What a week.
1) One of the fifth grade teachers quit at the end of last week. That brings our total resignations this schoolyear up to seven.
2) Remember the kid who threatened to punch me in the face a week and a half ago? I screamed at him so loudly on Monday (while I was being observed by the special ed director no less) that I hurt my throat, and both the principal and the social worker came running out of their offices to see what was going on. I laid into the principal about how the kids get to disrespect, make fun of, verbally abuse, sexually harass, and threaten teachers however and whenever they want, and nothing is being done, and nothing changes. I had to walk outside ten blocks in the cold to calm myself down. The inmates are running the asylum, my friends.
3) My dad came home from the hospital today (YAAAYYY!!!) -- but with a diagnosis of lung cancer.
I hope the next seven days are much less interesting.
:/
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
ANOTHER teacher quit (!)
Yep. The sixth grade humanities teacher resigned today -- effective today, of course. No one ever gives two weeks' (or even one day's) notice at this school. Since you need a scorecard to keep track of all the personnel changes at this point, let's review:
1) The 7th/8th grade English teacher quit in early October.
2) The 7th/8th grade math teacher quit in late October.
3) A technology specialist (he worked with teachers, not with students) quit in early December.
4) The vice principal quit in late December.
And now 5) the 6th grade English/history teacher has quit in late January.
Here's the e-mail he sent to me and the other special ed teacher tonight:
Dear Artichoke Heart and _____,
I am sorry I did not tell you in person - I simply couldn't say it over and over today - but because of deep financial need and certain health reasons, I left CrazySchool today and accepted a position offered to me last Friday and confirmed this morning at a school I applied to last year. The position starts tomorrow. The hours are fewer, the school year shorter, and the salary significantly higher. I was caught between the needs of my family and my health and then the kids at CrazySchool. It was a horrible choice, but in the end, the only one I could make, I felt, was for family and health.
You have, of course, every right to be angry because what I did to the kids is not right. I hope, in time, they and you understand. However, in the interim, if it's possible, could you try to keep the trial of Socrates going? I know they love doing it and are looking forward to it happening. If not, I get it.
If you'd like to write, even to yell at me (the words are reverberating in my head anyway), feel free. My home e-mail is _______.
It was a privilege to work with both of you and I wish you only wonderful things.
Be well.
Can you believe it? It's like working on the Titanic, wondering each week who will be the next to jump ship. Unreal. But this teacher was in his late 50s and had over 30 years of teaching experience. Considering I was barely able to get them to match my salary to what the NYC Board of Ed would have paid me, I'm sure he would have gotten paid more for all of that experience at another school. More money for less work, you can't knock it.
In other news, my dad is in the hospital. :( He wasn't feeling well so he went to the doctor today, and his blood pressure was so low the doctor sent him straight to the hospital. (Thank goodness he didn't pass out while driving to the doctor, considering how low his blood pressure was.) So I'll be spending tomorrow with him. I hope he gets better soon -- or better yet, immediately!
1) The 7th/8th grade English teacher quit in early October.
2) The 7th/8th grade math teacher quit in late October.
3) A technology specialist (he worked with teachers, not with students) quit in early December.
4) The vice principal quit in late December.
And now 5) the 6th grade English/history teacher has quit in late January.
Here's the e-mail he sent to me and the other special ed teacher tonight:
Dear Artichoke Heart and _____,
I am sorry I did not tell you in person - I simply couldn't say it over and over today - but because of deep financial need and certain health reasons, I left CrazySchool today and accepted a position offered to me last Friday and confirmed this morning at a school I applied to last year. The position starts tomorrow. The hours are fewer, the school year shorter, and the salary significantly higher. I was caught between the needs of my family and my health and then the kids at CrazySchool. It was a horrible choice, but in the end, the only one I could make, I felt, was for family and health.
You have, of course, every right to be angry because what I did to the kids is not right. I hope, in time, they and you understand. However, in the interim, if it's possible, could you try to keep the trial of Socrates going? I know they love doing it and are looking forward to it happening. If not, I get it.
If you'd like to write, even to yell at me (the words are reverberating in my head anyway), feel free. My home e-mail is _______.
It was a privilege to work with both of you and I wish you only wonderful things.
Be well.
Can you believe it? It's like working on the Titanic, wondering each week who will be the next to jump ship. Unreal. But this teacher was in his late 50s and had over 30 years of teaching experience. Considering I was barely able to get them to match my salary to what the NYC Board of Ed would have paid me, I'm sure he would have gotten paid more for all of that experience at another school. More money for less work, you can't knock it.
