Cosby’s New Lesson Plan

The “Cosby” TV show takes a dip into an alternate universe that sets the sports world in its place this week. Wednesday’s episode pays a visit to a fantasy world where teachers, not athletes, make millions of dollars and live a lifestyle complete with groupies, shoe contracts and pencil and chalkboard eraser endorsements.

Griffin Vesey (played by Doug E. Doug) is the teacher subject of a “pregame” show hosted by Greg Gumbel and Phil Simms. He’s so large he hires Tom Wolfe to ghostwrite his autobiography.

As a “free agent,” Griffin must choose between $50-million contract with his old school in Queens or a $75-million contract from Westchester.

And in this world, it’s the underpaid athletes and entertainers who wonder how priorities got so out of whack.

Says Patrick Ewing, who is part of many cameo appearances--there’s everyone from Bryant Gumbel to Sesame Street’s Elmo: “I blame the media. They treat these teachers like gods. I’d like to see Griffin Vesey take an elbow from Alonzo Mourning.”

It’s good for a few laughs, but the creative forces behind the show hope it generates a few thoughts as well.

“It’s something that’s on everybody’s mind every now and then, no matter what your occupation is,” Bill Cosby said in an interview. “They look at the business and they see the numbers. [Sports] does breed people that we look up to, and these millions and millions happen to make it look like, ‘Gee whiz, why can’t we make a little bit?’

“It’s really dedicated to teachers who are dedicated.”

Executive producer Tom Straw said the idea came from a New York Times Sunday magazine story about author Frank McCourt, who said teachers should be accorded celebrity status.

Straw said the point wasn’t to say athletes should be paid less, but to wonder why there wasn’t a similar market for teachers.

“We gave them everything, to illustrate what they don’t have,” he said.

We all like sports, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Cosby had all kinds of interesting takes, from the government’s need to ensure quality education for everyone (“That playing field ought to be even; if you’re going to leave it up to the business people, you’re going to have the middlemen.”) to the degenerate, unoriginal state of network television programming (“Most of them are writing like they never had a course of any sort in Western Literature. If you want to steal, why don’t you steal from someone who was cooking, not take language off of the street corner.”)

But do you know the first thing he wanted to talk about? The Holyfield-Lewis fight and the state of boxing.

There’s a reason so many people turn to the sports pages first. It’s the same reason they turn on the television.

But sometimes the news in the rest of the paper can’t be ignored.

Cosby saw a jarring photograph in the San Francisco Chronicle recently. “They had a picture of schoolteachers standing on the street, holding up signs saying ‘We need pencils,’ ” Cosby said. “Now that’s reality. They’re not talking about ‘Give us more pay.’ We need pencils.

“Kinko’s makes more money off of schoolteachers printing up papers to give to students because the books are falling apart.

“What we want to do with this show is really try and give some airpower to these teachers and superintendents and principals.”

A little ink couldn’t hurt, either. If they can devote an hour of prime time to the subject (CBS President Leslie Moonves asked them to double the show’s normal length when he heard the idea), we can take some time out in the sports pages.

Whenever I speak at school “Career Days,” the kids think my job is cool because I get to talk to Kobe Bryant. They think the police officer’s job is cool because he gets a gun. They listen to architects and firefighters. About the only people they don’t hear from are the teachers. It’s as if their careers don’t count.

Maybe a kid couldn’t relate to the job’s greatest reward, the satisfaction of seeing a child learn something, to practically hear the clicking in the kid’s mind. But a little reinforcement, early and often, couldn’t hurt.

It isn’t the money. Look, anyone from any walk of life can get rich. The dumb and lucky who pick the right lottery numbers or wind up in the middle of a hot sex scandal live just as well as the smart and industrious.

You know where teachers really miss out? They don’t get the cheers. They’ll never know what it’s like to run through a tunnel and hear a stadium filled with 80,000 people go nuts at the sound of their name.

I’ve seen people applaud Michael Jordan for walking from the hotel lobby to the team bus. And I’ve seen a teacher run into a former student who worked in a restaurant--a foreign-born man she helped learn English, helped in some way to get that job--with no crowds or cameras to record the moment.

There’s no way to flip our entire economic system around, to lavish millions on the teachers and make the athletes buy their own shoes.

But it doesn’t cost anything to cheer, in whatever way, which is the least we can do for the caretakers of our future.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com