Summerizing the Teacher Shortage
Gloating season came early for retired teachers here in Houston ISD. That’s when stores begin stocking up on paper, folders, crayons and whatever else is on the list to send with the kids in overstuffed backpacks in mid-August. The back-to-school aisle, like brown leaves, beckons a change of season to gladden a parent’s heart. Their appearance used to fill me with trepidation. Now, they remind me I no longer have to show up for teacher inservice with all the inanities they spouted.
In the days before disco and flare pants, Labor Day marked the first day of school. As education experts began crowding out reasonable people, and mission creep forced public schools to perform more duties, the first day of school began moving backwards little by little. By the time I retired, I had about nine weeks to sleep late and put off all the chores until the middle of August.
All that ended for teachers in Houston as the unelected school board members agreed with the fake superintendent that more is better. This year, teachers returned to work on the first day of August. That works in my favor moneywise because that leaves more days to cover other teachers’ classes.
More reforms were afoot. In June, I received “exciting news!” that, moving forward, I would no longer be considered an “associate teacher” but a “substitute teacher.” This is such an enormous burden lifted off my shoulders. I’m staggered by all the benefits detailed in the email from the department head: “smooth transition, clearer communication, and no change in pay.” Best of all, the change in nomenclature “aligns our internal titles with the terminology commonly used by applicants and community members.” In other words, I was always a “sub,” no matter the fancy title.
It gets better. As of now, 4,000 teachers have bailed, the largest number in one month for five years, all but a fourth voluntarily. How many will they replace? Chances are a lot of classes will rely on a string of would-be replacements. I can help with some, but I’ll be stretched mighty thin, it seems. In addition, a large number of principals have also left on their own accord.
Sorry, but I’m not allowed to sub for administrators. But if I could, the first thing I’d do is reject the more classes = more learning equation. Sometimes more is less. In this instance, the Law of Diminishing Returns holds sway.
I’m looking forward to another year of checking attendance in a hundred different classes. As long as this TEA-appointed superintendent stays, I expect business will be booming for the sub industry here. - August 9, 2024
PARENTAL SUMMER ENRICHMENT CLASSES
Are you desperate for with time-filling ideas to take your mind off the little tykes running through your legs and tormenting the cat during the long summer months? Fret no more. Here are some stimulating classes for beleaguered parents not-so-patiently waiting until you can return them where they belong - in a school under someone else's care who gets paid to take care of kids. Tuition is $50 a class or a 1.75-liter bottle of bourbon.
1. Peanut Butter 101: Learn how this versatile spread can be used for all three meals, a nutritious snack and even a salad bar extra. As a bonus, parents learn how to use the Laura Scudder brand as a handy lubricant for squeaky hinges.
2. Swimming pool v toilet - Teaching your potty-trained child the difference. How far is it from the wading pool to the stink-filled bathroom, and is it really worth the trouble?
3. Fun with maps – Parents will demonstrate to the kids the joys and frustrations of navigation before cell phones and GPS. A week-long bonus will deal with folding the map in the original configuration. Note: This class also counts toward one credit of origami.
4. Chocolate: Mother’s little helper or legitimate bribe for kids to clean their bedroom? A panel discussion will address the ethical riddles that haunt parents on the use of candy.
5. Legos, jacks and dog poop – Participants learn how to negotiate minefields created by children. How loud is too loud when screaming
bloody murder? Should you rely on a decibel monitor to avoid having neighbors call CPS? - June 18, 2022
Not so elementary, my dear Watson
Subbing at elementary school is like joining a cult. They have special hand signs for routine activities, like going to the bathroom. To get their attention, you have to clap once or twice, and utter the right incantation. If you do it incorrectly, they shun you like an outsider which, come to think of it, I was.
Thanks to the TRS, I found out there actually IS such a thing as working too much, so I decided to try my luck with non-TRS-related entities. I found myself subbing for junior high classes at a nearby private school. Then the secretary asked if I’d be willing to help with second grade. I was smart enough NOT to say “How hard could it be?” The last time I said that I found myself picking gravel out of skin because I foolishly thought I could handle a skateboard on a hill. In short order, I wound up subbing for Kindergarten as well.
Here’s how my answers to questions went this week:
Child: [Sharing some random piece of procedure] If he doesn’t behave, he has to sit out during recess.
 |
| Dey're horrrrr-ible! |
Child: [After pondering 9 minus 2] Five.
