Week 29: March 23-27

090327: Day 129
Oh my, CA’s mom came in this afternoon for parent-teacher conferences. She is very supportive and sweet, but she also kept CA home for the first marking period. CA told me earlier in the year that he was almost left back in 8th grade because he missed over 80 days. Over 80 days! That is almost half the school year. While it’s true that CA has health problems, he doesn’t have that many health problems. I suppose when I call her supportive I also kind of meant she is an enabler.

CA’s primary problem in school is that he doesn’t do anything. Truly: hardly anything. He was unable to name to protagonist and antagonist for his short story. He could not answer the question “which superpower is better: flight or invisibility?” No matter how long a teacher sits with him, he will wait them out. He will give them a sheepish smile that says, “I dunno, maybe you better leave to go help someone else.” And eventually you have to, because he can’t even think of a name for a character! His mom understood all of this about him and basically said she had no idea what to do. Then they left, without talking to Ms. Po or Mr. P, who doubtless would have said the exact same things Ms. L and I did. But still.

I swear some of our parents have never heard of taking a kid’s computer or gaming system away until their grades improve.

090326: Day 128
Ms. L and I hit up some Applebees before parent-teacher night. Beer is good. Especially when you know you’re gonna have to talk to parent after parent after parent. That frilly pink drink, however? Disappointingly weak, according to Ms. L. Also hugely exciting: I got to eat buffalo wings, which I’ve been craving ever since I saw that episode of “Man v. Food” where Adam goes to Quaker Steak and Lube.

But I suppose the true story of the night is GW and her mother. While sitting at my conference table, GW and her mom had a rather long, low-level conversation of the “should I . . .” “I don’t know know . . .” “I should . . .” “maybe not. . .” nature—you know the kind. Only, it was in a loud room, in low Caribbean accents, with me sitting right there with them. Awkward. Oh, and then GW’s mom asked if I was a Christian. I like to say that I’m Buddhist in these situations, because it is equally as exotic as agnostic—which is the real truth of my religious leanings—but inspires less questioning and dismay.

Turns out GW’s mom needs to find a new job as a nanny because she hates the woman she works for up in Mt. Kisco, which is also quite a ways from the Bronx. She wants to move into a bigger apartment and keep GW in the same school because she’s doing well there. And, you know, the economy is in the crapper. To get a new job, she needs good references who are White. The woman whom she worked for in Bronxville is a little too slow to return phone calls, and the woman in Mt. Kisco sounds like a beotch. So, she would basically like to me to lie for her, to say that she has successfully and wonderfully cared for my children.

Ethics are a bitch, and I really wish I wasn’t the teacher they picked to approach on this matter.

090325: Day 127
We had our reconciliation today in our house meeting. And by reconciliation I refer to Ms. Po sulking on the floor and letting Mr. K talk for her. It was bizarre and offensive. For those of you following along at home, Mr. K is not part of the freshman house and thus has no direct bearing on the proceedings. (He did have some good suggestions, though.) It was almost as if Mr. K was there to guard Ms. Po as she played with her iPhone.

Ms. L was forced into interpreting Ms. Po’s feelings for her, to which Ms. Po could barely be bothered to respond with a “sure” or “yeah.” I wasn’t exactly expecting an apology. In fact, I was kind of expecting to get beat up on a little more for being holier-than-thou. The reality was far more anti-climactic and frustrating. Ms. Po had no reaction. I expected at least some sort of reaction. Any reaction at all to the way we both stepped in it yesterday. But no, just silent sulking on the floor.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a giant whatever. The freshman house is dead, for all intents and purposes. And I have a fundamental problem being friends with people who don’t do anything to help themselves out of their own misery. Ms. Po and I were never quite friends. We were almost friends, but now we are mostly certainly not friends.

090324: Day 126
I wrote a guidance referral for GA, regarding his horrible language and behavior and the impact they were having on his academic progress. I included reports from Ms. Po and Ms. L to hammer home the point that his behavior and academic issues pervade his school life. I referenced his propensity to use the word “wetback” as both an insult and an expletive. I wrote of his obsession with the sexuality of JC’s mom (appears to be a theme, BR also spent quite a bit of time talking about the things he does with JC’s mom).

