Today I sat nervously at a stoplight while some high school cheerleaders formed an extremely unsteady pyramid advertising their car wash at the side of a busy intersection. Suddenly, I felt a weird sense of gratitude for my high school band director.
I remember we were discussing options for an extra fundraiser for a band trip. Someone suggested doing a car wash “like the cheerleaders do every year.” Mr. Brown immediately shut it down.
He said that we were under his care as students and that he would never set anyone up to be exploited like that. It was inappropriate for minors to be put on display and used to get money from creeps. “Let’s be honest,” he said. “The tips are not for doing a good job. They’re for putting on a show.”
I know I didn’t fully appreciate or understand at the time. But now that I’ve had some life experience, I’m really grateful. This was probably a pretty progressive stance at the time. Obviously, it’s still not a universal sentiment as demonstrated by the young ladies today.
Mr. Brown passed away a few years ago, so I can no longer thank him personally. So here I am talking about him to a group that I think and hope will understand my feeling. Thank you, Cranky Old Man, for respecting your students and maintaining dignity and integrity for our program. You weren’t perfect, but you were a great teacher.
Comments
These car washes always give me the creeps. You’ll get a few moms there to support the cheerleaders and a ton of creeps. It’s odd to me the schools are cool with this.
It’s kinda sickening how some folks still treat young women like they’re just there for men’s amusement, but it’s kinda comforting to know there were teachers like Mr. Brown who stood up and said no to that nonsense, even if it wasn’t always the popular choice… I mean, it’s pretty amazing how one person can make such a difference.
My teachers protected me from SO many things silently that I only now realize. I’ll forever be thankful towards them. My high school teacher kicked off a guy whom 15 year Old me had met online because she clearly saw he was an adult and that I had absolutely no business dating an adult.
They have inspired me to become a teacher and to always do my best to protect, teach and appreciate the children in my classroom. I’ll wait for their parents to show up with them, I’ll have snacks for when they’re hungry and I’ll avoid at all costs that they fall into someone’s hands who doesn’t have their best interest at heart.
Eh, it doesn’t have to be that way. I did car washes for 4-H every year. We were a bunch of farm kids in farm clothes- we didn’t wear skimpy bathing suits. I never felt creeped on. I don’t think it’s fair to say all kids that are doing this are getting exploited.
I’m so glad you had Mr.Brown looking out for you.
There was a middle school teacher who freaked me out a bit at first because part of his “welcome to 7th grade science” discussions were instructions about how we should never be alone with teachers, and other bits of personal safety info.
It took me a few years to understand how significant that was for him to say – this was in the early 90s when student safety wasn’t really that important, and he made sure all his students knew how to keep themselves safe.
I also wonder if there was a specific person he was warning us against – there were a couple of creep teachers in the high school most of us ended up attending, but I never heard anything like that about the junior high school teachers.
I drove by one of those a while back and realized how creepy and gross they are. Like as a 28 year old man I’d feel like a sleazebag getting my car washed by literal children…
Thank you Mr. Brown!
I’m raising a glass to Mr. Brown! Thank you for being ahead of your time. Thank you clocking creepy behavior and calling out. Thank you for protecting your students!
Funny you mention this – I was kicked out of the National Honor Society back in the 90s for an incident involving the car wash.
Our advisor suggested we do a car wash because of how much money the cheerleaders made. After an hour making NO money, i suggested that we put the car wash behind the building, and me and a couple of the hotter girls went out front of the building in just our bathing suits and we put on a show with the soap suds. Of course cars started pulling in and we began raking in money.
Because this is how car washes work. You know it. I know it. Anyhow I was called in on Monday to meet with the NHS board to talk about my dishonorable behavior at the car wash and I was completely unapologetic. They were “horrified” and what I was saying about why people go to the cheerleaders’ car wash.
But I was fucking right. And I parted ways with NHS after that conversation.
This isn’t related to the topic at hand, but until you said Mr. Brown passed away a few years ago I was wondering if we went to the same high school. Because I also had a band director named Mr. Brown who was also particular about student fundraising.
