by Bronx Teacherlady
"Attention teachers: As of tomorrow, the school will not be open until 8am. Repeat: You will not be allowed entry before 8am."
Hmm. School starts at 8:30. I used to get here at 7:15, but not anymore, I guess. I wonder why? I hear in some places, like the suburbs, teachers have keys to the school. Not so much here in the city, where I have to ring the bell to be let in every morning, and I have to leave by 5pm because no one is allowed in here after the office staff leaves. *Sigh*
Two weeks later, the teachers' lounge rumor mill provides this explanation: Principal D is always late to school. She usually blusters in just as the students start to arrive upstairs from breakfast. She also has to leave the school often to go off-site for meetings, so she really likes to park right in front of the school door. This way she can get in as quickly as possible and leave quickly too (there is no school parking lot; on-street parking is limited just like anywhere else in the city). However, Senora C and Mrs L always get to school long before Principal D, and they also like to have the best parking spot, so they usually park there long before she arrives. Principal D is lacking a bit in diplomacy, so she goes to Sra C and Mrs L and tells them, "I need that spot. You cannot park there." Sra C and Mrs L have hated Principal D since she started here 8 years ago, replacing the beloved principal they'd worked with for 20 years prior. They disregard her instructions and continue to arrive early and park in her spot. Enraged, Principal D has the custodial staff paint the curb yellow in front of the door, reserving the spot for herself. Sra C and Mrs L call the city, determine that Principal D does not have the authority to do this (and the school must now, in fact, pay a fine to have the city re-paint the curb). They send her a memo to this effect and continue to park in "her" spot. The next day, the announcement reaches the rest of the staff: "the school will no longer be open before 8am." This way, it seems, Principal D can get there before anyone else, and get the spot she wants. And that is, clearly, what matters most.
Morals of the story:
1.) Kids aren't necessarily the most immature people in the building
2.) Teachers can't always work as hard as they want
________________________________________________________
Bronx Teacherlady worked at a South Bronx elementary school and a charter school in another city before throwing her hands up and retreating to academia to try to fix the problem from another angle.
Tales from the Trenches is a regular feature on the blog Thoughts on Education Policy that aims to illuminate what it's like to work in a school. All current and former staff members are encouraged to submit their own war stories. Submissions may be sent to corey[at]edpolicythoughts.com; submitters must identify themselves, but may remain anonymous or use a pseudonym upon publication.
Showing posts with label Tales from the Trenches. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tales from the Trenches. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tales from the Trenches: The Unpleasant Puddle
by Corey Bunje Bower
It was another ordinary February day at Middle School 135 in the Bronx (which is to say: chaos reigned and tempers flared). I took my class downstairs for gym class and then scampered off to grab a bite to eat. After wolfing down my turkey hero I hurried back to my classroom to prepare for the next period's lesson. A teacher I worked with happened to have just walked in as well.
Much to our dismay, we saw that three of the desks were covered in liquid. "Oh no" I moaned, figuring that some of the older kids had busted into my room during their lunch hour and sprayed Mountain Dew all over the place. I had filed a request months before for maintenance to fix the locks on my classroom doors so that something like this wouldn't happen. For the moment, though, there was only one thing to do -- we grabbed some paper towels and headed over to clean the desk in earnest.
As we surveyed the scene we noticed how wet everything had gotten -- folders, notebooks, backpacks, coats, etc. I wasn't at all happy about this, and to make it even worse the desks belonged to three of my hardest working students. The other teacher started to point out some of the damage while I unrolled the paper towels. I started to mop it up while she picked up a small container brimming with liquid. Then, suddenly, I heard her shriek: "EWWWWWWWWW!" And, with that, she ran out of the room.
"No," I thought, "it can't be." I bent closer to the desks and sniffed. It was! Somebody had peed all over three desks in my room. I soon followed in the run down the hallway.
After washing my heads I tried to figure out what to do next. The period was almost over, but I couldn't possibly let the kids back into the room while it was in this state. I found an Assistant Principal and informed him of the situation. For the first time in my year and a half there, action was swift: maintenance was called, my class was led to the auditorium, and a Dean watched over them until I could make it downstairs.
Rumors were quickly spreading among the members of my class when I reached the auditorium, including a crazy one that somebody's desk had been peed on -- convincing me that this was an inside job and not some rowdy seventh or eighth graders like I'd suspected. I spoke with the kids to see what I could learn while also steadfastly refusing to tell them why we were in the auditorium. In the middle of my Columbo imitation another AP walked in and told me she would watch my class while I spoke with the principal.