AP A responded to my email imploring Ms. G, the guidance counselor, to get the guardian involved because “the situation is getting out of hand.”

Our response from guidance?

Attention All

GA’s guardian was in yesterday and met with AP L and myself.

I will forward this e-mail to Ms. H his mandated counselor as well as contact the guardian regarding this e-mail.

That’s right, guidance, don’t notify teachers when parents come in or anything. That would be a stupid waste of time.

Also of note today was Ms. Po asking me to eat a little bit of her shit during our house meeting. We were discussing the behavior rubric and, to put it succinctly, its failure. Me being the queen of tact, I mentioned the fact that Ms. L and I have been carrying a disproportionate amount of work for the house, particularly since the new semester began (and we lost Ms. Pe). Of course, I only get the guts—or lose my patience enough—to make reference to my true feelings three minutes before the end of sixth period. Ms. Po reared up at me—in my imagination she is like a horse with steam blasting from her nostrils—and snapped at me, “This isn’t working.” She then stormed out the room as I shouted apologies after her.

Now I will be the first person to admit to my own shit. But I will be damned if I am going to pretend someone else’s shit is my own. I was hardly tactful or polite in the meeting, but I sure didn’t deserve another teacher—a colleague with whom I should be working closely—invading my personal space to snap in my face and then storm out of the room.

On my way out of school, I ran into Mr. P and Ms. Pe (why does everyone’s last name begin with P?). I again made with the apologies (oh, I also sent a nice, apologetic email after the incident), this time to Mr. P. Mr. P assured he was not offended and suggested to me that my problem is that I am too “wide-eyed.” This is not the first time this year someone has either implied or outright said that I am naive and idealistic. Fuck that criticism. I am hardly naive. I may look like a little blonde girl who just fell off the turnip truck. But truly, I am the product of a “broken home” who suffered through a pretty good period of depression, a trollop who has been dumped and heartbroken a seriously large number of times, an activist (Jeff’s word for me, reluctantly now my own) who spent two years running a creative writing program in the Westchester County Department of Corrections. Fuck you if you think I’m “wide-eyed” after that.

090323: Day 125
I grow tired of teacher absences. Student absences, though they are certainly unacceptable, are much more palatable. When teachers are absent, the students who are still in attendance go kind of crazy. That said, today was the first day of researching Japanese-American internment during World War II in class and my kids did a pretty great job. Turns out that their previous experience using my preformatted research note-cards in “Flight v. Invisibility” prepared them pretty well to research primary and secondary sources in “Aliens and Americans.” Hooray for building on previous knowledge!

Of course, this small victory was preceded by a horrendous amount of harried photocopying that I finished just moments before first period. I hate Monday mornings.

Post coming soon

Last week was an eventful week, which I do not want to shortchange with a sub-par post. Unfortunately, I am seriously under the gun on getting some graduate work BS finished.

Please stay tuned until Tuesday-ish for Week 29′s posting.

——–

Also, I put new film pictures up on Day 103 and Day 110.

Week 28: March 16-20

090320: Day 124
For the record, it snowed today. It was the first day of spring and it snowed.

I got another runaway notice in my mailbox this morning: SF ran away as of February 28. Of course, we already knew she ran away because Ms. L tracked down SF’s mom (by asking GW if she had SF’s phone number) when we hadn’t seen SF in a couple weeks. SF’s mother said SF had run away. She just didn’t tell the school or anything because, you know, SF has done this before. It took her three weeks to report it to the school. Think about that for a second. I would add an exclamation point but I fear it would ruin the severity of the statement.

On a lighter note, I had to cover Ms. L’s eighth period class because she took ten of our kids ice skating today. It was me and CD, quietly writing for 46 minutes. I wrote many haiku, of which this is the finest:

Nigga please with that
obnoxious pussy talk you
must be a virgin

090319: Day 123
I’m still photocopying the entirety of When the Emperor Was Divine. Me and the rizo have gotten real friendly these past couple weeks. According to Mr. W, we don’t have much ink left in the entire building. So I closed the door while me and rizo got real friendly. I need the copies. What else can I do?