Me: Where’d you get THAT number!
Child: Can I get some water?
Me: I guess. Can’t you reach the knob?
Child: He called you a name.
Me: Does it rhyme with “Hubbell”?
Child: Yes.
Me: Heard it already.
I spent most of my lunch time (this is private school, remember) opening stuff – stuck Thermos lids, milk containers, ketchup packets, juice bottles. I learned that cafeteria paper towels don’t wipe up chocolate milk very well. And a lot of kids don’t know how to tie their shoes, so a good part of my day was spent bending down about four feet. If I learned nothing else, I learned never to ask an elementary-age child about anything. Why should I trust someone who doesn’t even know how to tie his or her own shoe? - November 22, 2019
Freddy Krueger vs the Administrator
The past few nights I’ve woken up dreaming I was being pursued by school district personnel to return to the classroom. This was triggered by the knowledge that teachers in Victoria ISD have returned to work as of Monday. If I hadn’t retired and moved back to Houston, I’d be setting up my classroom and bracing myself for another round of inservice horseshit. As much as I relish retirement, I still miss the camaraderie of most students and other teachers.
It’s no exaggeration to say there’s a trench mentality among the beleaguered cadre of underappreciated professionals. We have to answer to parents and students, of course. Then there are the administrators at the school and district level, plus the statewide muckety-mucks.
Somewhere in the middle are the pretend administrators, namely, the instructional coaches. They’re like the squirrels that scurry inside electrical transformers and short-circuit an otherwise functioning current and turn the neighborhood dark and splatter themselves in the process. I haven’t overlooked the solons at the state and federal level. Their interference with education can only have one outcome more parlous than their interference with the economy or anything else they touch.
Have I left anyone out?
This dream is not far-fetched. A year after I retired, I attended Victoria’s new teacher orientation to help recruit members for the union. Someone from the personnel office recognized me and asked if I was interested in returning to the classroom to fill a shortage of foreign language teachers. I caught myself before laughing maniacally, and politely declined.
On my trophy shelf is a tag one of my students made. She and a group of others shouted during class, “You’re the best Hubbell ever!” I don’t remember what caused the outburst. Probably I had postponed a quiz. The next day I received a home-made ribbon with “BEST HUBBELL” on it. I cried a little, and have cherished it ever since.
My wife asks me from time to time if I’m ready to go back. If I could just teach without having to look over my shoulder at all the people I have to please, I never would have left. - August 10, 2017
DUMMY UP AND MOVE UP: HOW TO LEVERAGE
MINIMAL KNOWLEDGE INTO AN APPOINTMENT IN RUNNING PUBLIC SCHOOLS
State
Commissioner of Education Michael Williams recently stepped down. Governor Greg
Abbott chose Mike Morath, a member of the Dallas ISD Board of Education, to run
public schools in Texas. The only classroom experience Morath has is a stint in
his home high school when a computer teacher quit in the middle of the year.
Morath
himself stated, “I’m certainly not an education expert, but I’ve accumulated a
lot of data.” Read that quote to yourself again to let it sink in. Now ask
yourself in what industry is a lack of experience an advantage? This reminds me
of something musician and iconoclast Frank Zappa said about rock journalism:
People who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't
read.
After 32
years of teaching, I accumulated a lot of data myself. Heck, I should write a
book. It would be called "DUMMY UP! - How Corporations, Businesses and
Public Schools Reward Incompetence Through Promotions." Anecdotal evidence
would be overwhelming. I’ve seen countless instances in which an utter boob,
who should not be put in charge of a broom closet, let alone a school district,
was shoved out the door and promoted. The military has a phrase for this: Screw
up and move up.
I should become an educational consultant. It’d be like forecasting the
weather. I could be wrong 100% of the time, but it won't matter. By the time
they figure it out, I'll have moved on to the next educational brownfield. As
long as whatever I say sounds good and uplifting and progressive, I can sing
cha-ching!
If
lightning ever strikes just the right way, and I'm appointed Education Poo-Bah,
first thing I'd do is abolish compulsory education. Don't want to be here?
Guess what? I don't want you here, either. Next time I see you, I want extra
mayo and jalapeños on my burger. Now, scoot. I've got a class to run, and they
WANT to be here. Leastways, they don't want be where you're headed.