I walked into the principal's office and found the person I'd been looking for -- my supervisor, the AP for my section of my building. While seemingly every other administrator had been working to remedy the situation she had been sitting and discussing something with the principal. The principal addressed me: "Mr. Bower, what is going on?" Thinking that she wanted an update on the situation, I told her what had happened.
I was wrong; she didn't want an update of what had happened -- she had meant "what is going on?" in the parental sense, as in "what have you done?" Shocked, I told her that I failed to see how this was my fault -- I was not the person in charge (or, for that matter, even in the room) when it had happened. Apparently, she saw it otherwise. After a little venting, she told me that she would be observing me the next week and that there was a pre-observation letter in my mailbox.
Meanwhile, it didn't take long to get a confession from one of my students once he found out that they were reviewing footage from the security cameras. Apparently he'd asked one of the girls out at lunchtime and she'd turned him down. As retribution, he deemed it appropriate to urinate on her desk and her belongings -- the desks and belongings of the other two students were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time (he'd asked to go the bathroom during gym class and, unbeknownst to the gym teacher, had headed for my room instead of the lavatory). For the first time that year, a student from my class was suspended. After five days of sitting at another school he entered my classroom again. One of the girls who'd been victimized grabbed a broomstick but, somehow, I managed to avoid a riot. Both he and the three girls remained in my class for the rest of the year.
Moral of the story: Children can take out their frustrations in odd ways . . . as can principals.
_______________________________________________________
Corey Bunje Bower taught sixth grade in the Bronx from 2004-2006. He is now a Ph.D. student in Education Policy at Vanderbilt University.
Tales from the Trenches is a regular feature on the blog Thoughts on Education Policy that aims to illuminate what it's like to work in a school. All current and former staff members are encouraged to submit their own war stories. Submissions may be sent to corey[at]edpolicythoughts.com; submitters must identify themselves, but may remain anonymous or use a pseudonym upon publication.
It was another ordinary February day at Middle School 135 in the Bronx (which is to say: chaos reigned and tempers flared). I took my class downstairs for gym class and then scampered off to grab a bite to eat. After wolfing down my turkey hero I hurried back to my classroom to prepare for the next period's lesson. A teacher I worked with happened to have just walked in as well.
Much to our dismay, we saw that three of the desks were covered in liquid. "Oh no" I moaned, figuring that some of the older kids had busted into my room during their lunch hour and sprayed Mountain Dew all over the place. I had filed a request months before for maintenance to fix the locks on my classroom doors so that something like this wouldn't happen. For the moment, though, there was only one thing to do -- we grabbed some paper towels and headed over to clean the desk in earnest.
As we surveyed the scene we noticed how wet everything had gotten -- folders, notebooks, backpacks, coats, etc. I wasn't at all happy about this, and to make it even worse the desks belonged to three of my hardest working students. The other teacher started to point out some of the damage while I unrolled the paper towels. I started to mop it up while she picked up a small container brimming with liquid. Then, suddenly, I heard her shriek: "EWWWWWWWWW!" And, with that, she ran out of the room.
"No," I thought, "it can't be." I bent closer to the desks and sniffed. It was! Somebody had peed all over three desks in my room. I soon followed in the run down the hallway.
After washing my heads I tried to figure out what to do next. The period was almost over, but I couldn't possibly let the kids back into the room while it was in this state. I found an Assistant Principal and informed him of the situation. For the first time in my year and a half there, action was swift: maintenance was called, my class was led to the auditorium, and a Dean watched over them until I could make it downstairs.
Rumors were quickly spreading among the members of my class when I reached the auditorium, including a crazy one that somebody's desk had been peed on -- convincing me that this was an inside job and not some rowdy seventh or eighth graders like I'd suspected. I spoke with the kids to see what I could learn while also steadfastly refusing to tell them why we were in the auditorium. In the middle of my Columbo imitation another AP walked in and told me she would watch my class while I spoke with the principal.
I walked into the principal's office and found the person I'd been looking for -- my supervisor, the AP for my section of my building. While seemingly every other administrator had been working to remedy the situation she had been sitting and discussing something with the principal. The principal addressed me: "Mr. Bower, what is going on?" Thinking that she wanted an update on the situation, I told her what had happened.
