MR. or MRS.? It’s the question every AP senior asks their fellow Sharks the second they receive their schedule. While their reputations precede them – the benign Mrs., the brash Mr. – both bring their Brasington virtuosity to Santiago that exceeds all expectations. From their passing rate tug-of-war, to their golden advice, to their shared love of literature, the Mr. and the Mrs. are, and will always be, #relationshipgoals.

— How many years have you each been teaching AP Literature?
Mr.: 8? 9? Something like that.
Mrs.: Do you remember the year we started? It had to have been…
Mr.: 2004?
Mrs.: Yeah, since 2004 or 2005.
Mr.: Right around 10 years. Wow. That’s a long time.
Mrs.: It is. We’re old.
Mr.: That’s kinda how we started working together, and its how we fell in love, we just started working together so much.
Mrs.: Right, because we didn’t really know each other. He was just this big scary dude. So, the first time we were assigned AP Lit, I thought I’d get to teach it by myself and he thought he’d get to teach it by himself.
Mr.: Yeah, there’s only one, like, key master, right? There’s only one…
Mrs.: Ring holder. So we were both sitting in this summer class, and I’m like, “I think I know that guy.”
Mr.: Who’s that chick? What’s she doing here?
Mrs.: I think he works with me? And it wasn’t like, a friendly thing, it was kinda like a [insert weird noise]. Like a showdown at the corral.
Mr.: And I saw here as the lack of AP classes I’d have, because when you first get into it…
Mrs.: It’s competitive.
Mr.: It’s like, “Hey, I really want the smart kids, cause, you know…” Because you deal with everybody else, and with AP, I can get into the material a bit more, and that for us is what we really love. We really love literature. And managing teenagers isn’t our favorite thing, but we put up with it so we can teach literature. And, I mean, if we had to pick, nobody’s gonna say “I like managing people more than I like literature.” At least nobody like us.
Mrs.: Yeah, it’s weird.
Mr.: We are kinda weird.
Mrs.: [Laughs]
Mr.: But that’s why we’re such a good match.

— Segue’s are weird! Teaching the same material over and over again, it doesn’t get tiring?
Mr.: You’ve just gotta pick the right stuff. See, that’s the beauty of AP Lit. The whole thing for me is, I get to pick my own books. I have pretty good taste; so I’m never gonna get tired of that stuff. I mean, we’re gonna read Hamlet for the 53rd, 55th time this year.
Mrs.: And it never gets old.
Mr.: Every time there’s something new!
Mrs.: And that’s beautiful. And then we get to come home and talk to each other and sometimes we’ll remember a line or a verse. I don’t know, even our conversation goes up another level when we get into Shakespeare.
Mr.: We’ll start quoting couplets to each other, and we’ll be like, “Oh, touché.”
Mrs.: Our material is fantastic because, like he said, we have so much to choose from.
Mr.: We’re the masters, man. I don’t doubt that every kid who’s gonna actually put the time into our class is gonna get something out of it. They’re gonna be exposed to Hemmingway…
Mrs.: Great literature.
Mr.: Steinbeck, and Austen and the greats. And students will learn something from them before they learn anything from us.
Mrs.: But we’re trying to cover what is normally done in two to four classes in college. So we’re trying to cover everything from the Anglo-Saxon era – at least briefly, so that students have a timeline of literary history.
Mr.: With a focus, at the same time, on maintaining voice and developing writing skill.
Mrs.: It’s very difficult, managing.
Mr.: It is, but it’s a fun process.
Mrs.: And for us it’s kind of a fun thing too, because “PLC” is the buzzword around education these days. It’s all about working together and collaborating, which is how we ended up spending so much time together.
Mr.: I think one of the things that makes us such effective collaborators is that we give each other a lot of independence. We don’t have scripted methods, like, well, we’re covering this, and you do it however you want because I can’t do it the way you do it.
Mrs.: We do poetry so differently.
Mr.: And that kind of spirit of independence is one thing that I think could benefit a lot of other groups of collaborators.
Mrs.: We’ll have common assessments, like both our students took the same How To Read Literature Like A Professor test the other day, but the way we taught it was hugely different. And that’s why we love to do study sessions, because sometimes I tell my students, “You guys need to hear from him. He’s a better writer than I am,” because I’m more of a journalistic writer.
Mr.: She’s much more clear than I am.
Mrs.: He’s the poet. And he’s good at it.
Mr.: She’s the storyteller. So we don’t have competing mindsets. She’s working in her element, I’m working in mine, but sometimes I’m thinking, “God, why don’t you phrase it better, woman.”
Mrs.: And I’m thinking, “Can’t you ever get to the point?”