In other news, my dad is in the hospital. :( He wasn't feeling well so he went to the doctor today, and his blood pressure was so low the doctor sent him straight to the hospital. (Thank goodness he didn't pass out while driving to the doctor, considering how low his blood pressure was.) So I'll be spending tomorrow with him. I hope he gets better soon -- or better yet, immediately!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Brooklyn Museum; advisory
Went to the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday! I was a couple minutes early, so as I waited for the Nicest Guy in the World to meet me, I studied the shiny black sculptures conveniently placed in the lobby. I especially admired Rodin's Orpheus, his reach upward. The placard said, "This sculpture, with its intense torsion and strain, its mixture of exaltation and despair, reflects the complexity of the theme and Rodin's willingness to have his works express the internal conflict and ambiguity of actual experience, even when dealing with a mythological theme. According to the Greek myth, when Orpheus's wife, Eurydice, died, he descended into the underworld to try to regain her. This he accomplished through the persuasive power of his music. But returning with her to the upper world, he was unable to restrain his passion and glanced back at her too soon, ignoring one of the conditions set by the gods, and lost Eurydice again."
The cruelty of those gods. Always testing you.
Last Friday I had a nice day. I taught a small group lesson in sixth grade social studies using this neat play about Socrates. It was fun, and it went well. The special ed director observed, and I think she's going to give me some good feedback!
But today ended on a sorry note. We're supposed to receive lesson plans for our advisory classes (small groups that meet twice a week). But at least a third of the time, maybe even half the time, we're not given any lesson plans, so each teacher ends up with a group of eight kids they don't have anything to do with. This is despite the fact that at the beginning of the schoolyear, we were told we would always be provided with easy lesson plans that were basically scripts we just had to follow. In the past, whenever I didn't get a lesson plan, I would always make something up from scratch ahead of time (as if I didn't have a thousand other things to do). But last Thursday, I'd had it. We hadn't gotten any lesson plans that week, and I thought, you know what, I'm not going to kill myself to do this anymore. We still went around at the beginning of the period, as we always do, and said our "rose" and our "thorn" (positive part of our day/negative part of our day), and discussed that for a few minutes. But other than that, if the powers that be don't care enough to make sure we have lesson plans for these classes, I'm giving the kids a free period. I can get stuff done, the students will be glad not to have work to do, and everyone's happy. Right?
It worked out fine on Thursday. But today we didn't get any lesson plans yet again -- and wouldn't you know, it was the ONE DAY the principal emerged from her office on the fifth floor and came all the way down to the first floor, where my students and I meet. So she saw them being "free." One boy was reading and a couple others were drawing, but a few were playing with their handheld electronics, which they're not supposed to use at school. I'd turned a blind eye because all I had for them was paper and markers if they wanted to draw. I'm sure it looked bad, so now I'm just waiting for her to send an e-mail out to all teachers about making sure students are "on task" during advisory. To which I'll say, fine -- give us a task for them to be on! ;O
The cruelty of those gods. Always testing you.
Last Friday I had a nice day. I taught a small group lesson in sixth grade social studies using this neat play about Socrates. It was fun, and it went well. The special ed director observed, and I think she's going to give me some good feedback!
But today ended on a sorry note. We're supposed to receive lesson plans for our advisory classes (small groups that meet twice a week). But at least a third of the time, maybe even half the time, we're not given any lesson plans, so each teacher ends up with a group of eight kids they don't have anything to do with. This is despite the fact that at the beginning of the schoolyear, we were told we would always be provided with easy lesson plans that were basically scripts we just had to follow. In the past, whenever I didn't get a lesson plan, I would always make something up from scratch ahead of time (as if I didn't have a thousand other things to do). But last Thursday, I'd had it. We hadn't gotten any lesson plans that week, and I thought, you know what, I'm not going to kill myself to do this anymore. We still went around at the beginning of the period, as we always do, and said our "rose" and our "thorn" (positive part of our day/negative part of our day), and discussed that for a few minutes. But other than that, if the powers that be don't care enough to make sure we have lesson plans for these classes, I'm giving the kids a free period. I can get stuff done, the students will be glad not to have work to do, and everyone's happy. Right?
It worked out fine on Thursday. But today we didn't get any lesson plans yet again -- and wouldn't you know, it was the ONE DAY the principal emerged from her office on the fifth floor and came all the way down to the first floor, where my students and I meet. So she saw them being "free." One boy was reading and a couple others were drawing, but a few were playing with their handheld electronics, which they're not supposed to use at school. I'd turned a blind eye because all I had for them was paper and markers if they wanted to draw. I'm sure it looked bad, so now I'm just waiting for her to send an e-mail out to all teachers about making sure students are "on task" during advisory. To which I'll say, fine -- give us a task for them to be on! ;O
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Chaos, continued
I made it through the first week back at school from Christmas break. Everyone seems angry at each other -- the teachers, I mean. Well, not everyone...but it was Mitchell's idea before he left to re-do the entire school schedule, because right now the kids have six periods of math, English, science, and history a week, but only a few periods of music, art, and theater, so those teachers really have a part-time teaching schedule, though of course with duties, skills classes, enrichment class and advisory class, they're still busy. But the core content area teachers are even busier. So the scheduling committee went through all this work to re-do the schedule at Mitchell's request, and of course made it worse (ha ha). I personally thought some parts of it were better than the original schedule, but the people on the committee were upset at the complaints. I can't really blame them. The whole thing was Mitchell's idea in the first place, and now they're left holding the bag.