090318: Day 122
In our house meeting we discussed the fight SP got into last week, in which he had his two front teeth punched out. According to Mr. P, SP didn’t even understand what was happening as he prepared to rumble. He knew a dude was running at him, which meant there was going to be a fight, but he didn’t know why the dude wanted to fight him. He didn’t realize this dude was going to cream him because he had been shittalking him and his girlfriend for a week. Hello, McFly. My favorite part is SP’s initial reaction to said dude running at him was to remove his jacket. Picture it in your head: dude runs at SP, with the intention to fight, and SP takes a second to remove his jacket. As he is removing his jacket, his hands are behind his back. And dude takes his opportunity to crunch him in the face.

Also on the list of completely ridiculous and confusing incidents of the day was LS’s purported running away. I got a memo in my mailbox this morning saying she had been reported runaway/missing as of the day before. Then I got a phone call from Ms. S, her related service provider, at the end of third period asking if LS’s para was in my classroom. I replied yes, and Ms. S said, “Oh, you’re kidding . . . Can you send her down here. LS is here, wondering where she is.” I had that weird feeling you get when there are giant holes in the official story. Did Ms. S know she was “missing”? I talked to AP A later that day to report that LS was in the building—not missing, as previously thought—and AP A had no idea she was in school. What the fuck, people? Either which way, LS was not at home the night before, so who knows where she was? She did make it to school, though.

090317: Day 121
I passed out grades for the fourth marking period today. The number of students who are confused to be failing is more upsetting than the sheer number of failing students. I find myself explaining the class requirements everyday. “Your Aims and Answers sheets count for points. If you are not doing them, you will lose points. The behavior rubrics count for points. If you are not doing them, you will lose points. There is a vocab quiz on Friday. Do not be surprised on Friday when I tell you there is a quiz. . . . Everything counts. If you are not doing classwork, you are losing points. Everything counts. Let me repeat, everything counts.”

That is not an exaggeration, for those of you who were wondering.

090316: Day 120
Turns out the Designs for Learning series of courses at Mercy isn’t just frustrating when your professor is crappy. Even with a decent professor, it is pointless. I understand how to lesson plan and how to unit plan and how to evaluate student work. You know, I pretty much get how to teach at this point. Everyone else does, too. As a result, we spend at least an hour of class bitching about one thing or another while our professor tries to assuage our anxieties nigh on the end of our Mercy career.

I make phone calls during the first half-hour of class now. We’re not talking about anything, and I try to sit next to the door because there’s also an outlet there for my computer (which has a bum battery, by the way: Apple please take notice). It’s very easy to just slip out the door and make a few phone calls to various parents. The fourth floor corridor more often than not has at least one teacher-cum-grad-student on a cellphone talking to a parent, so I know I’m not egregiously out of line.

The purpose of my phone calls this evening? DJ and CM’s incredibly dumb face-off in fifth period wherein they called each other ugly and asked each other to suck their respective dicks. For the record, CM is a girl. The best part of the fight was when DJ got louder and louder as he was taken out of the classroom and away from any chance of CM’s physically harming him.

Also called home for LF because he is failing hardcore and says really, well, hardcore things in the classroom.

Week 27: March 9-13

090313: Day 118
JW wandered into my fifth period today. I asked him to leave, which he took his good sweet time doing. On his way out the door, he told me, “I’ll be back . . . in two hours . . . next week . . . next year . . . and the year after that . . . and the year after that . . . butt naked, with a saddle on my back, and butter all over me.” He rubbed his chest to demonstrate where the butter would be. In case I didn’t understand.

090312: Day 117
ML continues to get under my skin. Not even under my skin, really, but certainly under the skins of the students in my third period. MB in particular is pissed off; he wants me to kick ML out. ML spent his day in my class trying to steal everything that wasn’t tied to down—you know, everything. At one point, he put six copies of When the Emperor Was Divine under his jacket and denied that he had taken any. I know him to be the student who stole my hall pass (which still hasn’t been replaced, by the way) and a student who has walked out with more than one of my markers. I think he also stole one of my whiteboard erasers, though I can’t be positive about that. I’m not real into taking my eyes off him if he has something that doesn’t belong to him in his hot little hands.