For all
its oppressive faults, Communism has - or had - an edge over us when it comes
to dealing with the pants-pinching, knuckle-dragging, tattoo-wearing,
bling-sporting, shaved-head cretins that bedevil teachers daily when they're
not clogging the juvenile court system. It's called Produce or Perish. It's
a variation of the collegiate Publish or Perish system. Having trouble
with that quadratic equation? Embrace the plow, comrade! Do the Parts of
Speech resemble so much cornmeal mush? Make friends with the corn rows, the
kind with actual corn! Don't know a molecular mole from a hole in the ground?
Here's a real hole in the ground - keep digging! A team of nuclear scientists
who DO know a molecular mole from a hole in the ground are putting a missile in
here as soon as Boris and Ivan can pour the concrete.
Teachers
would save a bundle on colored markers trying to make presentations more
interesting and relevant and affective and such. Schools would save tax dollars
not trying to rehabilitate the mouth-breathers who spend most of their day
sleeping in class. Teacher inservice would consist of how to make it HARDER for
students to pass freshman English. A level playing field would consist of a
field of fallen comrades for the rest of the survivors to step on climbing to
the top of the academic field inhabited by achievers who set their alarm clocks
with gnarled and bloody fingers, and actually brought a pencil to class. - April 28, 2016
https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/opinion/columns/singing-the-inservice-blues-on-a-holiday/article_2946a757-64b0-5bbd-9891-9b159940e5c6.html
Hot-Footing it to a Tony Robbins Seminar
A
lifetime of listening to motivational speakers during teacher inservice inspired
me to conclude that I was in the wrong business. Oh, sure, being a teacher
enabled me to inspire others to pursue lofty goals and all. But for making
money at the expense of others' ignorance, nothing beats the life of a
motivational speaker. Weather forecasting doesn’t come close to the chicanery
of Tony Robbins.
Tony
Robbins was in the news after 30-40 people were treated for burns on their feet
during a seminar he conducted in Dallas. The story reminded me of a similar event
that caught fire one summer three years ago. I’m just going to repeat what I
said, adding that I wish Jerry Jones could be convinced to try this standing on
his head:
Would
you walk on a bed of hot coals for your beloved? I love you dear, but couldn't we just have your mother over for a week? Okay,
how about for a motivational speaker?
Twenty-one
gullible snake-oil consumers did. Attendees at an event in California featuring
motivational speaker Tony Robbins were
invited to walk on one of 12 lanes of superheated coals at an event called
Unleash the Power Within. Well, they unleashed, all right. According to a
witness, they unleashed full-throated screams of agony. Or were they just
screaming affirmations of life? Most of the power-unleashers were treated for
second- and third-degree burns. You just can't make this stuff up. If this
doesn't make you wet your pants laughing, I'll retract every word I said and
hose down your feet.
Some
administrators might think this would be a swell idea to test our commitment, but insurance agents would probably balk. Besides, stupidity is a pre-existing condition. Better
stock up on aloe vera.
Well, as
P.T. Barnum famously said, there's a sucker born every minute - especially a
sucker that'll pay good money to burn his feet on hot coals. I say hooray for
Darwin. Sometimes the gene pool could use a little chlorine - or a cleansing
fire.
Unleash Your Inner DaVinci!
I was a
late bloomer in school. I was middling in math, so-so in science. Don’t ask me
about P.E. I excelled in English, at least. And I graduated magna cum laude
from the University of Houston. But first, I had to get past Kindergarten,
which meant mastering basic skills.
Thanks
to Amazon, adults who are still challenged with an ability to handle crayons
can order Coloring for Adults for Dummies.
Some folks need more explaining than the average dummy. If so, this is the book
for you. The book cover invites you to seek your inner creativity, combine
colors to create impressive works of art, and find new energy for your stress
and soul. On second thought, do you really want to give your stress more
energy?
Well, I
learned everything I needed to know in Kindergarten. It was just a struggle
staying inside the lines. But now I wish more books like this had been around,
like Tying Shoes for the Dummy. At least I wouldn’t have kept tripping so
often. - July 12, 2016
E Pluribus Stupidum
E Pluribus Stupidum
We live
in a country that celebrates diversity, but everyone gets a trophy. So, what if
your diversity is academic achievement and community service? If you’re a
member of the National Honor Society and you attend Plano Senior High School in
Texas, you don’t get to wear your stole over your graduation robe, that’s what.