There are still a lot of discipline issues. Sending kids to buddy rooms isn't really working, because they end up disrupting the class they're sent to, and there's no real consequence to things like chewing gum (make them spit it out and they're blowing bubbles with a new piece five minutes later), coming to a class late, going to their lockers in between classes.... Discouraging. It's the middle of the fourth year of this school's existence, and we're still figuring all this out?? You'd think we were a first year charter school! All we have is the warning-time out-buddy room system, which isn't working, and suspension, which is applied inconsistently (four kids were suspended the other day for cutting a class, for example, but other kids have been caught skipping class and they've just gotten a phone call home). We can't really have detention, since our school day goes so incredibly late, and we don't have in-school suspension. So now we're convening a discipline committee to try to figure something out.
Over the weekend, a friend was telling me about when he taught at a school for students who'd been kicked out of inner city public schools. They had two huge guys standing in the hallway at all times. If a teacher told a student to, say, take out his notebook, and the student refused, the teacher just had to step out into the hall and call one of the guys over. If the student still refused to take out his notebook, the "bouncer" would literally drag the kid screaming out into the hall. By the time the kid returned to class, he had NO PROBLEM taking out his notebook. !!!
There are still a lot of discipline issues. Sending kids to buddy rooms isn't really working, because they end up disrupting the class they're sent to, and there's no real consequence to things like chewing gum (make them spit it out and they're blowing bubbles with a new piece five minutes later), coming to a class late, going to their lockers in between classes.... Discouraging. It's the middle of the fourth year of this school's existence, and we're still figuring all this out?? You'd think we were a first year charter school! All we have is the warning-time out-buddy room system, which isn't working, and suspension, which is applied inconsistently (four kids were suspended the other day for cutting a class, for example, but other kids have been caught skipping class and they've just gotten a phone call home). We can't really have detention, since our school day goes so incredibly late, and we don't have in-school suspension. So now we're convening a discipline committee to try to figure something out.
Over the weekend, a friend was telling me about when he taught at a school for students who'd been kicked out of inner city public schools. They had two huge guys standing in the hallway at all times. If a teacher told a student to, say, take out his notebook, and the student refused, the teacher just had to step out into the hall and call one of the guys over. If the student still refused to take out his notebook, the "bouncer" would literally drag the kid screaming out into the hall. By the time the kid returned to class, he had NO PROBLEM taking out his notebook. !!!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The toughest week: part 2
Mitchell, our nice, smart, talented vice principal who I really liked, resigned the week before Christmas vacation. :(
A few of the other teachers had suspected something was up. On Tuesday, one woman whispered to me ominously, "Mitchell's desk looked awfully clean this morning." Then there was a leadership meeting with all the administrators on Thursday morning that went on forever. And on Friday, he was absent. "There's an important board meeting this morning," one of the other teachers told me. "Why would he call in sick today of all days?"
At 3:00 that afternoon, we got our answer. Mitchell sent an e-mail to the whole staff (except for Joyce, the principal) with the subject line CONFIDENTIAL. He wrote:
"Good afternoon.
I wanted to do this in person today, but sadly, Joyce asked me not to come in. I am writing to let you know that I have presented my letter of resignation effective 3 pm today. There are a whole host of reasons why this decision is best for me at this time. However, there is one that is most important as it relates to each of you. My role as Vice Principal should have been one of instructional leader, decision-maker, mediator, advisor, supporter, advocate, supervisor... None of these functions were able to be performed to the best of my ability and for the best interest of the students because of the approach of those to whom I answered.
Needless to say, this is not a choice I anticipated having to make at this point in the school year, nor do I expect it to be an easy transition for you. I am sure some of you will even be angry at me and frustrated by my decision. I understand this and you should know that the middle school team is the only reason I struggled with this decision for this long. I am confident that you will move forward best serving our students and families no matter who is in leadership.
Thank you for your unending support and your dedication to our important work. Know that I care deeply for you, even after such a short time together. Be assured that I am here for you and welcome you to be in touch if you ever need anything. My e-mail is _____ and cell number is _____.
I am sorry that this has had to happen via e-mail. I will miss you and wish you and your families a very well deserved holiday break."
