Gary Bailey Syndome

A bunch of years ago, I taught this kid. He talked like he was the official spokesman for the class. He was loud and forceful. The other kids rarely disagreed with him. He would say things like

“Ask anybody..”

“We all think…”

“Everybody knows…”

“Nobody thinks that..”

I was new to the community.  I kind of just assumed Gary knew what he was talking about. I kind of thought he did speak for the class. But after awhile the cracks started showing.

“Why do you keep asking what a glacier is? Nobody knows what that is.”

“You marked my spelling of “vacuum” wrong. Since when does it have two “u”s in it?

“You think we knows what a climate is? We weren’t ever taught that!”

I started questioning Gary’s authority when it came to what he claimed he had been taught and what he had learned. But I reserved my skepticism to content knowledge- for awhile. Until I realized that while he thought his authority applied to everything, he was just plain wrong about a whole bunch of things.

Our grade 7/8 class had had a particularly bad day with a bunch of kids misbehaving. It was pretty ugly and I was angry. To punish the class, I made them copy notes off the board- something I rarely did. Three of the walls of the classroom had sliding blackboards and by the time I was done I had covered seven boards in notes all off the top of my head. They dutifully sat there copying out the notes.  Thinking back, I think they were even a little relieved to complete such a mindless task after the emotional incidents that had occurred in the room.  But as I finished up the last board, Gary had had enough. He started comparing me to a teacher the class had the previous year. “Ask anybody, Mr. Smith was a better teacher than you. Ask anybody. We all want him back.” There was a silence.  A long, weird silence. Gary stood up. “Who’s with me? Who wants Mr. Smith back?”  A quiet voice from the back spoke. “But Gary. Mr. Smith used to HIT us.”

I think back to that incident from time to time. Especially when I hear someone claiming they speak for your entire committee or board or classroom. Or “all Canadians”. When they think they need to “take Alberta back.” When they say it loud and repeat it over and over again. This characteristic of thinking your ideas are shared by everyone and then refusing to entertain any other ideas. It’s a kind of mental weakness to think everyone thinks the way you do-to lack the ability to see things from a different perspective.

I call it Gary Bailey syndrome.

Look for it.