According
to a statement released by the school, the practice of not including any
regalia for various student clubs, honor societies, leadership roles or other
activities was upheld by student leaders. I wonder if any of the school leaders
are members of the NHS?
I’m
reminded of the New York Yankees. The team wears the same uniform with only a
number to distinguish themselves, and they take the field as one man. This is
just dandy if all the members are first-rate players, but at this writing the
Yanks are near the bottom in the standings. Which means that every member of
the team that takes the field has the distinction of being, well, near the
bottom.
The only
other alternative, of course, is allowing all the graduates at Plano High
School to wear an NHS stole. That, or carrying a trophy. - June 1, 2016
Escaping the classroom on my rainbow pony
As the clock winds down on my career as a public school teacher, I find myself scanning the Internet for ideas on what I can do after I leave the classroom. I realized it was time to change after I found an article - "10 signs it's time to find a new job." My job matched nine out of 10 indicators. I was redirected to a website called WelcomeToTheRealWorld.com. The homepage said, "Suck it up, Babycakes. "Everybody else feels the same way, and their rainbow pony is stuck in traffic."
If teachers wrote anthropology textbooks, parent-teacher conference or teacher in-service would be synonymous with a indigenous purification rite.
What other profession keeps aspirin receipts for tax deductions? I'm not a well-connected administrator, and I haven't screwed up enough to get a promotion. I'm not asking for much. I just want something that doesn't involve making lesson plans according to a rubric designed by Rube Goldberg.
I'd love to be a weather forecaster. I could be wrong 99 percent of the time and still hang on to my job. Now and then, I tweak my numbers a bit, and nobody notices. Expect about 15 hurricanes. Make that 10 hurricanes ... five ... OK, two hurricanes. Where's my check?
You've got to hand it to the entrepreneurial spirit. A truly innovative person with a vision can market pet rocks, ab-busters and Yoko Ono to a gullible public. One such entrepreneur offers a tour bus to take wide-eyed gawkers through Los Angeles. They're not going to Mister Roger's Neighborhood, so they have to sign a release form stating they will not sue the tour organizer in case one of the neighborhood residents busts a cap on someone seated next to a window. Only in America.
One enterprising huckster offers hugs. Yeah, for 60 bucks, suckers. I mean, customers starving for human contact can spend an hour at the Snuggle House in Madison, Wis., with professional snugglers. Sadly, many skeptics looked askance at the visionary mission of this bunkum - ahem, business - most notably Madison officials who suspected that the business was a front for prostitution. One assistant attorney, a woman, stated, "No offense to men, but I don't know any man who just wants to snuggle." I'll bet she used to be a marriage counselor before her rainbow pony got stuck in traffic.
I grew up in Houston near Telephone Road, where plenty of snuggling was available for about the same rate charged by the Snuggle House. Where were these concerned officials when Leo Buscaglia was making a laughingstock of hundreds of gullible patrons who lined up for hugs on his tours all across this fruity plain? Say what you will about Leo; he knew how to make that cash register sing cha-ching.
Just when I thought nothing could top that, I found an article about researchers who "picked up and analyzed wild chimp droppings."
Imagine writing that want-ad: "Interesting job with benefits. Travel to exotic locations. Work involves following monkeys with Ziploc bags and examining the contents under microscopes. Your Trekkie friends will go wild with envy, and their girlfriends will want to wear your flannel shirt and live long and prosper."
Finally, I went to a local liquor store warehouse. If bottles were books, it'd be the Library of Alexandria. As I perused the shelves, I ruminated on my accomplishments of the last 32 years. Then I saw a sign taped to a post near the register: Now hiring cashiers/stockers. I swear I heard the sound of angel wings fluttering nearby.
No, I'm not ready to check out. I need an extra bottle of wine. I'm celebrating. - May 12/2014
612 Square Miles of Irony
I woke
up this morning to a radio ad the school district is running that asks, “How
would you like to look forward to going to work every day?” A resounding YES
was heard throughout 612 square miles of excellence. Teachers understand irony,
being educated and all, but this is just cruel.
The
personnel office is just trying to keep up with the loss of teachers. And
custodians. And bus drivers. And cafeteria workers. As LBJ put it, they’re
jumping like ticks off a dead dog. And it turns out people aren’t circling the
parking lot trying to get in. The only circling we have is the circling around
the drain plug. Or buzzards circling the carrion.