We were all in shock, reading it. Mitchell was so dedicated, and so supportive and motivating when the math teacher and then the English teacher quit -- and now HE was resigning. I wonder if Joyce threatened to fire him and he said, "You can't fire me -- I quit!" There was definitely no love lost between the two of them. (During one of our professional development sessions, he gleefully high-fived people as soon as Joyce left the room.)
There was also a -- well, "scandal" is too strong a word, but an "issue," shall we say, with the report card grades. When report cards were due in early December, the administration suddenly realized we hardly had any math or English grades for the kids -- the subs certainly don't get paid to grade papers, so they hadn't. Mitchell and a few of the specialists scrambled to figure out what assignments had been given and what grades the kids deserved. In English, a lot of the kids hadn't taken the sub's assignments seriously, so they'd barely done any work; therefore, they got really low grades on their report cards. But their parents hit the roof, so Mitchell ended up writing a letter to all the parents saying he understood their concerns, and that each student would instead be given the grade they'd received in English during the last quarter of the previous schoolyear, since those grades were higher. ??? That didn't make much sense to me. But one of the specialists who'd helped figure out the grades told me she asked Mitchell point blank, "Could I lose my job over this?"
He assured her, "No, you're safe. If anyone's going to be out over this, it'll be me."
So, I feel like we don't know the whole story, and we probably never will. But I'll miss Mitchell a lot. It'll be sad to go back to school from Christmas break tomorrow, knowing he won't be there. :(
A few of the other teachers had suspected something was up. On Tuesday, one woman whispered to me ominously, "Mitchell's desk looked awfully clean this morning." Then there was a leadership meeting with all the administrators on Thursday morning that went on forever. And on Friday, he was absent. "There's an important board meeting this morning," one of the other teachers told me. "Why would he call in sick today of all days?"
At 3:00 that afternoon, we got our answer. Mitchell sent an e-mail to the whole staff (except for Joyce, the principal) with the subject line CONFIDENTIAL. He wrote:
"Good afternoon.
I wanted to do this in person today, but sadly, Joyce asked me not to come in. I am writing to let you know that I have presented my letter of resignation effective 3 pm today. There are a whole host of reasons why this decision is best for me at this time. However, there is one that is most important as it relates to each of you. My role as Vice Principal should have been one of instructional leader, decision-maker, mediator, advisor, supporter, advocate, supervisor... None of these functions were able to be performed to the best of my ability and for the best interest of the students because of the approach of those to whom I answered.
Needless to say, this is not a choice I anticipated having to make at this point in the school year, nor do I expect it to be an easy transition for you. I am sure some of you will even be angry at me and frustrated by my decision. I understand this and you should know that the middle school team is the only reason I struggled with this decision for this long. I am confident that you will move forward best serving our students and families no matter who is in leadership.
Thank you for your unending support and your dedication to our important work. Know that I care deeply for you, even after such a short time together. Be assured that I am here for you and welcome you to be in touch if you ever need anything. My e-mail is _____ and cell number is _____.
I am sorry that this has had to happen via e-mail. I will miss you and wish you and your families a very well deserved holiday break."
We were all in shock, reading it. Mitchell was so dedicated, and so supportive and motivating when the math teacher and then the English teacher quit -- and now HE was resigning. I wonder if Joyce threatened to fire him and he said, "You can't fire me -- I quit!" There was definitely no love lost between the two of them. (During one of our professional development sessions, he gleefully high-fived people as soon as Joyce left the room.)
There was also a -- well, "scandal" is too strong a word, but an "issue," shall we say, with the report card grades. When report cards were due in early December, the administration suddenly realized we hardly had any math or English grades for the kids -- the subs certainly don't get paid to grade papers, so they hadn't. Mitchell and a few of the specialists scrambled to figure out what assignments had been given and what grades the kids deserved. In English, a lot of the kids hadn't taken the sub's assignments seriously, so they'd barely done any work; therefore, they got really low grades on their report cards. But their parents hit the roof, so Mitchell ended up writing a letter to all the parents saying he understood their concerns, and that each student would instead be given the grade they'd received in English during the last quarter of the previous schoolyear, since those grades were higher. ??? That didn't make much sense to me. But one of the specialists who'd helped figure out the grades told me she asked Mitchell point blank, "Could I lose my job over this?"
He assured her, "No, you're safe. If anyone's going to be out over this, it'll be me."
So, I feel like we don't know the whole story, and we probably never will. But I'll miss Mitchell a lot. It'll be sad to go back to school from Christmas break tomorrow, knowing he won't be there. :(
Sunday, December 20, 2009
The toughest week: part 1
Last week was HARD.
