooning!

It's one duck, his name is Jim, and publishers are interested!

Miss Edison, good news.

I talked to Professor Hickey, and it turns out your project was an "A."

You used your connections to change my grade?

No, an A-minus means you actually earned an "A," but the teacher doesn't like you.

It's a secret faculty thing. What?

Are you kidding? Et tu, brute?

Am I using that right?

I've been busting my butt for five years, and the whole thing comes down to a few old losers' petty insecurities?

Oligarchy! Et tu, brute!

We've got to tell people! TROY: Mmm.

Minuses are made up!

It's riot time! Yeah!

Ugh!

Bring me their heads!

[SCREAMS]

Pop, pop!

[ALL SCREAMING]

Abed? I couldn't find you at school, so I got worried.

You're throwing away all your little movies, why?

They have no value anymore.

Well, if you're looking for something to believe in,

I know a skinny, little Hebrew handyman you could meet.

I'm not going to become Christian, Shirley, or a better Muslim.

This was my religion.

I thought the meaning of people was somewhere in here.

Then I looked inside Nicolas Cage and I found a secret.

People are random and pointless.

Well, in my religion, the whole point is that you can't understand every little thing, and you know, there's a word for people who remind you that you're not God, and invite you to try a little harder.

Prophets, messiahs, kung fu pandas.

So Nicolas Cage is Jesus? Uh, no, but he clearly works in mysterious ways, and maybe that's just his job.

And that's why critics can call him a genius or an idiot and be right no matter what.

A demon to some and an angel to others, like a Cenobite.

Excuse me, did you say Cenobite?

Yeah, you know, Cenobite, like from Hellraiser.

You like Hellraiser? You know the word "hellraiser"?

I thought pinhead in space was a bit of a letdown, but I'm in for the ride.

[YELLING AND FIGHTING]

Rise up, Greendale!

Your teachers have been lying to you!

You deserve slightly higher grades!

ALL: Slightly higher grades! Slightly higher grades!

The whole world is watching this!

GIRL: Yeah! Wait. I'm out of data minutes.

The world will be watching this on the first of next month!

ALL: Slightly higher grades! Slightly higher grades!

Jeffrey, do something! Slightly higher grades.

Distract them. Take your shirt off!

Here. ALL: Slightly higher grades!

Slightly higher grades! Everybody, calm down! Just listen!

Do you think the students and teachers at Harvard are at each other's throats?

No, because they're all rich.

We all have something in common too.

We all suck.

We're all broke.

We just went through an entire week of meatball lunches without even blinking.

Oh, that's on me.

I converted the lunch menu to a spreadsheet.

The teachers here are teachers here because they did something wrong, same as the students.

So get on the same team, because, take it from me, those of us that get to leave aren't going anywhere.

ALL: Boo! No, you suck!

[ALL JEERING] Ugh!

Jeffrey, go with my "take off your shirt" plan!

May I point out that you're doing this together?

It's all based on rows and columns of cells.

I think that's why the call it "Excel."

I don't care. Mmm-kay, now, I know it's unrealistic to think that we can eliminate riots completely, but I have been crunching the numbers, and I believe we can reduce them by 40%.

Let's hope the man doesn't target you for dreaming this big. Here's my plan.

That "Save Greendale" Committee you pretended to form?

We need one of those for real.

I want a student-teacher alliance, with you in charge.

I vote myself out. You don't have a quorum.

And don't forget, if I fire you, you're likely to starve and die, so you know.

Do you want me to cut your meatball?

[CLEARS THROAT]

All right, look, there are two things I don't do well, apologies and drawing duck bills.

I lost perspective. Students aren't the enemy, and, I don't know, maybe my bills are a little pointy.

Maybe I'm basing them on beaks.

Apologize to Annie.

I did, I gave her an "A."

I don't know how else to make it right.

Oh. I guess, I don't know, I quit.

I got a better idea.

As our first order of business for the student-teacher Save Greendale Committee, we hereby ban the dean from attending future meetings.

ALL: Yeah. Our second order of business.

Lunch. Yeah.

[HICKEY CLEARS THROAT]

I'm taste-testing rations for the shelter I'm digging.

Are you the coolest person in the world?

I doubt it. I would like to address the fact there are no Asian-Americans represented here.

We can get Chang. No need to rush into anything,

I just wanted to address it.

Anybody want some nuts?

[ACOUSTIC MUSIC SUNG IN FRENCH]

Quiet, I think Jeff's coming.

This is gonna be hilarious.

[GROANS]

[CLEARS THROAT]

Yeah, pharmacy please.

Yeah, this is Buzz Hickey.

I think you gave me the wrong medication.

I usually get Lipitor.

What do you mean my insurance won't cover it anymore?

My body doesn't respond well to the generic stuff.

Let me ask you a question, lady, can you pay out of pocket?

I'm an educator, ma'am, living on a teacher's salary!

No, I, I'm sorry. What's your name?

Leia, well, let me tell you something, Leia,

I wake up every night screaming.

Life is unfair, but it's the only thing we g...

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll call back later.

Mom, it's Buzz. I'm gonna say this as fast as I can.

We can't afford to bury Dad with the rest of the family.

MAN: Did you get any of that?