The View from the Blackboard

To those who have stumbled upon my writing: Welcome!

I started this web log to let off work-related steam without burdening my family or friends, or getting myself canned. Having a private place where I could safely tell true, ugly stories about my students and coworkers made teaching less painful. Of course, I left out the many lovely stories I also could have shared.

As the school year progressed there were more bad days, and more good ones. But spring got hectic (as it usually does), so I focused on handling the work rather than complaining about it.

I recommend scrolling down to the last entry and working your way up.

Happy *summer*!

Current Mood: refreshed

For the first time in my teaching career, I have a student this year who cannot remember how to spell his own name. For instance, sometimes his surname has 6 letters, and other times it has 8.

Current Mood: mellow

The assignment was to spend the next month reading a biography for a book report. I took the seventh graders up to the school library and allowed them to choose books from the school's ample biography section. "There's nothing good here," Melanie whined.

"Okay, Melanie," I said, "why don't you visit your local library or a book store and find a book that interests you? Then let me see it and I'll let you know whether your book will work for this assignment."

All the other students had chosen books that had chapters and at least 175 pages. Melanie showed up the following Monday with a 100-page book (about half the pages were filled with pictures) on Hillary Duff. It had the age level 9-12 noted on the back cover. I told her that this book would not do.

The next day Melanie brought me a typed note from her mother. "Melanie chose a book that interests her and is appropriate for her age, according to the librarian at the Brooklyn Public Library. I trust that you will respect her choice and not remove the fun from this reading assignment."

"Dear Mrs. __________, I wrote back. "I am glad that Melanie found a book she thinks will be fun to read. But I want the students to read books that will challenge them."

The following day I received a second typed letter. "Melanie WILL BE doing her book report on the Hillary Duff biography, as we have no time to revisit the library."

So I want to the public library on Melanie's behalf after work and checked out a dozen books that I thought might interest her. The next day she chose one and seemed genuinely excited about reading it.

BUT Melanie's mother still had an axe to grind. She called Mr. Principal and threatened to take the issue to the school board if Melanie wasn't allowed to read the Duff biography. Mr. Principal, always afraid of losing a student's tuition dollars, ordered me to be agreeable.

What has Melanie learned from this? For one thing, she learned that she doesn't need to respect the authority of her teacher. Her mommy can get the rules changed to make things go Melanie's way. She has also seen that acting difficult brings positive results. And, most saddening to me, that a juvenile book is just as worthy as a challenging one.

Current Mood: enraged

Today, following a disciplinary incident, the vice principal vented her frustrations to me. She referred to the girl mentioned in the previous post as a "bitch."

How unprofessional was that?

Current Mood: shocked

I don't tolerate students using "gay" as a pejorative in my classroom. Some of the students want to discuss this policy and the "unnaturalness" or "immorality" of homosexuality. I don't get into the trap of expressing my political views, but simply say that sexuality is a defining characteristic, like one's height or skin color, and teasing a person for any one of those traits would be unkind.

One eighth grade girl still lets the word slip occasionally. In a friendly discussion with her mother yesterday, I found out why: The woman, a fifty-year-old professional, said to me, "Taking the students to a museum on every field trip--that's so gay!

Current Mood: pensive

Frequently this happens: I talk to a parent whose child is lagging behind due to some major cognitive challenges, which have gone undefined because of the parents' unwillingness to admit there is an issue and start the testing process. The poor kid is struggling to achieve, yet earning straight F's. I suggest possible disorders and urge the parents to seek help.

At the end of the conversation, the mom or the dad says, "Don't let Mike slack off. He's smart but so darn lazy."

Current Mood: sad

On Monday I'll start "To Kill a Mockingbird" with the seventh graders. This will make four readings in the last four years for me, and for the first time I am dreading it.

Teaching: A surefire way to strip the fun from your favorite books!

Current Mood: melancholy

I'll betcha every teacher in New York City is hoping the snow pours down all night. We appreciate snow days at least as much as the kids do.

Current Mood: hopeful

Here's an idea for publishers of textbooks used in middle school classrooms: Always put a boring full-page illustration on page 69. Otherwise, the teacher will at some point have to say, "Turn to page 69," and two minutes of class time with be lost to hormonal giggles.