Rough part #1: Being sexually harassed at work...by a group of seventh grade GIRLS (!). Yes. Who would've predicted THAT? I've blogged before about how my playwriting class has devolved into mayhem -- even though it's only 11 kids, six of the girls (I secretly think of them as the "Nasty Six") should never be in the same class ever again, because they just goad each other into worse and worse behavior. Last Tuesday as they were (allegedly) working on their plays, one of them asked me if I was married. "No," I said distractedly while I went through some papers, "I have a boyfriend."
"YOU have a boyfriend?" they marveled incredulously, as if I were so repulsive they couldn't grasp the concept. Then they started asking me all these questions, innocuous ones at first: what's his name, do you have a picture of him, how did you meet. This, by the way, was the first time I ever lied about how the Nicest Guy in the World and I met (on Match.com). I never mind telling other adults, but I knew instantly that they would have a field day with that information. So I lied and told them we met at a friend's party.
But then their questions quickly descended into outright sexual ones. "Do you kiss your boyfriend?" "Are you still a virgin?" "Do you give your boyfriend head?" That last one shocked me so much, I thought I must not have heard it correctly, so I said, "What?" And she REPEATED it! No matter what they asked, I said, "That's really inappropriate and disrespectful. I'm not answering that. You have an assignment you should be doing." But they would just laugh their heads off and ask me something even worse. And honestly, I didn't know what to do. Administration has been on us to keep the kids in class and not kick them out unless it's a safety issue, and I didn't feel threatened physically...just emotionally! So I just took it for the rest of class until it was finally time to go. I was dreading class the next day, but luckily it was cut short due to an assembly. They asked if I'd brought in a photo of my boyfriend, which of course I hadn't, and when I said no, one of the girls said with a smirk, "No photo of your imaginary friend?" They don't believe the Nicest Guy in the World exists, I guess. This time they didn't get into the sexual questions, but probably only because the period was shorter than usual.
But the next day I was helping in one of the seventh grade math classes, and a group of kids on the side of the room kept looking over at me, whispering and laughing, so I knew they were insulting me in some way. I don't really care one way or the other, except that they weren't getting their work done, and they were distracting me and the kids I was helping. Then one girl from my playwriting class detached herself from the group, walked over to where I was standing, dropped a paper at my feet, and slowly walked away. Thinking she was just littering, I called her back to pick it up, which she did with a big smirk and handed it to me. It said, "Ha ha ha lolsz SHE GOT NO NECK = Ms. Artichoke." Which is kind of funny, because I actually have a very long neck -- these kids can't even make fun of a person correctly! Unless it's some kind of sexual reference I'm not aware of (I'm getting the distinct impression that some of these 12-year-olds know more about sex than I do).
I knew Mitchell and the other administrators would probably be pissed if I kicked anyone out of class, but I felt I had to nip this in the bud immediately. I can't do my job and actually teach the kids I need to teach if half the class is laughing at me to such an extent that it's distracting. So I immediately took the girl who dropped the note and the one who wrote it out of class. I did it calmly, but they were NOT happy about it. I brought them to my room for the rest of the period to have them do the math there, and the note-writer finally settled down and did some work. But the girl who had showed me the note, the one who's in my enrichment class, started crying and carrying on about how she shouldn't get in trouble because she hadn't written the note. Without permission she ran into Mitchell's office (no one was in there -- all the administrators were at a leadership meeting), and I watched as she called her mother -- which was great, since it saved me the trouble of dialing the numbers myself. ;o After she sobbed to her mother, I got on the phone, and told her not only about the girl's behavior in class that day, but also the things she'd said to me on Tuesday. "She was asking me really inappropriate and disrespectful questions, like 'Who is your boyfriend?' and 'Are you still a virgin?'" I explained.
At that, the girl burst into fresh sobs and hollered, "That is not true! I never asked who your boyfriend was!" Which I thought was really funny -- THAT was the question she objected to? But she admits to asking me if I was still a virgin?? Talk about being a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
Her mother was appropriately mortified, apologized on her daughter's behalf, said she should definitely know better and asked to talk to her daughter again. But again, she ran out of the room without permission, back to my room, where she wrote this statement:
"In playwriting I agree that I give Ms. Artichoke attitude. But I didn’t ask Ms. Artichoke if she have a boyfriend? And is she a virgin and do she suck boys penis. And ask her about her sex life. And her relationships. It was Inez. And Debony. Me and Karla be laughing at it. And they be sayin she got no neck – Janique, and others."
After lunch, Mitchell finally got out of the leadership meeting and talked to them, and sent them back to class. The girl who wrote the note saw me in the hall later and apologized. But I didn't see the girl from my playwriting class again that day, and she was absent on Friday.
