ArchivedLogs:Teaching

Teaching
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Mariot	2013-04-13 A chance meeting in the hallway over coffee leads to teaching.
Location Administrative Hallway, Basement 1, Xavier's School
The basement hallway shows some signs of being underground, with its concrete walls and slightly narrowed proportions. Steps have been taken to make it feel livable, however, with wood paneling running on either side of the checkered tile floor and inlaid wooden archways spanning the hall at regular intervals. Emerging from the teacher's lounge, the Academy's newest member of staff currently has most of her attention focused lovingly upon the large mug she presently cradles in both hands. The rich, warm aroma of fresh coffee wafts out from it as she moves, the near-blissful expression on its bearer's face clearly indicating pleasure being taken in anticipation of the flavour... Iolaus is sipping from a cup as well, the edges of his white coat fluttering as he steps out of the medical lab and down the corridor towards the teacher's lounge. His eyes are focused on a sheaf of papers in his hand, reading and sipping as he walks. As he approaches Mariot from the other direction, his eyes flick up at the sound of footsteps and he gives her a warm smile. Hurridely shuffling the papers from one hand to another, awkwardly grasping them and the cup in a strange grip not too dissimilar from a pair of ceramic-mug brass knuckles, Iolaus extends his now-free hand towards Mariot. "I don't think we've met before. Iolaus Saavedro." A little careful rearrangement of her own frees up one of the woman's hands, which she uses to firmly grasp and shake Iolaus's. "Mariot Gall", she provides by way of introduction, smiling as she does so. "The Academy's new pet Brit." "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Gall." Iolaus says, eyes flashing warmly. His grip is firm, giving her hand a quick shake once, twice, and then releasing. "I'm a sort of campus lurker." he says, with a twisting smile. "I help out Henry on some of his particularly hard problems, and with the more serious cases around here." he says, and his smile widens, wryly. "Probably more now, since I've found myself so abruptly with more time on my hands than before." his tone is light and joking, though there is still a little bit of rawness to the words. "I'm afraid that I'm still rather behind the times, when it comes to recent events", Mariot says apologetically. "So I hope that you can forgive a recent arrival for her ignorance. I'm likely to be more embarrassed by it than you, I assure you. Would it be too rude to ask +why+ you have more time on your hands than expected?" Iolaus looks somewhat surprised, pausing for a second, before he laughs and shakes his head. "No, no, not rude at all. Rude of me for considering you would know, actually." he says, waving a hand briefly in the air. "My career decisions have been plastered across the news, of late." A brief pause. "I'm founding a clinic for mutants in New York. First of its kind in the world, and my previous job didn't take so well to it." he says, eyes twinkling in something that might be playfulness, might be mischief. "The clinic had an article published about it, and I was fired by the time it sold out of the newsstands." Mariot winces. "I believe I heard something about that, yes", she says dryly. "Sorry. I... rather lost a little time to jetlag, I'm afraid, and I still sometimes feel as if my brain hasn't yet made it through Customs." "Coffee helps," Iolaus says, gesturing with his own cup towards hers. "Drink too much of it, though, and your brain will travel further west, and you'll have a whole different set of problems." he says, with a little chuckle. More seriously, he adds, "Actually, my recommendation would be to try and get as much light as possible in the morning. Go sit outside, as soon as you wake up. That will help your body readjust to the new time zone." he pauses, looking over Mariot with a brief flick-flick of his eyes. "When did you come over?" "Partly, it's simple culture-shock, of course", Mariot says dryly. "Both... for the country and for moving into a co-ed boarding school. I've only been here a couple of days, thus far. Still very much in the process of trying to find my feet." Iolaus winces and he shakes his head. "Moving from Boston to New York took me a few weeks, back when I was a resident. Moving from England, I can only imagine." he glances around the hallway, checking this way and that, before he adds, "I can't imagine the students are helping." he says, sympathetically. "Teaching college students was trying, at times... nevertheless high school. They don't have you in classes yet, I hope?" "Not quite, though I have the impression that the sooner I can start, the happier they'll be. The administration, at least, if not the students", Mariot says with a rueful little smile. "I'm confident that I can offer quite a lot - the teaching of history is rather different, on the whole, either side of the Pond, while approaches to theories of politics and society tend to be quite +radically+ divergent. But how successfully - and usefully - I can convey any of that to teenagers... well. It'll be an interesting challenge, at least." Iolaus chuckles, giving a bemused shake of his head. "Well, I can't particularly say that I am /surprised/, but..." he shrugs his shoulders and flashes Mariot a wide smile. "At least they are giving you /some/ time to settle in and at least get over the jet lag before they throw you to the wolves. Students, I mean." he says, teasing. "I'm quite sure you would not be here if they didn't think you were up to that challenge." "Being a mutated freak helps", Mariot answers with a quick, playful grin. "If nothing else, it might help the local wildlife to trust me a little more