— You’re answering all my questions before I even ask them.
Mrs.: Yeah, that’s what we’ll do.
Mr.: Once you engage the machine, we just go on like this for hours.
Mrs.: Sometimes people can’t stand talking to us, because we’ll just go [insert (another) weird noise].
Mr.: We’ve had people just straight up be like…
Mrs.: “Stop.”
Mr.: They’ll freak out. Hey, maybe they won’t interrupt us now.

— Now, who’s got the higher passing rate?
Mrs.: [Points to the Mr.]
Mr.: Well, if you wanna say the highest passing rate, then it’s the kids who take both of us. One year she was out on maternity leave, and half the kids went with me for a semester and then they transferred back to her. I took all the AP kids so the sub wouldn’t have to do it. And then when she got back she got her three classes back and I kept my three.
Mrs.: Those kids did really well. Statistically, it was shocking. But for us, I always like to give my defense, which is that, statistically, I’ve always served a larger number of kids. I end up with the larger sample size. So, that’s my defense. And usually, I’m a couple points behind him, but this year he killed it and had more fours than we’ve ever seen. So now, in our PLC process, I’m asking him “Alright, you have to share everything. Like, you’ve gotta tell me how you do this. And every time he does something cool, I’m like [gigantic gasp], share!
Mr.: I think the last thing we were talking about was the Lit tone lesson.
Mrs.: The tone lesson! I want his music clips.
Mr.: [Laughs menacingly]
Mrs.: You suck.

— Speaking of Lit, what are your pet peeves when it comes to the seniors?
Mrs.: Y’all don’t read!
Mr.: Yeah, why don’t you read?
Mrs.: Turn off the computer.
Mr.: I don’t get it. All that other stuff is garbage. That’s how I always saw it.
Mrs.: No, it’s inventive, it’s cool, it’s interesting, it’s new.
Mr.: Everybody’s got their strengths. For us, that science homework was the first thing I got done. I wanted to get that off my table and I didn’t want to think about it. And when I got to the books…
Mrs.: Hallelujah.
Mr.: I can kick back…
Mrs.: Get yourself a scarf…
Mr.: That’s the fun stuff. And to think, we’ve got a group of people who, because of the technological pressure and weight of the iPhone and all that, the joy has been taken out of…
Mrs.: Long term extended reading.
Mr.: And to see that declining in humanity, that’s something I don’t want. When that goes, I’m moving to a cabin in Oregon, going Jeremiah Johnson. I’m done with people. As soon as that’s gone, I can’t deal.
Mrs.: What we’ve learned by practice and by reading is that reading a novel is a totally different mental experience than reading an article online or reading an op-ed. And that’s the other thing about online, and I do it to, I love posting my opinions online, I’m so opinionated, but…
Mr.: She is, I love it.
Mrs.: It’s ridiculous, it’s stupid. Nobody cares, right? It’s like screaming into the wind. No one’s listening anyway. But books, if I’m reading 500 pages and I become that character and I get to live that life, then I’ll know what it’s like to be a Russian woman in the 19th century who’s married to a man she can’t stand to the point where she’ll throw herself onto the tracks of a train and die…
Mr.: And then you can apply that knowledge to you own life.
Mrs.: Right! I’m not gonna go that route! I’m not up for that, because I’ve experienced it through her.
Mr.: It’s a very fulfilling life that we’re trying to get you to lead. And I don’t think people buy into that, and I’m like, “You fools!” You’re just gonna enjoy your life less.
Mrs.: It makes you smart, it makes you understand people.
Mr.: I mean, do you really thing that doing those equations is gonna render your soul to a higher level?
Mrs.: Math people are gonna get mad if you get quoted on that.
Mr.: Well, everybody’s got their own thing. I’ll tell you what I think. For me, science and math were always limited, where as English, philosophy, psychology, those were the things that enticed me.
Mrs.: Until you get to the point where math touches astronomy and theory. That is where I get exited. And then I’m mad at myself for not studying math more. I’ve always just shrugged my shoulders and been like, eh, I suck at math. And that’s been really limiting.
Mr.: It’s just the different parts of our brains. We have one part of our brain that –
[Student interrupts to ask Mrs. a question.]
Mr.: [Heavy sigh] Her students always do this. Mine know better. What were we talking about?
Mrs.: Oh, we we’re getting existential about math and theory.
Mr.: Yeah, so I think the way that we do the class is – we love literature so much – we can sell it to the math and science heads.
Mrs.: We try. I do remember that somebody tweeted, “How to hate poetry: take Mrs. Brasington’s class.” Like, ouch!
Mr.: She uses Twitter now.
Mrs.: I just learned, so I’m still getting to know what it’s all about. My gosh, this generation!