Near the end of the period, he sat down behind my desk and would not move when I asked him to. I specifically told him that if anything was missing, I was coming after him. He accused me of threatening him. I told him I was absolutely threatening him as he was not allowed to sit behind my desk, a policy I had made very clear to him previously. At the ringing of the bell, I counted my books and not so surprisingly discovered one was gone. I reported him to the deans and now he has been suspended. My book remains MIA, which is unfortunate because I have a limited number (see below), but at least that kid will be out of my hair for a second.

I ran into AP A just minutes after I sent the Deans report. Our conversation:

AP A: I don’t think that kid belongs with us.
Me: What the fuck is wrong that kid?
AP A: You know, sometimes I love talking to you.
Me: Well, really . . .
AP A: Something about him bothers me—Not bothers me, but he makes my antennae go up.

AP A has been assistant principal of special education for at least five years. If she is freaked out, there’s something to worry about.

090311: Day 116
I went to the Teacher Tax man this evening. This year I shall have an itemized tax-return, or something like that, and hopefully should get more money back in my refund. Because, after we broke it down, I spent over $8,000 dollars out of my own pocket on my job last year. That figure does not surprise me at all. I rant into Ms. F there; hers was the appointment before mine. We gossiped a touch about SP, who got into a gang-related fight and had his two front teeth knocked out. Not that I’ve seen him sans teeth as he cut my class today.

On my way out, I decided to take the stairs because I was on the second floor and it seemed a waste to call the elevator for just one floor. I entered the stairwell and went down one flight to discover it was an emergency exit only. I went back up only to see that the door on the second floor had locked behind me. Re-entry on floors one and five only. I already knew floor one wasn’t going to let me out, so I climbed up to floor five. When I opened the door, I found the floor under construction: exposed beams, light bulbs hanging from extension cords, cement floors. I called an elevator, but none of the three came. They were set to pass the fifth floor because it is under construction. I kind of freaked out, called Jeff, and wandered the floor a little. I found a freight elevator, fortunately, and that worked. I came pretty close to having to call the Teacher Tax Man to say I was stranded on the fifth floor and couldn’t get an elevator and could he please call the front desk so someone could come get me? Très embarrassing.

090310: Day 115
One of the few things I failed to consider when planning our new unit, Aliens and Americans, was how many copies of the novel the school owns. I blocked out three and a half weeks of in-class and homework reading for When the Emperor Was Divine only to discover that we only have 25 copies of the book. So I’m photocopying it. The whole thing. Sixty-seven packets. I’m doing it discreetly, just in case photocopying an entire book is considered a poor use of resources.

In other news, my fourth period has been unbearable. Do not mistake this fourth period with last semester’s fourth period: they are almost entirely different. LF, GA, JC and DD. These are the boys who are trying to destroy me and their peers who care.

On the upside, DD was suspended today for insubordination. I like to think I had something to do with it—he in fact believes I had everything to do with it—as I sent two deans reports in two days and had him removed from class for being disruptive today. More likely it was the fact that AP V, who is the assistant principal of physical education, reported his insubordination. Also, Dean A reported his insubordination. The next three days will be much quieter.

GA is a different problem altogether. While DD is simply immature and lacking self-reflection, GA is a malicious troublemaker. He is one of those kids who says, “I wasn’t talking” when he’s been talking nearly nonstop for the entire period. I spoke to his sister yesterday, and she referenced the fact that he is on probation for graffiti and that his probation officer threatened to lengthen his probation if his school behavior didn’t improve. Then she made it sound like she was going to try to protect him from such a lengthening. (Grr.)

So I called again today, because his behavior did not improve at all. I heard her will to protect him break—or possibly change—and she told me she was going to call the probation officer because she just doesn’t know what else to do. I would argue that telling the probation officer that he is a menace to his own education and to the education of others is actually protecting his best interests, but you know how it goes. Hopefully, she came to that conclusion herself.