We need
someone – anyone – to fulfill our mission to reach every child, every
classroom, every day. But as it is, they can’t fill the vacancies we already
have. During lunch, a newly-minted graduate with a degree in music, told us he
subbed for a 5th-grade teacher at one of our elementary schools. At
the end of the day, after ONE day of subbing, the principal asked if he would
like to become a full-time teacher at the school.
Mission
creep has eclipsed our real mission to educate students. We have to be truant
officers by calling parents of students who are missing. We have to keep
account of every student who leaves our classroom with a sign-out sheet. We
have to check for dress code violations. Lesson plans must document state
objectives along with a dozen other Fundamental Five/Framing the Lesson items,
not to mention the C-Scope objectives.
And all
along, we’re picking at a glacial mass of indifference, ignorance and outright
hostility with olive forks.
As G.K. Chesterton said, “We have had no good
comic operas of late, because the real world has been more comic than any
possible opera.” - Jan. 28, 2014
Making it personnel
Rumor has it that a new teacher at another high school “lost
it” during what could only be described as a typical day in the district.
Apparently, she let loose a volley of profanity sufficient to disturb a
boatload of sailors. Well, as we always say, if you’re going to go, go big or
go home. She went big AND went home. If her students are anything like I've
seen for the last several years, she has my full %#@*ing support.
The next two weeks should be pretty easy for this
ready-to-retire teacher. On Monday I have an appointment to have my teeth
cleaned. The following Monday is MLK Day which turns out to be an actual
holiday for teachers as well. The day after that is a workday for us to enter
grades. Of course, the district could never give us a whole day to work on our
own. Half the day will involve "professional development." I can
never say those two words without breaking out in laughter.
I often get something in my e-mail that makes me scratch my
head. One such was a notice from a school district north of San Antonio. Burnet
is looking for Spanish teachers. So is the local district. In fact, we’re short
all over our 612 square miles of excellence. At one time I might have wondered
if the district was trying to suggest I start packing my boxes and look
elsewhere to ply my trade. But I was not alone in receiving this notice.
Besides, I’m too close to retirement to give a razzazz. Still, I have to wonder
who’s keeping track of what gets into the system. Surely it isn’t the personnel
department. Whatever we have to offer, it isn’t Much, Much More!!! - January 14, 2014
TAKE A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
When I was still in
the classroom, an inservice presenter encouraged teachers to keep a sunshine
file filled with stories and letters, notes and inspiring quotes. On days when
it seemed like the administration, students and even the clock were conspiring
against us, we could simply open up that sunshine file and let a golden ray
illuminate our heart.
Of course, we’re all
inspired in different ways. I had saved subpoenas to show up at court to
testify regarding the character, or lack thereof, of some miscreants who were
on trial for assault, arson and murder. Three little items didn’t seem like
much, so I turned to the newspaper for uplifting stories of people who tackle
challenges head-on. The most gratifying were those who do this without actually
using their head.
Like a story about
one intrepid animal lover who wanted nothing more than to take a walk on the
wild side. He leaped from a train track into an enclosure in the Bronx Zoo to
become one with a tiger – a 400-pound tiger which pounced on him and dragged
him around by his foot while thanking the Striped Jungle God for manna from
heaven. Were it not for some alert zookeepers using fire extinguishers to keep the
tiger at bay, our 21st century Dr. Doolittle may have kept his wish
to achieve oneness in a way he didn’t quite envision inside a tiger’s digestive
tract.
Police said there was
no indication he was intoxicated. There is also no indication he was insane.
Not in the clinical sense, anyhow. According to his own Facebook page adorned
with New Age odes to Mother Earth, he was just a typical free spirit infatuated
with wildlife. I, too, am infatuated with lions and tigers and bears, but I
also know there's a reason they’re called wildlife - they want to eat me. I’ll
throw the treats from this side of the fence, thank you very much.
More recently, a
shirtless, mud-covered man under the influence of meth broke into a zoo in
California and announced he was Tarzan in an attempt to mingle with the
monkeys. The would-be King of the Jungle from the set of Breaking Bad was
arrested by police after a short chase. Well, how fast can you run with a loin
cloth flapping in the wind?