— I saw your proposal picture on Twitter!
Mrs.: Wasn’t that cute? I was lovin’ on my husband some extra the other night and was like, well everyone should see how awesome he is. Because, you know, so many people think he’s just this mean dude until you get to know him. There’s such a depth and such a cool soul there. I just felt like bragging about it.

— How would you like your students to brag about you? How would you like to be remembered?
Mrs.: I don’t even care if they remember me, I just want them to remember a poem. I want them to walk out with Shakespeare on their lips.
Mr.: Yeah, this society can make you a dehumanized piece of flesh and if my kids can go out and do something awesome and live imaginative lives, that’s all I want.
Mrs.: And they do. And that’s such a great part about the social media aspect of your generation is we get to see some of where you guys end up. It’s really edifying and rewarding as a teacher, because for years, we never saw that stuff.
Mr.: The legacies are very rewarding.
Mrs.: We’ve got a dream job here. We get to teach the smartest kids at one of the best schools.
Mr.: With the coolest person ever.
Mrs.: We understand it though, when you guys get that wanderlust and you’re ready to get out of here.
Mr.: We’re both Aquarians, so we’re always ready to just bail.
Mrs.: We love to travel. So, we get it, we encourage it. But at the same time, the suburban existence just makes sense for us with a four year old.
Mr.: You don’t really get to do anything.
Mrs.: But don’t forget, if we could, we’d go Walden on everybody.
Mr.: Yep. And for me, I really wanna be apart of civilization to, you know, find my woman and finish my music collection, get my boxes all checked. Getting fed is nice too. But if I could just disappear and come down from the mountain every ten years – that would be my ideal existence. Not see people at all. Traffic does that to you. And then you go back to literature and think, “No way man, people are the joy of the world.”

— This is probably a difficult question, but is there an all time favorite piece of literature that you have?
Mr.: I could read Hamlet every day.
Mrs.: I’m partial to T.S Elliot’s The Wasteland. I think that piece is brilliant. That, and “Invisible Man”. But if we’re gonna talk genres, The Wasteland is my favorite poem. If we’re talking novels… that’s hard. In terms of artistry, I’d go with something like “Beloved” and “Invisible Man”.
Mr.: It’s even harder for me man. I like Hamlet because I can teach it.
Mrs.: Ask me tomorrow and I’ll have a different answer.
Mr.: I think that there are so many different books that stoke a different part of me. I could go into each one of them for different things. Like Trainspotting. I love the idea of the guy having to leave his loser friends.
Mrs.: And go be normal.
Mr.: Yeah, and just extricate yourself and shed your skin.
Mrs.: Or whatever normal is. He has to grow up and stop using heroin to become a man.
Mr.: Yeah, there are just so many books. I can tell you my favorite album: The Clash’s “London Calling”. It’s been the same since I was your age and I’ve never found anything that’s got me.
Mrs.: Joni Mitchell’s “Blue”.
Mr.: Music’s easier – it speaks directly to your emotions. I think there’s so much of an intellectual process with reading a book and you’ve gotta fire those synapses. It’s a complex thing. So once you fire those, it’s rewarding.
Mrs.: I think one thing that’s the most frustrating for us is we feel like we’re offering up nuggets of gold and jewels. Like, “Look at these diamonds! You guys, take these diamonds!” And you’re all running around like, “No.” But I’ll still come in. I’ll come in for the ten kids who have done the reading and are ready to talk about it.

— If you could choose one word, phrase, or piece of literature to give to your seniors as we continue on into our lives, what would it be?
Mr.: Fight the power. The way the world is set up is it’s going to fall on your heads. It’s not set up so that it’s sustainable. We’ve got to find a different energy solution, we’ve got to stop burning fuels, we’ve got to move beyond this.
Mrs.: You guys are gonna really have to move us in a different direction.
Mr.: This generation is gonna feel it worse than ours. At least we’ve had a kid, we’ve self-actualized. But… you guys. You’re going into a pretty competitive and rough place, so, when in doubt, you don’t want to follow the general trend of the sheep. They’re headed off a cliff. Hopefully we can get you guys to lead the herd and stave off the destruction and realize that you’re prime movers. You actually, in every second of your life, have a decision to make. If you’re aware of that, then I think we can look forward to the future. Hopefully. And if you’re just gonna do what you’re told all the time; you’re as dead as those kids on the Korean ferry boat.
Mrs.: I would quote Emerson: “Trust thy self: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” I want you guys to listen to your inner voice. You’ll be incredible.
Mr.: And other than that, crank Zeppelin.