Good on both Mr. Browns, honestly.
I think a lot about this now that I’m a teacher. Looking back, some of my teachers were creeps. One is in prison, the other-goodness knows where. He was the kind of teacher who taught us nothing, didn’t make us do any work, and spent class making inappropriate jokes. We all thought he was so cool and his class was the best. Now I cringe.
What I do is try to arm my female students with expectations. I’m a female teacher, but I try to hold myself to the same expectations as I would any other teacher. I never let a student be alone with me behind a closed door, no matter how old or young. I teach private lessons as part of my job and I always leave the door cracked and position myself and my student in an easily visible part of the room. I remind students that nothing that happens at school is ever a secret or should be kept from their parents. I can’t stop them from running into uncomfortable situations, but I can’t teach them to advocate for themselves and how a teacher should act.
I get where you’re coming from and am thankful you had a responsible teacher who respected students. This made me laugh though because my only high school car wash experience was the school orchestra fundraiser and if they were expecting something like cheerleaders they must have been very disappointed lol. Just a bunch of fully clothed nerds with sponges
Aw! That’s great! I also had a Mr. Brown band director. We did have a car wash at least one year, but iirc, nobody wore bathing suits.
We did a car wash for middle school softball and it was very small town. Parents would bring company vehicles and their own. I never thought about it in that light but yeah I can see it being weird.
But you were in the band? Did your band wear a provocative uniform or something? Doing a car wash doesn’t automatically mean a bikini carwash. The kids around my town put on car washes now and then and they wear normal clothes and wash people’s cars. I don’t think having young people participate automatically means all the slobbering degenerates are going to come out of the woodwork and leer at them while getting their car washed.
It’s fucking sad that this even has to stick out in your mind. All teachers (adults, really) spoils be like Mr Brown! Girls bodies aren’t out there for show.
I can bet each and every one of us has scores or stories about creeps during our teen years. It’s so infuriating.
My high school chorus teacher was also a Mr Brown and he was a solid guy, too. This gave me a good trip down memory lane.
The clubs I was involved with in high school always had the most successful fundraisers: selling food to the other students. We sold candy or flavored popcorn. It sold itself and no one felt bad.
The catalog ones were always rough and too high pressure. The car washes were exploitive.
I am super glad that either my highschool was too small or my 2 women cheer coaches did not allow car washes. I knew from movies and tv shows it was a thing but it was always clear it was to exploit young teen girls. Instead our fundraiser was selling those discount cards, which I still hated but at least we could go in pairs door to door and not in uniform either.
From a man in his mid-40’s: I feel the same way. I’ve never supported a teenage carwash. It always felt wrong and weird. Glad I’m not the only one!
Our marching band did car wash fundraisers, broken up by instrument/section. The color guard girls (flag and baton twirlers) always got the most money…
I like to go to the peewee car washes. Meaning I’ve gone all of once to have a bunch of adorable kids do a decent job washing my car.
Cheer coach holds tryouts…..and charges people to come watch.
I remember (as a dude) we did this in highschool for the football team. The number of people who asked where the cheerleaders were was disgusting.
That being said, most of the money we made was from one of our defensive linemen betting people whether or not he could pick up the front end of their vehicles, so I guess he was kind of being exploited too.
High school car washes are only good for one thing, getting an idea of who the local creeps are and putting them behind bars.
One of my jobs in the early oughts, we always had Comedy Central on in the breakroom, meaning I involuntarily got super familiar with The Man Show.
The sole redeeming feature was the car wash skit. They put a woman out on a sidewalk, advertising a topless car wash. When the invariably creepy looking middle aged guys pulled into the secluded space, a bunch of high energy, very husky topless dudes piled out. And did the whole bit gleefully, using their bellies to rub soap on the windows, chest bumping to splatter suds around. As the camera caught shots of abject horror on the creepers faces.
That rest of the show was absolute steaming misogynistic crap, but I still randomly think of that bit and chuckle.