I was wrong; she didn't want an update of what had happened -- she had meant "what is going on?" in the parental sense, as in "what have you done?" Shocked, I told her that I failed to see how this was my fault -- I was not the person in charge (or, for that matter, even in the room) when it had happened. Apparently, she saw it otherwise. After a little venting, she told me that she would be observing me the next week and that there was a pre-observation letter in my mailbox.
Meanwhile, it didn't take long to get a confession from one of my students once he found out that they were reviewing footage from the security cameras. Apparently he'd asked one of the girls out at lunchtime and she'd turned him down. As retribution, he deemed it appropriate to urinate on her desk and her belongings -- the desks and belongings of the other two students were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time (he'd asked to go the bathroom during gym class and, unbeknownst to the gym teacher, had headed for my room instead of the lavatory). For the first time that year, a student from my class was suspended. After five days of sitting at another school he entered my classroom again. One of the girls who'd been victimized grabbed a broomstick but, somehow, I managed to avoid a riot. Both he and the three girls remained in my class for the rest of the year.
Moral of the story: Children can take out their frustrations in odd ways . . . as can principals.
_______________________________________________________
Corey Bunje Bower taught sixth grade in the Bronx from 2004-2006. He is now a Ph.D. student in Education Policy at Vanderbilt University.
Tales from the Trenches is a regular feature on the blog Thoughts on Education Policy that aims to illuminate what it's like to work in a school. All current and former staff members are encouraged to submit their own war stories. Submissions may be sent to corey[at]edpolicythoughts.com; submitters must identify themselves, but may remain anonymous or use a pseudonym upon publication.
New Feature: Tales from the Trenches
Update: Until I figure out a better way to do this, I'm going to keep an index of all Tales from the Trenches at the top of this post
February 2nd: The Early Bird Can Stay at Home
January 29th: The Unpleasant Puddle
or see all posts here
Original Post
This is probably my best idea yet. Today marks the introduction of another new feature on this blog -- Tales from the Trenches. Tales from the Trenches will consist of some of the most memorable stories from current and former teachers. I expect that most of the stories will be from teachers who taught/teach in high poverty urban schools, but submissions are open to anybody. I hope that this can help me and the readers of the blog connect with life inside schools -- and put my ivory tower pontifications into context.
The first tale will be posted tonight, and I hope to post at least one a week from now on. I'll occasionally regale you with a tale from my teaching days, but I expect most of these to be from other teachers. If you have a war story that you'd like to share with the world, you can submit it for posting at corey[at]edpolicythoughts.com.
Here are the rules for submissions:
1.) Remember that this blog is supposed to be thoughts on education policy. As such, stories should be intended to provide insight to outsiders as to what working in a school is like and, as such, provoke thought. This is not a forum for simply venting about how you were wronged or how awful your job is.
2.) Try to let the story speak for itself as much as possible -- if you want to offer an in-depth commentary on what's wrong with schools there's another forum for that.
3.) At the end of the story you should provide a very concise analysis of what's to be taken from the story -- preferably in the form of a "moral of the story"
February 2nd: The Early Bird Can Stay at Home
January 29th: The Unpleasant Puddle
or see all posts here
Original Post
This is probably my best idea yet. Today marks the introduction of another new feature on this blog -- Tales from the Trenches. Tales from the Trenches will consist of some of the most memorable stories from current and former teachers. I expect that most of the stories will be from teachers who taught/teach in high poverty urban schools, but submissions are open to anybody. I hope that this can help me and the readers of the blog connect with life inside schools -- and put my ivory tower pontifications into context.
The first tale will be posted tonight, and I hope to post at least one a week from now on. I'll occasionally regale you with a tale from my teaching days, but I expect most of these to be from other teachers. If you have a war story that you'd like to share with the world, you can submit it for posting at corey[at]edpolicythoughts.com.
Here are the rules for submissions:
1.) Remember that this blog is supposed to be thoughts on education policy. As such, stories should be intended to provide insight to outsiders as to what working in a school is like and, as such, provoke thought. This is not a forum for simply venting about how you were wronged or how awful your job is.
2.) Try to let the story speak for itself as much as possible -- if you want to offer an in-depth commentary on what's wrong with schools there's another forum for that.
3.) At the end of the story you should provide a very concise analysis of what's to be taken from the story -- preferably in the form of a "moral of the story"
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