So on Thursday after school, I went to the special ed director and asked her if she could be in the room with me during playwriting this coming Tuesday, because this group of girls is basically sexually harassing me and I don't feel comfortable being in the room alone with them. She asked me to tell her the whole story, and when I did, she practically fell off her chair. Which was nice to see, actually, because while on one level I like her, on another level she can be a little by-the-book and robotic, so it felt good to actually get a reaction out of her.
"Well, that IS sexual harassment, and we take that very seriously," she said. She called the principal that very second in her office and told her I would be filling out a discipline report about the incident, which I did that night.
I also told two of the people who work in the office about the whole thing, and they were so appalled about Inez, the girl who'd asked (twice) 'do you give your boyfriend head?', that they called her mother and talked to her themselves! "Inez is a Christian!" the woman in the office said. "She lives above a church. Her father is a deacon!"
Whatever they said must've gotten to her, because she came to my room the last period of the day on Friday practically trembling, saying how sorry she was, promising she was going to change her ways and stay away from 'bad influences' (the other five of the Nasty Six, I assume), and asking my forgiveness. She even hugged me!
The whole incident was so bizarre -- like an episode from "Mean Girls," except they forgot I wasn't another seventh grade girl they could push around but an actual teacher. Thank God this class ends on January 6th. Not a moment too soon for me. Unreal.
Rough part #1: Being sexually harassed at work...by a group of seventh grade GIRLS (!). Yes. Who would've predicted THAT? I've blogged before about how my playwriting class has devolved into mayhem -- even though it's only 11 kids, six of the girls (I secretly think of them as the "Nasty Six") should never be in the same class ever again, because they just goad each other into worse and worse behavior. Last Tuesday as they were (allegedly) working on their plays, one of them asked me if I was married. "No," I said distractedly while I went through some papers, "I have a boyfriend."
"YOU have a boyfriend?" they marveled incredulously, as if I were so repulsive they couldn't grasp the concept. Then they started asking me all these questions, innocuous ones at first: what's his name, do you have a picture of him, how did you meet. This, by the way, was the first time I ever lied about how the Nicest Guy in the World and I met (on Match.com). I never mind telling other adults, but I knew instantly that they would have a field day with that information. So I lied and told them we met at a friend's party.
But then their questions quickly descended into outright sexual ones. "Do you kiss your boyfriend?" "Are you still a virgin?" "Do you give your boyfriend head?" That last one shocked me so much, I thought I must not have heard it correctly, so I said, "What?" And she REPEATED it! No matter what they asked, I said, "That's really inappropriate and disrespectful. I'm not answering that. You have an assignment you should be doing." But they would just laugh their heads off and ask me something even worse. And honestly, I didn't know what to do. Administration has been on us to keep the kids in class and not kick them out unless it's a safety issue, and I didn't feel threatened physically...just emotionally! So I just took it for the rest of class until it was finally time to go. I was dreading class the next day, but luckily it was cut short due to an assembly. They asked if I'd brought in a photo of my boyfriend, which of course I hadn't, and when I said no, one of the girls said with a smirk, "No photo of your imaginary friend?" They don't believe the Nicest Guy in the World exists, I guess. This time they didn't get into the sexual questions, but probably only because the period was shorter than usual.
But the next day I was helping in one of the seventh grade math classes, and a group of kids on the side of the room kept looking over at me, whispering and laughing, so I knew they were insulting me in some way. I don't really care one way or the other, except that they weren't getting their work done, and they were distracting me and the kids I was helping. Then one girl from my playwriting class detached herself from the group, walked over to where I was standing, dropped a paper at my feet, and slowly walked away. Thinking she was just littering, I called her back to pick it up, which she did with a big smirk and handed it to me. It said, "Ha ha ha lolsz SHE GOT NO NECK = Ms. Artichoke." Which is kind of funny, because I actually have a very long neck -- these kids can't even make fun of a person correctly! Unless it's some kind of sexual reference I'm not aware of (I'm getting the distinct impression that some of these 12-year-olds know more about sex than I do).
I knew Mitchell and the other administrators would probably be pissed if I kicked anyone out of class, but I felt I had to nip this in the bud immediately. I can't do my job and actually teach the kids I need to teach if half the class is laughing at me to such an extent that it's distracting. So I immediately took the girl who dropped the note and the one who wrote it out of class. I did it calmly, but they were NOT happy about it. I brought them to my room for the rest of the period to have them do the math there, and the note-writer finally settled down and did some work. But the girl who had showed me the note, the one who's in my enrichment class, started crying and carrying on about how she shouldn't get in trouble because she hadn't written the note. Without permission she ran into Mitchell's office (no one was in there -- all the administrators were at a leadership meeting), and I watched as she called her mother -- which was great, since it saved me the trouble of dialing the numbers myself. ;o After she sobbed to her mother, I got on the phone, and told her not only about the girl's behavior in class that day, but also the things she'd said to me on Tuesday. "She was asking me really inappropriate and disrespectful questions, like 'Who is your boyfriend?' and 'Are you still a virgin?'" I explained.
