{"id":42436,"date":"2024-02-01T07:28:07","date_gmt":"2024-02-01T12:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=42436"},"modified":"2024-02-01T09:35:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T14:35:32","slug":"school-days-the-swinging-algebra-teacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/02\/01\/school-days-the-swinging-algebra-teacher\/","title":{"rendered":"School Days – The Swinging Algebra Teacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days,
\nReadin’ and ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, right. We’ve arrived at ‘rithmetic <\/em>with The Swinging Algebra Teacher<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Swinging Algebra Teacher<\/em> was a low stakes Jekyll and Hyde<\/em> whose life was split between his milquetoast professional persona of mathematics teacher by day and polyester clad hedonist by night. While the sun was shining, he put in the minimum effort to make sure his students could muster enough math credits to get them into one of the local colleges, but after dark, he lived to do what he felt he was born to do — DANCE!<\/em> He couldn’t wait to hit the dance floors of the greater Philadelphia area. Legend has it that his weekend started earlier than everybody else’s — possibly Wednesday, definitely Thursday — as he would rush home after class, catch a disco nap and then hit the clubs to trip the light fantastic until last call. This probably explained his lack of energy in class and his utter lack of enthusiasm for algebraic equations.<\/p>\n

\"\"

I initially started working on this with night leading into day, but I flipped it feeling it would make more sense.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was<\/em> the 1970s after all and while most of the teachers I remember were married with spouses, kids and suburban homes, there were a number of teachers I suspected of being very much of that time period. If asked if they were married or an allusion was made as to a spouse, the question was met with a cryptic grin. They may have had the libertine bent of the time and probably would not have turned down an invitation to a key party <\/em>if it were ever offered. They may have missed out on the ’60s, but they were going to party hearty with whatever the ME decade<\/em> had to offer.<\/p>\n

Once again, I used Affinity Designer<\/em> to produce this piece. This was a lot of fun, and I listened to a lot of disco as I worked on it to get me in the right frame of mind.<\/p>\n

My swinging algebra teacher’s appearance isn’t based on any one teacher in particular, but like my librarian<\/a>, he is sort of a composite of a number of teachers and staff. Not all of them were math teachers.<\/p>\n

I’m still lousy at algebra. I was hopeless trying to help my son with his homework. I hope Mr. So-and-So<\/em> was a good dancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days, Readin’ and ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic… Yeah, right. We’ve arrived at ‘rithmetic with The Swinging Algebra Teacher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,5790],"tags":[233,3465,5798,17,8,5797,861,27,499,43,3661,5,122,3669,480,5795,5796],"class_list":["post-42436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-illustration","category-vector-illustration","tag-1970s","tag-affinity-designer","tag-algebra","tag-cartoon","tag-cartoons","tag-club","tag-dance","tag-digital-illustration","tag-disco","tag-humor","tag-illustration","tag-joe-williams","tag-new-jersey","tag-philadelphia","tag-usa","tag-vector-art","tag-vetor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/swinging-algebra-teacher-AD2-flipped-01-31.jpg?fit=840%2C840&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-b2s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42370,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/01\/21\/school-days-the-cool-substitute-teacher\/","url_meta":{"origin":42436,"position":0},"title":"School Days – The Cool Substitute Teacher","author":"Joe","date":"January 21, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The Cool Substitute Teacher circa 1974 is an illustration that fell together as I was playing with shapes in the superlative vector art program Affinity Designer. I was hoping to come up with another monster for my collection of Halloween Heads, but instead I seem to be stuck in grades\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Illustration"","block_context":{"text":"Illustration","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/illustration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/cool-substitute-teacher-det.jpg?fit=1000%2C718&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/cool-substitute-teacher-det.jpg?fit=1000%2C718&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/cool-substitute-teacher-det.jpg?fit=1000%2C718&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/cool-substitute-teacher-det.jpg?fit=1000%2C718&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":46126,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2025\/10\/15\/my-nemesis-in-polyester-a-high-school-memory\/","url_meta":{"origin":42436,"position":1},"title":"My Nemesis in Polyester: A High School Memory","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"October 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Wherein I dispense a little cartoon justice on my high school nemesis, a troglodyte in polyester. No gentle glide down memory lane here\u2014just ink and spite.","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/High-School-Nemesis-gray.jpg?fit=640%2C733&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/High-School-Nemesis-gray.jpg?fit=640%2C733&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/High-School-Nemesis-gray.jpg?fit=640%2C733&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":42355,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/01\/24\/school-days-the-angry-librarian\/","url_meta":{"origin":42436,"position":2},"title":"School Days – The Angry Librarian","author":"Joe","date":"January 24, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The angry librarian insisted on absolute, tomb-like silence as if Karl Wallenda was traversing a tightrope above a Bengal tiger trap in the middle of the library and absolute concentration was vital to the aerialist's survival.","rel":"","context":"In "Illustration"","block_context":{"text":"Illustration","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/illustration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/shadow-angry-librarian.jpg?fit=800%2C517&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/shadow-angry-librarian.jpg?fit=800%2C517&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/shadow-angry-librarian.jpg?fit=800%2C517&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/shadow-angry-librarian.jpg?fit=800%2C517&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":42704,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/03\/19\/tuesday-digital-doodle-automaton-powers-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":42436,"position":3},"title":"Tuesday Digital Doodle \u2022 Automaton Powers On","author":"Joe","date":"March 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another vector doodle I did in Affinity Designer. In preparation for the occasional science fiction book cover I illustrate, I will play with metallic tones and mechanical shapes. I am figuring out how I may approach that starship or robotic marauder that may feature in a future novel,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Doodle Tuesday"","block_context":{"text":"Doodle Tuesday","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/it-came-from-the-sketchbook\/doodle-tuesday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Automaton.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Automaton.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Automaton.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Automaton.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":42395,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/01\/30\/the-green-ghoul\/","url_meta":{"origin":42436,"position":4},"title":"The Green Ghoul","author":"Joe","date":"January 30, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Recently I've been traipsing down memory lane revisiting the people and impressions I had of grade school and junior high in the form of cartoons. Today I offer some images that I probably doodled in the margins of notebooks when I should have been paying attention in class. Once again,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Illustration"","block_context":{"text":"Illustration","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/illustration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/The-GREEN-GHOUL.jpg?fit=800%2C1035&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/The-GREEN-GHOUL.jpg?fit=800%2C1035&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/The-GREEN-GHOUL.jpg?fit=800%2C1035&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/The-GREEN-GHOUL.jpg?fit=800%2C1035&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":23859,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2018\/06\/14\/work-in-progress\/","url_meta":{"origin":42436,"position":5},"title":"Work in Progress","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"June 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm still working on the vector illustration that I've written about recently, and it's proving to be more involved than I originally thought it would be. I've been designing monsters which come to me more easily than what I am attempting with this illustration. This is also a more involved\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Illustration"","block_context":{"text":"Illustration","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/illustration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/work-in-progress.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/work-in-progress.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/work-in-progress.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}