Most people who read
these stories are alarmed at such reckless behavior. They’re right, of course,
but I see fresh possibilities for anti-drug ads: Hey, kids, this is your brain.
This is your brain on drugs. And THIS is your brain on drugs in a smelly pile
of tiger scat.
I'm all in favor of
folks becoming one with nature. If incidents like this keep up, we may finally
achieve a civilization pruned of the useless members that torture the rest of
us with teacher inservice, guitar liturgies and reality shows. Let the sun
shine in! - September 2, 2015
INSERVICE CAGE MATCH
While
all the kids, mailmen and folks who count our money were sleeping late on a
federal holiday set aside to honor Martin Luther King Jr., teachers arose for
work on a holiday advocated by teachers' unions all across our fruity plain. If
you're an English teacher, you already understand the concept of irony. The
rest of us could only mutter swear words as the alarm went off.
Better
yet, we could have said this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut
laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.
And
etcetera. That's Latin for "Behold how I do carry on!" Stumped? So
was I. It sort of looks Latin, but I don't think nonummy or nibh appear in any
of Cicero's orations. But it appeared on the website of the day's inservice
speakers, Danny Hill and Jayson Nave.
According
to an advertising industry specialist, "This is some dummy copy. You're
not really supposed to read this dummy copy, it is just a place holder for
people who need some type to visualize what the actual copy might look like if
it were real content." If you're going to use dummy copy, at least use a
dummy language, like Pig Latin or Esperanto. Better yet, use inservice
language, the better to enlighten teachers on the errors of their ways.
Thomas
Edison and Benjamin Franklin showed up as scheduled to show how they reinvented
the wheel as detailed in their book, Power of ICU, provided to all teachers.
Thomas Edison, or whatever his name was, told about his baptism by fire during
his first year of teaching. He had 39 students in all his classes including
homeroom to make a daily roster of more than 250 students. And he LOVED it! So
if you have more students than seats in your class, be thankful for all those
kids to love.
A
recurring theme of their book is that teachers should never record a 0 for work
students don't return. After all, utility companies cut some slack for ordinary
people when they don't pay their bills on time. In fact, one presenter claimed
with a straight face that the electric company is not allowed to cut off your
power. I gave him the benefit of doubt, but wondered if the IRS would be as
indulgent toward taxpayers. Maybe we could ask Al Capone. Oops! Ol' Scarface
died from syphilitic insanity. But at least he died comfortably in Alcatraz.
Besides, the school district will accept my contract renewal if I turn it in a
month after the due date, right?
They
also expressed objections with teachers who give extra points for non-academic
reasons such as not using passes to go to the restroom. I should hang my head
in shame, but in fairness, I got this idea from another inservice provider,
Harry Wong, as in Two Wongs Don't Make a Right. Wong also inspired me to not
grade every single paper that comes across my desk. Inspiring, but not as
innovative as the inservice provider that threw markers and assignments, the
equity specialist at Region III with Mother Goose for the Modern Feminist, or
the teacher from California who assigned hugging for homework.
https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/opinion/columns/singing-the-inservice-blues-on-a-holiday/article_2946a757-64b0-5bbd-9891-9b159940e5c6.html
Have a drink of Jargonmeister, ja?
"PowerPoint presentations are a new form of anesthesia and torture. They were even used at the Abu Ghraib Prison."
On a slow day, I always throw in a quote from soldiers in the trenches. Yeah, they’re probably not boiling their socks in their helmets behind enemy lines, but they understand jargon and mission statements. This week, I attended a Region 3 workshop conducted by someone who specializes in this.
In one amusing aside, the presenter admitted that she’s a bit of shopping-cart Nazi. If you hear someone yelling at you to put your shopping cart where it belongs after you unload your groceries, it’s probably her. And if you open the newspaper to a report of someone getting run over by a grocery cart after getting yelled at, just pull me over and slap on the handcuffs. - November 23, 2011
CLEAN HANDS ARE THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP
You
can’t make this stuff up!
So help
me, I received the following message in my faculty e-mailbox:
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:58:19 -0600
Staff,
We have
had students setting fire "Hand Sanitizer" in the classrooms.
This is a safety issue and fire hazard. You must remove all hand
Sanitizer from reach of any student. Put in desk or story in cabinets but
do not all students access to the Hand Sanitizers.
