Blayne Dickenson was doing his best to pay attention, but the gorgeous fall day just outside the window called to him.
“Mr. Dickenson, how would you organize forms of pop culture into a history class?”
“What?” Blayne asked before he could fully articulate a response.
He turned away from the window to stare at his multicultural education professor, Dr. Madeline Reich.
“I realize it is a gorgeous day, Mr. Dickenson, but we still have content that must be covered.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Reich. It’s just—”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Dickenson. There is no one here who does not share in your desire to be outside. But, as I was saying, ‘How would you integrate forms of pop culture into a history class?’”
“Minimally, if at all,” Blayne quickly responded. “We spend so much time catering to our students’ desires for thirty-second sound bites that we teach nothing anymore. If anything, we must avoid blurring the lines between education and entertainment.”
“Wait a second,” piped up Hillary Smith, another doctoral student. “If we don’t use the tools of the masses to educate people, are we not doing some kind of disservice to our students? I mean, if watching a commercial, movie or television segment can help our students thoroughly grasp the content…then why not?”
“Why not? Because they’re college students. It’s not like we’re teaching middle-school,” Blayne responded. “Besides, like Allan Bloom said, the further we get away from the basics, the dumber our students become and the worse we are as educators.” Out of the fifteen graduate students in the room, only five appeared to agree with Blayne, so he continued. “The fact is, in today’s educational climate, we are constantly watering down the content. As a result, we produce graduates who cannot read and write. We are creating consumers of pop culture who can’t tell the difference between facts and opinions and between actual news and fake news. Maybe if we spent more time teaching people how to think critically instead of what a Real Housewife did, our culture wouldn’t be in the state it’s in now. Find me a show that can do that?”
“What aboutSesame StreetorMr. Roger’s Neighborhood?” suggested Dr. Reich.
“Okay, I’ll concede that there are a handful of shows onpublictelevision and a few on the History Channel that have educational value. Instead of figuring out how to use the lyrics from the latest pop song to teach our students, we should focus on how we can teach our students to be critical thinkers. I’ve never seen a pop-cultural artifact foster original or critical thought.”
“What about that boy band ZERO’s Earth Day show on RTN? You had a boy band, can’t be more pop than that, explaining to kids and teenagers why we should actively support and save the environment. How is this not useful?” asked Hillary.
“Well, I’m surprised RTN would stoop so low as to have a boy band on. But then, RTN is not exactly in the news business these days,” Blayne groused. “Second, did ZERO foster thought, or did they tell their mindless followers what they should think? As you can tell, I’m slightly biased against the human cloning enterprise, otherwise known as ‘boy bands’. And besides, I’m sure they sold another million albums following their little special on RTN. So, did they really care about the environment or were they just making another dollar?”
“Well, I never know what I’m going to get when I wake the sleeping giant,” Dr. Reich responded as she smirked in Blayne’s direction. After a brief pause, she continued. “Since we’re coming to a close for the evening, I want to continue this discussion next week. But I don’t want our discussion to be opinion-based. I want each of you to research and write a five-page reaction paper to the research you find from educational theorists about using pop culture in the classroom. Find at least five peer-reviewed sources to support your argument, not obvious ones like Newman, Bloom or Palmer. Really, see what research is out there.”
* * * *
Blayne stood in front of his locker in the university recreational facility, dripping with sweat after his workout. After the debate in Dr. Reich’s class, Blayne had been ready to get his blood pumping. At twenty-seven, people often mistook him for being in his mid-thirties, which irritated him. At six-foot-four-inches and two-hundred pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes, Blayne always stood out in a group.
Although Blayne was clearly athletic, he had never liked organized sports. Honestly, he didn’t like sports as a general concept. He wasn’t much of a joiner. He did, however, like watching soccer players running around in their shorts. And he liked it even more when there was a game of shirts versus skins on the field. There was something about a well-toned guy without his shirt in nylon and polyester. Although this specific sexual fantasy had been fulfilled on more than one occasion—especially with his high school soccer team’s captain—it still amazed him how the sight of a hot guy in soccer shorts could so easily turn him on.