At that, the girl burst into fresh sobs and hollered, "That is not true! I never asked who your boyfriend was!" Which I thought was really funny -- THAT was the question she objected to? But she admits to asking me if I was still a virgin?? Talk about being a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
Her mother was appropriately mortified, apologized on her daughter's behalf, said she should definitely know better and asked to talk to her daughter again. But again, she ran out of the room without permission, back to my room, where she wrote this statement:
"In playwriting I agree that I give Ms. Artichoke attitude. But I didn’t ask Ms. Artichoke if she have a boyfriend? And is she a virgin and do she suck boys penis. And ask her about her sex life. And her relationships. It was Inez. And Debony. Me and Karla be laughing at it. And they be sayin she got no neck – Janique, and others."
After lunch, Mitchell finally got out of the leadership meeting and talked to them, and sent them back to class. The girl who wrote the note saw me in the hall later and apologized. But I didn't see the girl from my playwriting class again that day, and she was absent on Friday.
So on Thursday after school, I went to the special ed director and asked her if she could be in the room with me during playwriting this coming Tuesday, because this group of girls is basically sexually harassing me and I don't feel comfortable being in the room alone with them. She asked me to tell her the whole story, and when I did, she practically fell off her chair. Which was nice to see, actually, because while on one level I like her, on another level she can be a little by-the-book and robotic, so it felt good to actually get a reaction out of her.
"Well, that IS sexual harassment, and we take that very seriously," she said. She called the principal that very second in her office and told her I would be filling out a discipline report about the incident, which I did that night.
I also told two of the people who work in the office about the whole thing, and they were so appalled about Inez, the girl who'd asked (twice) 'do you give your boyfriend head?', that they called her mother and talked to her themselves! "Inez is a Christian!" the woman in the office said. "She lives above a church. Her father is a deacon!"
Whatever they said must've gotten to her, because she came to my room the last period of the day on Friday practically trembling, saying how sorry she was, promising she was going to change her ways and stay away from 'bad influences' (the other five of the Nasty Six, I assume), and asking my forgiveness. She even hugged me!
The whole incident was so bizarre -- like an episode from "Mean Girls," except they forgot I wasn't another seventh grade girl they could push around but an actual teacher. Thank God this class ends on January 6th. Not a moment too soon for me. Unreal.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
If you don't have anything nice to say...you must be blogging!
I'm sorry I haven't put up a new entry in so long. I really don't like my job lately, so blogging about it only makes me feel like I'm whining. More kids keep joining my playwriting enrichment class and it has descended into chaos. They talk so much we can barely read a scene aloud. My advisory class still sucks, too. I'm not sure which is worse: being blatantly ignored even when you're standing right in a kid's face telling them to stop talking and do their work, or dealing with the rudeness and disrespect they engage in when they do acknowledge your presence. Kids are cutting class, hiding in the bathrooms, hanging out in the stairwells, and when they do go to class, so many of them are so incredibly rude to teachers. How dare we ask them to learn, right?
When we were evacuated a couple weeks ago after someone (an adult) caused nauseating fumes by cleaning paint brushes with gasoline (don't ask), I chatted up the sub who was in for the science teacher that day. He said he has subbed in almost every charter school in the city, and our school is the only one where, when they call him to sub, he truly hesitates, because our kids' behavior is so awful. Isn't that interesting? Same types of schools, same city, same population, and yet our students' behavior is that much worse.
But then I turned around and chatted with Jill, the long-term English sub, and *she* said, "I've worked in schools where the kids screamed 'f--- you!' right in my face and threw objects at me, and these kids don't do that."
I felt like saying, "Give them time." ;O Actually, one student did whip a pencil at me a month or so ago. It hit me in the back, but still. I brought him to the office and he was talked to, but I don't think anything else happened.
Last Thursday the dam finally broke and I cried in front of Mitchell. Mortifying. The board suddenly wanted all this data last week to show the kids were learning something, so we had to give them this diagnostic test in English, and they were NOT happy about it. I helped proctor the test, which took almost two periods for each class, and the one seventh grade class was not very good about it, even though their history teacher, who they generally like, was in the room with me. Just stupid stuff like banging on the desk, whistling, trying to talk. But I walked out of there thinking, I cannot do this again with the other seventh grade class, with only the long-term English sub to back me up -- not during the second-to-last period of the day, when I was overtired and hadn't had any periods off except my 25 minute wolf-down-my-lunch time.