readily." Iolaus' expression closes off, slightly, at this self-description, but he does not comment on it. "The local wildlife also meaning the students, I hope? Or does your powerset only extend to the non-academic?" he says, brightly enough. Mariot cocks her head, offering Iolaus a somewhat concerned look. "Yes, I was attempting to pick up on your lupine references", she says softly. "And... I'm afraid that my abilities are not exactly flashy, though I suspect they might have had something to do with my being considered suitable for a supervisory role here." Iolaus nods, once, slowly. "Quite possibly. I think many of the staff are, if not all of them." he says, with a little shrug, taking a sip from his mug and crunching up the papers just that much more. "I don't know; I haven't asked. An interesting academic question, however. I wonder if it was decided that way from the beginning or after practical experimentation. Or if it is simply self-selection." "In my case, my ability's defensive - and I can provide a little protection to others. I'm not going to fire anyone into space... but I might be able to stop a student's power escalating to that kind of level." Mariot shrugs slightly. "Or so I can hope, at least. As for their selection policy... I +really+ can't say. I came via recommendation - to me, and presumably +of+ me as well. It was half sorted out before I even knew that it might be a possibility." This makes Iolaus smile, and he nods. "That is a statement I have heard several times before - from a few of the people who I have hired for my clinic." he says, brightly. "I like to think that says something about my skills as a negotiator, though it probably says something more realistically about the place the world is." Mariot laughs softly, lips quirking into a slight smile. "Back to a system of patronage and covert dealing we go. Ah, the advancements of modernity..." "Back?" Iolaus says, laughing. "Did we ever leave?" he asks, raising one eyebrow. "I mean, you would know better than I, but in my studies I know that patronage was certainly common during the ancient times in Greece and Rome, and if the beginning and the end are the same, I can only make an uneducated guess that the middle is as well." "Modes of societal organisation have tended to vary quite a lot over time, and whenever society is particularly mobile there tends to be a break-down in the power of patronage. It is, after all, a negative force as well as a positive one - a means of controlling people who lack the right connections, or at least connections with those who happen to be able to exercise influence at the time that the favour is requested", Mariot observes. "The paucity of mutant-specific ventures and power-groups, however, provides an opportunity for discrimination against the group, and for the exercise of patronage by those who +do+ have the capacity to offer what are deemed to be relevant posts - and protections - to those who feel in need of them." Iolaus pauses for several moments, and then he smiles, wide. "I don't think you would have had any trouble getting this position, mutant or not, Ms. Gall. You are clearly born to be a teacher." he says, voice a gentle teasing. "And I agree with you completely. External pressures make it needed, in many cases. But most of my staff, unlike the staff here, are not mutants. /I/, for that matter, am not a mutant. In fact, excepting the guards for whom it is required, there is only one. To be fair, that is higher than the incidence rate of mutants in the general population, but still quite low. What would you theorize about that?" Mariot shrugs slightly, once again cradling her coffee mug in both hands, allowing herself to savour a long sip before replying. "It's hard to form one. If your staff is particularly specialised, then finding just one mutant who both has the skills +and+ the desire to work on this specific project in this specific place might be quite an achievement in itself. I confess that I don't have any figures I particularly +trust+ for how common mutants are, or for how they're distributed around the world, or for whether those in particular economic and social echelons are more or less likely to be identified. There's an obvious temptation to make sweeping assumptions, but it's not as if mass screening has yet been admitted to by any organisation +I've+ heard of." "True. The incidence is quite a matter of contention among many of my collegues in the field, though we have some guesses. A real number can't come without understanding the larger question - why does it happen?" Iolaus says. He waves a hand and shakes his head, though, smile widening. "But I won't bore you with the long nitty-gritty details of that debate, even if I trusted myself to give a truly independent education on it." He nods his head and glances to the papers in his hand. "I'm sorry, but I need to get this paperwork faxed over to one of my collegues before they start thinking twice about the favor that I'm asking of them. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Gall." Mariot formally inclines her head, offering another smile over her coffee. "And you, Mr... Saavedro", she manages, rather pleased with herself for remembering the man's name. "Or should that be Doctor?" A chuckle, as the man nods his head and smiles. "Doctor, but, please, call me Iolaus." he says, lips quirking into a smile. "I'm sure I will see you around again, soon." Mariot cracks a grin, raising a hand in farewell. "Mariot for me, then", she answers. "It was good to meet you." "And you as well, Mariot." Iolaus says, with a nod. He then strides off the direction in which he was going before they met, towards the teacher's lounge and the fax machine within. For her part, Mariot ambles off to continue the rebalancing of the haemoglobin levels in her caffeine stream....