Sincerely,
Principal
XYZ
Let’s
overlook at least six language usage errors. I set the bar pretty low for
administrators because, after all, they’re mostly plucked from a pool of
candidates of mid-management and doctoral candidates in education as well as
fizz-ed instructors.
The
most alarming aspect of this message is that the official Homeland Security Airport Friskers were right all along in forcing
you to hand over the little bottles of innocuous liquids and gels, including
toothpaste, shampoo and hand sanitizer, as dangers to national well-being. Who
would ever expect that good hygiene could pose a danger to safety?
I
buttonholed our campus resource officer regarding the miscreant. He – no, make
that SHE - will be charged with some kind of legal abuse regarding open flame use
instead of attempted arson. Well, as long as legal niceties are observed. And
they’re throwing the book at her, too – a month-and-a-half of alternative
educational placement. That means she’ll have to show up for school at another
campus of higher expectations for behavior and aca – COUGH! – academ – COUGH!
COUGH! – aaaahcaaahhh – COUGH! COUGH! GAAAARRRUMMMPHHETAWWW!!!!
Aaah,
who are we kidding? We all know the ‘tard’ll be back within two months with a 90
average and a couple of new tattoos, maybe even a spawn pooping in a Pamper. - January 28, 2010
Frisco, by the way, is near Dallas
The lights are dim, the teachers are seated, and the power-point projector is warmed up.
The Harry Wong Show
Tinkly piano music is cued as inspiring thoughts fade in and out: To live is to risk death. To love is to risk not being loved in return. If you don't have a plan, then you're planning to fail. I didn't know Kahlil Gibran had a job at Hallmark.
It's time for the Harry Wong Show!
I've seen this guy before, years ago. His shtick is the same. Some badinage about his heritage and a constant pun on his surname - Two Wongs don't make a right. There are more Wongs in the San Francisco telephone directory than Smiths. And probably more street signs are in Chinese than English - but not as many in Gay-lick. That's the language of mincing leprechaun in green tights.
This Harry Wong Show reminds me of the Ron Clark Show. Ron wrote a book about the Essential 55 rules all teachers should know to be successful. I read it all the way through in one sitting, and then I got really hungry for chocolate-chip cookies. He bakes a lot of them for his students. He calls them rewards. I call them bribes. And Oprah loves him. And in the end, isn't that all that really matters for educational experts?
So, far as I know, Harry Wong never wrote a book that was on the New York Times' bestseller list, nor has he appeared on Oprah, but he can hold his own when it comes to gooey sentimentality. He had all the audience eating out of his hand - not chocolate-chip cookies. Unfortunately, Harry bears an uncanny resemblance to that runt in charge of North Korea. Maybe he didn't bake chocolate-chip cookies because he doesn't have any chocolate. Or flour. Or sugar. Or milk. Or electricity or gas to heat the oven to bake the cookies.
Harry seems full of cracker-barrel wisdom, but he's all about procedures. There's a procedure for turning in work, a procedure for going to the library, a procedure for answering questions and so on. "Procedure" is the word surgeons prefer when they want to take a little bit of your time, money and intestine. I took special interest in his procedure for taking roll. He mourned that "I wasted three minutes each period taking roll." Then a light bulb snapped on above his head. Why not delegate the task to a student?
Unfortunately, the federal government is not as indulgent here as it may be in Harry Wong territory. Nor is the truant officer, the judge in juvenile court or the parent liaison. And don't even try to pull that crap with the ladies in the attendance office. They'll put a pipe bomb in your faculty mailbox and swear on their mother's sacred head they never heard of you.
Harry also invokes the importance of a set induction. That's inservice-speak for grabbing a student by the ear to get his attention. For example, he explained, he sets a piece of paper on two books forming a makeshift bridge. Then he tells his students he'll give a million dollars to anyone who can blow the paper off the books. He and every physicist in the world know it's impossible, and when they demand to know why this is so, he booms, "Read chapter four! Bwaah-hahahaha!"
I was inspired the first time I heard this gimmick. So I gave it a try. I set up the books and the paper and dared my Spanish students to blow the paper away. Of course, they failed. And they demanded to know why. I boomed, "Conjugate the present-tense verbs in chapter four! Bwaah-hahahaha!"