090309: Day 114
A conversation from my Monday after-school help session.

CP: Miss, how do you spell “let”?
Me: (slowly and clearly) L-E-T.
CP: L . . . E . . . T?
Me: Yes, L-E-T.
CP: (writing) L-E-T.
Custodian R: (quietly, to me) Lucky you.

Week 26: March 2-6

090306: Day 113
Strife continues within the special education department. AP A sent everyone an email reminding us of the ladder of discipline for classroom management issues. Everyone understands this ladder and understands that they shouldn’t send students out of the room for wearing a hat or not having a pencil. What no one ever explains is what exactly to do when a student is so disruptive that teaching is an impossibility—AP A always conveniently skims over that detail. Presumably because no one in the administration really wants to deal with such dirty things.

Anyway, I digress. Ms. W(itch) replied to AP A’s email. And copied everyone in the department. (Please note, Ms. W(itch) teaches English.)

You must have been reading my mind, I was just getting ready to email you about some of these very same issues. I have a couple of students that may or may not still be on my roster at this point who very often come to class late and unprepared and in these cases I usually have them sign the late log and later call the parent because I know that is the procedure. However, I also have some students who never attends class but go down to 144 claiming that they have been kicked out of class. This presents a real issue for the deans and 144 and I know that me and quite a few of my other colleagues experience this very same thing and I would like to make it clear that this is occurring.

Secondly, I have many students that are suppose to be attending my class but because they dislike the course, practices and/or teacher is deciding to stay in 766 for the entire period. This presents an issue for me because I am calling home and telling parents that their child is not attending not knowing that many of us are harboring chronic cutters. Please understand that I am not accusing you of doing this because I know that you do not allow students to sit in your office and do nothing when they are suppose to be in class, I am just saying that it happens and this may not be the best practice for our students.

We are doing such a fabulous job as a department and I want to thank you, AP A, for your ongoing support. I will contact you via email if I should have any discipline issues with my students.

AP A responds:

Once again, thank you all for you constant support with this situation. We must all work together to ensure the success of our students.

As many of you know, the spring term observations have already started. I am not in the office to see if students are being sent by teachers. As we all know, Ms. V, Mr. W as well as myself are very accommodating to all and in the past would allow the students to sit on the chairs in the office. This is not a fair practice. Many of you are also very accommodating to your colleagues, allowing students from other classes to stay in your rooms. Together we need follow the discipline procedures that have been posted in the Truman Handbook.

Even though we are all working very hard together, we have already had two situations where one of the deans have brought the students to 766 (one during period one and the other during period 3). Once again, I thank you all for your support, but we need to follow the ladder of referral. Please log your home contact onto daedalus. Please do not send students out of your classrooms.

Thank you for your professionalism.

Only women can be this nasty.

090305: Day 112
It was a good day. My classes miraculously worked very hard on the Make-Your-Own-Superhero project. When I asked them to write paragraphs, they did. NH wrote and discussed what he was writing with me. Awesome! WR came back later in the day to finish Mr. Bones, who may be my favorite of the superheroes the kids made. Seventh period was beautifully chill, with AR, BR, RQ, WR and KCh (who cut history, again, that punk) coloring and chatting, writing and discussing.

The only hiccup in the day was ML. ML, much like NH, skipped pretty much all of last semester. He did come a couple times, but he was unremarkable when he came. This semester, though, holy fuck that kid’s a punk. He comes in yelling at me and likes to write “fuck” all over my whiteboard while I’m teaching. Today, as he was fuck-ing up my board, I walked back to my teacher closet, took out my camera, and snapped a picture of him. Too bad my camera wasn’t set to autofocus, or I could have had some actual proof of his assholery. About ten minutes later he ran out of the classroom. Problem solved, as far as I’m concerned.

090304: Day 111
I had my spring observation today. It went very, very well. Ms. N, the principal, came during my first period to observe my students making their own superheroes in small groups. Ms. N described my organization and preparation as “anal,” which she said was a good thing, and then asked me if I was getting them ready for Regents. I replied that I was, in fact. We then had a somewhat disorienting conversation where I may have agreed to teach the same group of kids next year. You know, so I could take them through two years and really teach them how to pass the Regents.

