More Drama

So, one of the reasons I was so excited to teach at this school was because it would give me the chance to do something I've never done before: do field work with kids. Get out in the real world. Be expeditionary.  Make science truly hands on. Awesome. I was super pumped about making science real.

And then, the first excursion hit, and it was fun, and also a lot of work.... but didn't end up being super aligned to what we were studying, and half of our experts fell through (due to the crazy flooding in the Boulder/Estes Park area), and well, it didn't turn out to be much of a learning trip in terms of content. But hey, we get to try again, right?

Well, maybe not.

It turns out that our school spent hundreds of thousands of dollars last year that we. didn't. have. They thought, apparently, that we could keep fundraising and make it work.

But then the data came back. Instead of going up, test scores went down. Attendance was atrocious. Graduation rates not good. Suspension data not good. And so, instead of making more money, we lost funders. So, now, we are scurrying. And the next excursion has been cancelled.

The principal and assistant principal have taken giant pay cuts, we aren't hiring another security guard (again, we have one, and our school is a sprawling campus), we aren't hiring new teachers if someone quits, and some teachers are being forced out, because admin know that with class sizes being so small.... that they won't have to be replaced at all. He can just combine classrooms so we are over our innovation plan, and hey! No problems. Except, of course, that our school is the last stop for many students, so every classroom already has 5 characters, so when you double them up, that leads to ten....

Which means zero learning is going to happen.

Also, did I mention teachers were being pushed out? And these are good teachers too. Not people who deserve the boot. Not people who deserve to be told that the school and the kids would be better off without them.

So, let's recap. No rules, almost no consequences, now potentially no trips, and what? No teachers is next?

I am, for once, afraid to open my mouth. It is so ironic that I work in a place that holds the idea of being a revolutionary up, in arms of glory, and then tells us we must obey or we are fired. It is so ironic that we say our mission is to do whatever it takes for kids....and then look disapprovingly at teachers who incentivise (is that a word?) learning or attendance.

This is now the second time that I have worked with a crew of badass, awesome teachers.... and then got put in a box. This is the third time, in company of awesome teachers, that we have been berated and told we weren't professional.

Our kids are failing. We are failing. But, you know, if we just taught everything around social justice, then it would work. If we just stood in the hallways all the time, it would work. If we just got our grades entered in time, each week, it would work.

Here we go.....

Yesterday, I am standing by my computer taking attendance while the kids do their do-now, when across the room hurls a giant apple. It smashes into bits and rains all over me. The three boys in the back, without me saying a thing, start arguing over who did it, and determine that one boy, (who grew up in a East African country and still has some cultural barriers to cross) did it and blame him. One kid gets so upset, (again, I haven't said anything here), that he says he "doesn't give a shit about this class," and storms out. Okay.

Security comes and removes my East African boy, and while I know that the boys have guided him into making bad decisions in the past (they got him to pull the fire alarm once), I don't really think he did it this time..... I think he is their scapegoat.

Right before the bell rings, one of the same boys (not the one who left, and not the East African boy, but the third one) saunters across class, and I can see he has something in his hand. I assume it is glue. I say something to him, he ignores me. He pretends to do work for a minute, and then when I am no longer paying attention to him, I hear commotion, and the word "slap cam." I see what now appears to be white lotion all over my East African boy's face.

My girls inform me that slap cam is when you slap someone really hard while someone else is recording, so you can play it back, funny, in slow motion. You have to have something in your hand though, she says. Like lotion or cool whip or something.

Seriously?

This is what's happening in my class right now?

Outrageous. The bell rings, the kids scatter, none listen, and I am pretty sure one of my other girls got the whole incident on her phone. Sigh.

I don't know how the classroom environment got to be this bad. Well, no, actually that's not true. I know how. I have no legs. There are no consequences I can give that matter, and there are really....no consequences.

At my school, it seems as if any structure at all, or any consequence at all (aside from the totally random suspension), is deemed "white oppression." So, we have no sweeps. We have no detention. We have no ISS room. We have one small security guard who patrols a GIANT, sweeping school with many, many small alcoves and nooks and crannies and unused classrooms......

What we do have is some sort of form of "restorative connections" which means that two seriously overworked people are supposed to manage all of the kids that need to be removed from class, and have heart to hearts with them about their actions and their futures and etc.

But no rules.

You can come to class super high, 50 minutes late. You can walk in and out and around. You can walk in and out and in and out while slamming the door over and over again. You can visit other teacher's classrooms to bother your friends. You foam up all of your spit and drip it all over my tables. You can throw glue bottles across the classroom. Or broken crayons. Or anything else. You can call people bitches and shove past teachers. You can threaten others with your gang affiliations and flash your signs and call your tattoos. You can say, "I don't have to listen to you! You're not my fucking teacher!" every day, to someone who actually IS your teacher. You can stand in the doorway and put both middle fingers up for a solid 5 minutes at your teacher. You can say, "Fuck off, pigface!" to your teacher and leave. You can basically do whatever you want. Because absolutely nothing is going to happen if you make a bad choice.

I mean, beyond the obvious. Your future is going to be screwed. Your potential is going to be squandered. Your life is probably going to be a lot harder. But hey, kids have fully developed frontal lobes and are really good at making long-term plans and investments into their futures, and predicting the effects of their actions, right? And not giving consequences, surely that will get RID of the oppressive institutionalized racism that actually does exist, right? This will totally teach them how to navigate the world and be successful role models for the next generation.


In my last class, I have one student passing. One. I brought in cupcakes one day to bribe them into trying (which is something I hate to do, but when you have nothing else to try..... you do food). 9 of them did. 9 of them did AWESOME work and I got to make a big deal out of it...and then they got cupcakes.

And then I was told I needed to stop being the "cool" teacher and follow the rules and not give the kids food, because I make it harder for everyone else, and basically, I am screwing everyone else over. Of course, this coming from someone who has never been in my room, who has never seen all of the other positive incentives I've tried, who also doesn't see me taking away their phones, or telling them to throw out their food 100 times a day. This person who doesn't see me pick my battles with kids who regularly curse me out. I should just stop trying to be cool.