Current Mood: creative

The mother of a seventh grader called me today. She had been upset to learn from Jimmy's midterm report that he had flunked three spelling tests.

"I want you to send me a note every time he fails a test and then call me to let me know that you sent a note," she demanded. And because this conversation hadn't gotten crazy enough, Jimmy's mother added, "Of course, I don't hold you entirely responsible for those grades."

Current Mood: weird

This story will seem like a scene from a sitcom. It isn't. It really happened to me today.

During my free period I was looking up info on Mark Twain in the school library. The encyclopedia set is located on a low shelf on a bookcase in the back of the room. Since this is a private school, where most staff wear different hats at various times, the school librarian was out teaching an art class. I was all alone, sitting on the floor as I perused World Book's long "Twain, Mark" article.

Suddenly I heard the heavy wood library door slam and my principal say, "Top secret, Maureen, I can't stand [the science teacher]. We need to find a way to eliminate him as soon as possible."

I thought of popping up and saying "Hi, I'm here," before making a quick, awkward exit. But I probably had already heard too much of the conversation for that route. I didn't have another class for 30 minutes, and surely the administrators wouldn't linger that long, so I closed the book and concentrated on keeping quiet.

Maureen, the vice principal, offered some helpful suggestions on how to get the teacher fired. She also had some ideas on posting a job ad without using the school's fax number or address. The science teacher wouldn't know he'd been axed until a replacement showed up to teach his classes.

It took Mr. Principal and his cohort 10 minutes to plan the science lab coup d'etat. My calves had fallen asleep and my ankles hurt.

I heard a shy knock at the library door. "Yes?" Mr. Principal boomed.

"We're looking for Mrs. Brooklynteacher," said a familiar sixth-grade voice. "Do you know where she is?"

I had forgotten I'd told two students who needed to make up a test that they could find me in the library during my free period.

Mr. Principal and tersely, "Have her paged."

The door clicked, and the plotting resumed.

A few minutes later I heard my name called over the loud speaker. Terrified and guilty about abandoning those students, I felt my cheeks burn.

I had no choice but to ignore the page and hope my students would give up their search.

Ten minutes passed. The administrators now talked about other people they wanted to fire. (Thankfully I didn't make the list.) I had class in just ten minutes now, and I feared the worst.

Five minutes later I was almost ready to turn myself in. Would they believe that I had gotten so engrossed in the encyclopedia that I hadn't noticed their conversation? Definitely not.

I could say that I had taken a nap on the shag rug. That would surely get me fired, but I didn't dread losing my job as much as being thought a snoop.

Two minutes went by. Then--hallelujah!--Mr. Principal and Maureen decided it was time to leave. I waited a minute, listened for silence outside the door, and then dashed upstairs to my next class.

Current Mood: devious

Today marked Day One of the eighth grade New York State English Language Arts (ELA) Exam. For two years I have prepped my class for this test. (It is actually not a bad test to "teach to." The most compelling parts involve 1) listening to a passage and writing an essay about it and 2) reading two pieces and then composing an essay that synthesizes the two.) My students have been understanding and distilling readings for some time now, and they generally write terrific, richly detailed essays.

When we practice note-taking I read to them in a normal tone of voice.

Before the state test today Mr. Principal shoved me aside and told me to "watch how it's done." Then he proceeded to read the passage to the students in a bizarre way, over-enunciating the words he thought were important and sort of mumbling the rest. The problem with his "helpful" technique was discovered after he left the room and the students were left to write their essays. Panic stricken, each one called me over. "This essay has to refer a quote by Sylvia Earle. But I have nothing in my notes about Sylvia Earle or what she said!"

This would be a funny story if the students' performance was not ultimately going to reflect on me. I'm sure Mr. Principal will have some disapproving words for me when the test scores come back.

Current Mood: worried

Of course, if I had made more of my intellectual abilities I never would have ended up here.

Current Mood: crushed

A certain class is divided into two groups--one made up of functioning writers, the other consisting of those who will seemingly never grasp the "complex" relationship among there, their and they're. The challenged group gets extra help with things like contractions (the same lesson over and over again: "Apostrophes are not optional!") while the others create independent writing projects.

Today one of the girls in the stronger group got into a squabble with a weaker student. "Well at least I'm not in the RETARDS' grammar group!" she huffed.