Blayne mostly did his job, teaching basic English composition and worked on finishing up his course work so he could write his dissertation. As a graduate student, Blayne felt more like an indentured servant than a faculty member. He was consistently one of the more popular composition professors in his department. He had recently found out that he received an ‘excellent teaching by a graduate student’ award from the university’s College of Arts and Science. Although he was honored by the recognition, he had wondered if it was indeed justified. Half the time, Blayne felt he was winging it in the classroom. He would rush into class semi-prepared—only having barely finished reading the material himself. He was constantly afraid someone would find out he didn’t know what he was talking about half the time.
Blayne stared at himself in the mirror inside his locker. His hair was matted to his head with sweat. He smiled into the mirror, realizing how vain it must look to smile at oneself. He stripped down, then carefully hung his workout clothes in the locker to provide ample drying room. He grabbed his towel and shower supplies and closed his locker door. He caught sight of a guy with impressive back muscles in a towel bending over to pick something out of a bottom locker a couple of rows away. Even though the guy was bent over, Blayne could see his perfectly shaped ass. As Blayne played Peeping Tom for a second, the blood quickly rushed to his cock. Blayne forced his mind to think about something other than that perfectly sculpted ass.
“Hey, Mr. Dickenson! Good run?”
Blayne spun around to hear the voice. The ‘incredible ass’ was talking to him. “Oh, hey, Todd. I didn’t even see you in here.”Fuck, I can’t believe I got hard looking at a student’s ass. “Yeah, I had a good run. Needed to blow off some extra steam. Don’t forget your outline is due tomorrow.” Blayne learned early in his teaching career that students would approach him anytime and anywhere. It didn’t matter if he was stark naked standing in front of his locker semi-erect—students always felt the need to say “hi” and talk.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Dickenson. I won’t forget my outline. The dumb thing’s practically written.”
“It’s not a dumb thing, Todd. Outlines help you write better. Trust me… When you’re in the real world and you have to write a business report, you’re going to be very thankful I’ve drilled this into your head. But anyway, I’ve got to get showered and finish grading your midterms.” With that, Blayne strode to the showers and was thankful Todd hadn’t followed him in.
Blayne didn’t mind when students said hi to him at the movies or talked to him in restaurants. But when he was hot, naked, sweaty and desperately needing a shower, this was not the time to speak to him. One day, he had a freshman introduce himself while he was relieving himself at the urinal.
The showers in the recreation center were in a square-tiled room. In the center of the room, a circular formation of showerheads made it possible for up to eight people to shower simultaneously. Blayne stood under the warm water and almost drifted off to sleep as the warmth of the water flowing over his body took him away for a second. He broke out of his trance when he heard a couple of voices on the other side of the showers.
“Hey, Blayne, fancy meeting you here.”
He glanced over his shoulder at his new shower mates to find Arnold Giest-Mueler and his partner, Harry. Arnold and Harry were the current advisers of the university’s Queer Coalition. Although the couple was almost fifteen years his senior, he enjoyed talking to them about the days before they could be open about their relationship. The couple had been together for almost twenty years, and although they had a notoriously open relationship, they seemed very much in love. Blayne’d had a brief tryst with Arnold when he’d first gotten to Pennington. Arnold was a general surgeon at the Pennington University Hospital whom he had met when his best friend Kira’s appendix burst, resulting in emergency surgery. One thing had led to another, and Arnold and he had had sex in one of the on-call rooms while Kira recovered. They’d fucked a couple more times over the years.
The first time they’d fucked, Blayne had just arrived in Houston and didn’t know anyone. He’d pulled out his cell phone and the Giest-Muelers were the first people he’d met. Blayne had been relatively inexperienced at the time, and the Giest-Muelers helped him learn to top like a pile driver and take dick like a porn star. Blayne hadn’t been a virgin, but in retrospect, he wasn’t exactly knowledgeable of how a lot sex could be. He was thankful to the older couple for opening him up in more ways than one, but they were now more friendly acquaintances than fuck-buddies or lovers.
Blayne lathered up and was rinsing off when he caught Harry eyeing his ass. Blayne rolled his eyes and finished rinsing. He couldn’t blame the man for looking. Hell, Blayne had just done the same thing. He finished his shower and said goodbye to the couple before heading to his locker to dress and get out of there.
