Here's The Trick To Becoming A Laughingstock

There are plenty of reasons it's hard to find dedicated teachers - low pay, even lower societal appreciation, the focus on teaching the little dickens to simply take tests, rather than run the risk of actually learning something.

And then there is probably this, too. The fear a well-meaning teacher will be accused of practicing wizardry by pinched school bureaucrats armed to their tightly wound hair buns with their clipboards and lanyards and policy manuals.

How proud the Pasco County School District must feel to know their Col. Klink ineptitude in handling what should have been a bigger nonissue than "Do we give LeBron James the ball with 10 seconds left in the game?" has made these "educators" a laughingstock from Australia to Moscow to even Iraq!

On Jan. 16, substitute teacher Jim Piculas found himself with a few spare moments before the end of his intensive reading class at Rushe Middle School.

To pass the time, Piculas thought it would be fun to amuse the sixth- and seventh-graders with a silly sleight-of-hand trick in which he makes a toothpick appear to vanish in his hand.

Poof! Job Vanishes

Afterward Piculas even showed the children how he pulled off the trick.

"The entire event lasted less than one minute," Piculas explained, but it would turn out to be 60 seconds that would change his life.

A few days later Piculas was informed that the school district would no longer require his services. The now defrocked teacher said he was accused of performing "wizardry" in class. Oh dear.

Apparently one student, who if Piculas had the power he ought to have turned the youth into a newt, had misinterpreted the trick, and thus the kiddo's father filed a complaint.

School officials have denied Piculas was banished into the darkness because he is a wizard.

Under The Bus

In a letter notifying him of his firing, in addition to recklessly making toothpicks disappear, Piculas was accused of not following lesson plans, allowing students to use computers and permitting a student to lead a class.

Piculas denied the allegations, insisting his Harry Potter-lite routine is the reason he has been sent off to education's Chamber of Secrets.

In any event, the story of Jim Piculas and the Order of the Condo Association Prudes has made its way around the globe, with his tale of being thrown under the bus by a bunch of hand-wringing paper-pushers showing up in Australia, Moscow and even Iraqi media outlets.

So a man's entire career and reputation as a teacher suddenly gets trashed simply because of one crybaby who didn't understand Piculas' harmless little magic trick - even after he explained how he performed the stunt?!?!?

It's probably more than reasonable to assume once you've been accused of "wizardry" by an elementary school tattletale, your future in the classroom is more doomed than a Salem witchcraft defendant.

And that's probably the good news here.

At least Jim Piculas wasn't burned at the stake.

But this is Pasco County after all - let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.