Theoretically, I would love to have the same kids for two years in a row. It’s not that I don’t trust the other English teachers in Special Education; it’s just that there is absolutely no cooperation among us. And now that Ms. W(itch) hates me, I suspect that lack of cooperation will continue. Last year, I campaigned pretty hard for having 11th and 12th grade (instead of 10th and 12th, which I had last year) so I could really get them to write well and pass standardized tests. Naturally, they gave me ninth grade.

The kids this year could definitely do well on standardized tests: they can read and I know I can get them to write well. But fuck me if I have to have some of them again. As much as I want someone to let me out of the box so I can really teach, did it have to be with this year’s kids?

090303: Day 110
Let me take a moment to introduce a new student: NH. Technically, I had NH last semester; he never came. I saw him once, in the hallway, right before the class he had with me. The school aide was trying to convince him to go into my classrom, but he wouldn’t. So he was taken to 144.

This semester I have him third period, which is official attendance. He pretty much has to come to me. I can’t say he’s doing a good job, because he isn’t. But he’s doing 50% better than last semester. We had a test today—god I hate test days—and when I gave him very direct instructions, he worked. He sat in the lawn chair and actually tried to get the test done. I’ve even seen him smile a couple times.

090302: Day 109
New York City had its first snow day in five years today. I woke up at my usual time—five in the a.m.—looked out the window at the oodles of snow, and decided that I was not going to go in. New York does not have snow days as a rule, so I emailed AP A my intentions of taking a day and then proceeded to gchat with Ms. L about the copious amounts of snow and wind outside.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you’re up at 5:30 and know others who are up at 5:30 and spend a good fifteen minutes chatting with them over the computer about the snow outside before the sun is even up.

Anyway, Ms. L told me partway through our chat that school was canceled. I was very confused. According to her, ABC 7 had just announced that New York City public schools were closed due to inclement weather. I was quite skeptical—not of Ms. L, but of ABC 7. Don’t they know the DOE never cancels school? I spent the next fifteen minutes compulsively checking my email and the NYC DOE homepage for confirmation of the cancellation. It took them fifteen minutes to update the homepage to say school was closed! And no one in the DOE ever sent me an email about school being canceled, which I consider bad form.

Outrage aside, I had a fabulous day. Jeff and I sat around the apartment, and I did a little bit of work for Mercy, and that was that. Delicious.

Week 25: February 23-27

090227: Day 108
My brain is methodical and systematic, and so is my writing. My students are not so methodical and systematic—and neither is their writing. This makes teaching them to write an organized, five-paragraph essay a bit of a challenge.

I’m learning that in order to teach them how to write, the only way to get it done is to rush through the mini-lessons—outlining, writing introductions, writing body paragraphs, writing conclusions—then provide ample class time for them to struggle through it at their own pace and ask as many individual questions as possible. Today was the first day this week the kids had a big chunk of time to work on their essays in class. I had a chance to talk to everyone and give them individualized help on whatever phase of the essay they were in. Thank god. I saw so many more smiles as kids were writing than ever before this year.

090226: Day 107
SC was officially recommended for a District 75 school for students with emotional disturbances. Of course, he won’t actually go to a D75 school unless a seat in one opens up. AP A has her fingers crossed we can ship him out in the next couple weeks. Not so coincidentally, SC was much better behaved today.

The call-home campaign continues, with a new fear-inducing strategy (see Day 94 for more on phone calls and the culture of fear). Today, AP A emailed the department its second “Daedalus phone log.” Every week now, we receive a spreadsheet with the names of every member in the department and the respective number of phone calls they have logged into Daedalus. I will admit that the strategy is effective: I have made more phone calls this week than the last two. Of course, I’ve been sexually harassed in my classroom and thrown out five or so kids for egregious misbehavior. But there’s nothing like a public shaming to motivate people to do their jobs.

Someone please explain to me how my principal is confused as to why she is alienated from her staff.

