The gentle giant of the English department (6’1”). Paideia’s resident etymology freak. The guy whose Macbeth test ruined your freshman English grade. Clark Cloyd is a man of many titles. But who is he, really? I snuck into Cloyd’s room during his fourth period break, bound him to his chair, and forced him to answer my questions in my investigation of the substance of his soul. Here’s what I learned. (Read on for a surprise guest).
AHMANNLLOYD: When did you decide you wanted to be a teacher?
CLOYD: I was in high school when I decided to be a teacher, but I wanted to be a Latin teacher.
AHMANNLLOYD: Really? I was going to ask if it was always English.
CLOYD: No, it wasn’t, because nobody ever told me I was good at it until my freshman year of college. I wanted to be a Latin teacher because I had a great Latin teacher. She was just so inspiring. Her room was painted like a Roman villa.
AHMANNLLOYD: Where was high school?
CLOYD: Shamrock High School at first, now Druid Hills Middle, and then I went to Westminster. It was a really uncomfortable switch, but it was good for me.
AHMANNLLOYD: How did you first hear about Paideia?
CLOYD: I knew John Greene. We went to Shamrock together. We were in the same Latin class.
AHMANNLLOYD If you could get every Paideia student to watch one movie, what would it be?
CLOYD: Do the Right Thing. And a silent. Pick a Chaplin.
AHMANNLLOYD: How about a book?
CLOYD: All the King’s Men is a good one. And Wuthering Heights.
[John Capute enters as we’re on the topic of writers Clark read as a kid who aren’t taught anymore]
CLOYD: Oh, the book that everybody taught. A Separate Peace.
CAPUTE: Oh my god that awful book.
AHMANNLLOYD: What was so terrible about it?
CLOYD It was a book about
teenagers based on nothing that teenagers would ever think, do, conceive, totally artificial, God, ridiculous!
CAPUTE: That’s why everyone read it in high school. The teachers didn’t pick it; it was the schools. I just remember thinking it was stupid. I just didn’t care. I mean a bunch of prep school kids in New England, kind of a murder mystery.
CLOYD: There’s a character named Phineas. Nope! Sorry, done. Over already.