I took the supercilious young lady aside and asked her what a retarded person's IQ might be. She had no answer. "But," she asserted, "my IQ is very high. It's ---."

I explained to her that a mentally challenged person's IQ is 70, at most. And I assured her (though it's not 100 percent true) that this school selectively weeds out students with very low IQ stores, so no one in her class deserves the "retard" label. (Actually parents of challenged students often send them to my school--which is desperate for tuition dollars--just to avoid the public school system's labeling.)

"And by the way," I said, "my IQ is higher than yours, and I've never imagined that made me better than anyone else. The really impressive thing about a person is how much kindness he or she shows other people."

Current Mood: complacent

Today Mr. Principal popped his head into my classroom. I was seated at my teacher's desk, leading a writing workshop. Mr. Principal saw me sitting and scowled. "Stand up!" he hissed.

I had forgotten--or willfuly disobeyed--one of the principal's strictures: Stay on your feet.

Standing, apparently, is a clear mark of good teaching. It also helps explain my prematurely bulging vericose veins.

Current Mood: discontent

The school I teach at is a private school that runs from grades one through eight. I teach in the upper grades, but sometimes I get called on to sub with the little kids. Today I spent twenty minutes with the first graders as they finished their lunch, which was scary: I don't have experience with small children, and I always worry that they will choke or otherwise perish somehow.

But today the first graders made up a nice, calm game. The boy in charge would call on one of the other children--whoever was "sitting nice," so the players sweetly folded their little hands in their laps--and that child would get to make a funny noise until the leader called on another.

One girl, with wet eyes as big as yo-yos, sat apart from the others, crying. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "I always cry, because my daddy died. He died in his bed." At this point the others noticed her tears and three little boys came over to hug the sad girl.

On the other end of the spectrum, the middle school students are loathe to exhibit some emotions. When a teacher suggested that they write letters of comfort to tsunami victims, one eighth grade girl said it was probably best to not acknowledge the victims' losses. "If I knew that someone pitied me that would make me embarrassed and even more sad," she reasoned.

Current Mood: curious

Last year I asked my middle-school students to write an essay on the topic of "responsibility." They, surprisingly, didn't know what the word meant, so I tried to define it by analogy: "A responsibility is something you are counted on to do, like making your bed." The class burst into giggles.

I had forgotten. They don't do household chores; their maids do.

I guess it should come as no surprise, then, that the students' parents sometimes treat me as their hired help. Their little angels sneeringly hand me folded notes:

* "Keren did not complete last night's homework, because I told her that writing two sentences for each vocabulary word is excessive. From now on I expect you will be assigning just one sentence per word."

* "You must not require Wally to find the words he misspells in a dictionary himself. It would be easier for him if you'd just tell him how to spell the words. And it is important that you make Wally rewrite each misspelled word fifteen times, because ten times simply won't do. I thank you in advance for your cooperation and trust that I won't have to call Mr. Principal on this matter."

* "Your choice of novels has turned Ashlie off to reading altogether..."[Ashlie, whom I've taught for the past year and a half, NEVER reads books: the proof can be found in both her quiz grades and her ignorance of most spelling rules.] "...I would like to suggest changes to the sixth grade reading list. Please call to schedule a meeting at my convenience, either before 7:30 a.m. or after 4."

Do these fuckers realize that I get paid so little I consider this job volunteer worrk? Unlike the illegal domestics I sometimes have to make first contact with on their home phones ("Sorry, me no speak English"), I feel no anxiety over leaving this job.

Go ahead. Keep swiping at me. Keep talking down to me.

I'm looking for an excuse to walk away from your kids.

Current Mood: pissed off

Today was the first day back after Christmas break. The students were superhyped to return--"Happy New Year! I missed you, Mrs. Brooklynteacher! Vacation was so BOR-ring."

They were even eager to hand in their winter homework. (The principal had instructed us teachers to give out big projects that would keep them busy over the vacation.)

Faculty, on the other hand, wore funereal faces, pained to be working again. We accepted the students' projects reluctantly, stuffing the new assignments in our knapsacks on top of the tests and reports we had planned to grade last week.

We, unlike the children, had been having too much fun to work over the break.

Current Mood: grumpy