090225: Day 106
A note on the sexual harassment of teachers: I received NO written response to my email about SC and his sucking seed comment from anyone in the administration. Ms. L, Ms. Po and Ms. H responded to the email, adding some more names of students involved, but nothing from any assistant principal or dean. According to Ms. L, AP A made a police report. I have received no confirmation of this, though, and certainly not in writing.

Even more exciting, this afternoon we had SC’s educational planning conference. Students have EPCs every three years when they are in special education. The school psychologist retests and reevaluates the student to ensure s/he is in the correct placement. Students can also have reevaluations if a parent requests it. SC’s mom requested a reevaluation—at the request of AP A—when SC knocked the wind out of me (see Day 63). Now, normally EPCs are not very well attended: school psychologist, a teacher or two, the parent sometimes in person or sometimes on the phone (a lot of the time nowhere to be found at all), and then counselors drop by for a few minutes. SC’s conference was so well attended that we had to switch rooms. Attendance included: Mr. P, Ms. L and me; the school psychologist; SC and his mom; Ms. E, his related service provider; Ms. G, the guidance counselor; and—wait for it—Ms. N, the principal. Every EPC should have this many attendees, by the way, and it’s sad that it takes a disaster like a kid almost knocking over a teacher to have things happen the way they should.

I didn’t get to stay to the end of the meeting because I had to teach seventh period. But it was pretty clear that SC is now heading toward a more restrictive environment. Ms. H, the school psychologist, reported that his tests show he is a sensation-seeker. He loves taking risks and the feelings they give him. Who knows how far he will go in seeking his sensation? Will he endanger himself or others? Not to be hysterical about it, but I would guess yes. The fact that he failed every single class last semester didn’t help him either. We’ll see how it shakes out, but I foresee a District 75 school in his near future.

090224: Day 105
I was driven out of the room in tears again today. But whatever, I’m already over that. NR came to see me later in the day and she listened with real sympathy and sincerity to what I had to say. It was one of the nicest moments of the school year—almost worth the crying and flipping out.

The real outrage was when SC made me the butt of a sexual joke in class. My boys in seventh period were talking about sex as usual and then JC said something like “Oh, ask Ms. G.” So, SC did. He asked me, “Miss, do you suck seed? Do you succeed in all you do?”

I’m confident that my facility with the English language can trump any student’s at any given time. As to who understands more about figures of speech, including puns thank you very much, and who has the larger vocabulary, it will always be me—as long as I teach high school special education students. So, I cracked the code on SC’s little joke pretty quickly and called him out on it. The class was fairly surprised I was that quick.

I reported the incident and made some phone calls. I also compared notes with Ms. L, who had had the exact same question asked of her earlier that day. Ms. Po responded to my incident report to say that she, too, had had the same experience. Nothing says safety in the workplace like a pattern of sexual harassment.

090223: Day 104
Ms. L had a meeting with Ms. N, the principal, after school today. Ms. L has a sweet summer gig lined up being a camp counselor at Greek camp—in Greece, no less—but it starts before our school year ends. Being the responsible employee she is, she asked if she could go instead of just taking a bunch of sick days at the end of the year.

This isn’t the real story, though. The real story of this meeting is when Ms. N almost poured her heart out to Ms. L. Apparently, she began to bemoan the fact that she feels alienated from her staff and doesn’t know what to do. I, for one, cannot imagine what this conversation must have felt like to both parties, being a person who does not share any feelings with coworkers unless the situation is dire.

Ms. L wasn’t too into pursuing the conversation of why the staff was so “alienated”—not too surprisingly—but she did mention the letter she got in her file last year for “insubordination.” For the record, no one really thinks Ms. L was insubordinate, not even Ms. N, but the letter was a formality and thus had to go in her file. Ms. N’s response? She didn’t even remember giving Ms. L that letter. Ms. L said, “Yeah, teachers remember those things.” It would seem the only person who doesn’t understand why there is a great divide between staff and principal is the principal herself.

Oh, before I forget again: remember when we were supposed to meet with the Principal to discuss the behavior problems in our class? And the meeting was canceled and rescheduled? Then canceled and rescheduled? That meeting never happened.
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Update: New film pictures on: Day 80, Day 97, and Day 99.