I rarely ask for help, but I tried to ask this time. I tried the mature, professional approach first. I went to my direct supervisor, the special ed director, and told her my concerns: the one seventh grade class had been just barely OK with their regular teacher and me both in the room, but I feared the second class wouldn't take it seriously, especially with just me and the sub there. I asked point-blank if someone else could come in and help us proctor, but she basically said no, to just "set the expectation" that they should take it seriously. Um, I can't even get them to let me finish a sentence! But I just said, "Oh. Okay." She said I could talk to Mitchell about it if I wanted, but clearly she wasn't going to help me.
So I went to Mitchell, and he basically said the same thing. "There are going to be two of you in there, right?" he said. Yes, one of whom is a sub they don't take seriously, I tried to say in a polite way. It became clear he wasn't going to help me either, and I finally broke down and started crying. Well. THAT got his attention. Suddenly someone else was found to help proctor the exam. Suddenly he and the special ed director wanted to know how theycould offer me more support. But it shouldn't take going to them in tears -- or in anger, as other teachers have done -- to get that, should it?
So. It was incredibly embarrassing, but it was effective. One of the other teachers graciously, courageously tepped in to teach my advisory class last period, since my weepiness had just barely stopped at that point. I brought my laptop and worked in the back of Mitchell's office that last period, listening to the myriad crises that presented themselves: one student claimed all her school books had been stolen; two others were taking a long time to finish their diagnostic tests; another had lost her locker key, couldn't get into her locker to get her winter coat, and Mitchell couldn't find the master key. All those ridiculous but time-consuming issues are probably why it's only the squeaky (i.e., weeping or enraged) wheel that gets the grease around there.
When we were evacuated a couple weeks ago after someone (an adult) caused nauseating fumes by cleaning paint brushes with gasoline (don't ask), I chatted up the sub who was in for the science teacher that day. He said he has subbed in almost every charter school in the city, and our school is the only one where, when they call him to sub, he truly hesitates, because our kids' behavior is so awful. Isn't that interesting? Same types of schools, same city, same population, and yet our students' behavior is that much worse.
But then I turned around and chatted with Jill, the long-term English sub, and *she* said, "I've worked in schools where the kids screamed 'f--- you!' right in my face and threw objects at me, and these kids don't do that."
I felt like saying, "Give them time." ;O Actually, one student did whip a pencil at me a month or so ago. It hit me in the back, but still. I brought him to the office and he was talked to, but I don't think anything else happened.
Last Thursday the dam finally broke and I cried in front of Mitchell. Mortifying. The board suddenly wanted all this data last week to show the kids were learning something, so we had to give them this diagnostic test in English, and they were NOT happy about it. I helped proctor the test, which took almost two periods for each class, and the one seventh grade class was not very good about it, even though their history teacher, who they generally like, was in the room with me. Just stupid stuff like banging on the desk, whistling, trying to talk. But I walked out of there thinking, I cannot do this again with the other seventh grade class, with only the long-term English sub to back me up -- not during the second-to-last period of the day, when I was overtired and hadn't had any periods off except my 25 minute wolf-down-my-lunch time.
I rarely ask for help, but I tried to ask this time. I tried the mature, professional approach first. I went to my direct supervisor, the special ed director, and told her my concerns: the one seventh grade class had been just barely OK with their regular teacher and me both in the room, but I feared the second class wouldn't take it seriously, especially with just me and the sub there. I asked point-blank if someone else could come in and help us proctor, but she basically said no, to just "set the expectation" that they should take it seriously. Um, I can't even get them to let me finish a sentence! But I just said, "Oh. Okay." She said I could talk to Mitchell about it if I wanted, but clearly she wasn't going to help me.
So I went to Mitchell, and he basically said the same thing. "There are going to be two of you in there, right?" he said. Yes, one of whom is a sub they don't take seriously, I tried to say in a polite way. It became clear he wasn't going to help me either, and I finally broke down and started crying. Well. THAT got his attention. Suddenly someone else was found to help proctor the exam. Suddenly he and the special ed director wanted to know how theycould offer me more support. But it shouldn't take going to them in tears -- or in anger, as other teachers have done -- to get that, should it?
So. It was incredibly embarrassing, but it was effective. One of the other teachers graciously, courageously tepped in to teach my advisory class last period, since my weepiness had just barely stopped at that point. I brought my laptop and worked in the back of Mitchell's office that last period, listening to the myriad crises that presented themselves: one student claimed all her school books had been stolen; two others were taking a long time to finish their diagnostic tests; another had lost her locker key, couldn't get into her locker to get her winter coat, and Mitchell couldn't find the master key. All those ridiculous but time-consuming issues are probably why it's only the squeaky (i.e., weeping or enraged) wheel that gets the grease around there.
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