No show like this would be complete without the testimonials in the presentation and the handouts. Of course, they are uniformly glowing. This is how Amway, Primerica and Wyndham Vacation Resorts lure an unsuspecting public into such a deal! At the end of two hours, I've accumulated a head full of bumper-sticker/power-point wisdom and a bladder full of juice. We're almost halfway through. The next module will cover support groups. That's when students move their desks next to each other and copy the answers off each other. Oops! I mean engage in cooperative learning.
Well, there's the tinkly piano music. Suddenly, I feel an urge to go to the bathroom. Or, as I call it, my study carrel. - November 27, 2009
How do you say "loser" in Spanish?
Parents and administrators in
Frisco I.S.D. are aggrieved over a Spanish middle school teacher's
"loser" essays. They are upset because students had to write "I
have been irresponsible and have not completed my homework for Spanish class
today. I will work harder to be prepared next time an assignment is due."
The word "loser," the principal said, was intended to inject some humor.
Parents were not amused, fearing for the tender emotions of their little ones.
Administrators were also
concerned with the teacher's Reminders and Rules to Succeed, such as,
"Stay away from Mrs. B's desk unless I am giving you permission to get
something," and "Remember that I am the teacher. You are the student.
You do not have as many rights as you think you have."
In other words, "Sit down"
and "I'm the adult, you're not." No wonder they're outraged. It cuts
right to the bone of sensitivity training and political correctness.
An expert, with a doctorate in
education, no doubt, opined that this "should be relegated to the same
place as standing in the corner . . ." That would be even worse than not
turning in homework in a timely fashion because good work habits aren't
supposed to be taught and reinforced in public school. Positive self-esteem is.
DILBERT COMES TO LIFE IN PUBLIC SCHOOL
Most readers of comics pages are familiar
with Dilbert. Dilbert is the hapless
engineer trapped in his cubicle which is a microcosm of the larger world of
corporate sharks and apple-polishers. I have devoured each and every strip as
an application to some of my past experiences in public school. Mismanagement?
One doesn't have to scour the media to find delicious sources of inspiration.
Just ask teachers throughout the state.
I always wanted to draw a comparable
cartoon, mining my own experiences as a teacher. Then another thought struck
me. Why not simply rename a district the Dilbert "Independent" School District . Everyone knows public education takes
barking orders from the feds. If we can't drop the word
"independent," we should at least put it in quotation marks to show
we "get it." You know, wink, wink.
The first item on the agenda for Dilbert
"Independent" School District 's
school board will be to adopt a slogan. Several millions of dollars ago,
everybody in Texas
Dilbert "I." S.D. will have
access to the finest educational experts, like the one who hosted an equity
workshop I attended, called "Jack and Jill Be Nimble." One of the
handouts included Politically Correct versions of Mother Goose nursery rhymes: Jack be
nimble, Jack be quick,
Jack jump over
the candlestick!
Jill be nimble,
jump it too,
If Jack can
do it, so can you!
Here's one called Mr. &
Ms. Pumpkin Eater:
Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife
and wished to keep her.
Treated her with
fair respect,
She stayed with him and hugged
his neck!
Wonder what they'd do with that poor woman
in the shoe? Worse, what would she do with her kids, whipping them soundly and
sending them to bed being out of the question?
The opening school year for
D."I." S.D. should have as many portents as Macbeth. I'm thinking of an example from the year I received a list
of infractions for office referrals. My favorite was #40--"murder." A
rather inauspicious way to begin the year, I think you'll agree.
Dilbert High will have an infraction on the
list which is common to all high schools, that is, "display of public
affection." Recently, I came across this quote: "A youth with his
first cigar makes himself sick. A youth with his first girl makes everybody
sick." Before, the spectacle of amorous behavior in the hallway used to
disgust me. Now, I get a warm feeling as I recall this quote.
The Dilbert "Independent" School District will have its share of pointy-haired
bosses. Years ago, when the evaluation instrument
we call the Bed of Procrustes was first used, administrators prepared teachers
with walk-through observations followed by lots of positive comments. One such
landed in my box, complimenting me for my "non-threatening seating
arrangement." Maybe that's the edge I've been missing--a threatening seating arrangement.
No school district, including
D."I." S.D. would be complete without educational engineers producing
suggested lesson plans, strategic plans and curriculum guides. They read
magazines geared to consultants in public school and coin terms like
"educational delivery system," formerly known as school, and
"cooperative learning," formerly known as "cheating". The hard-to-crack special populations of
students called "at-risk," formerly known as "just plain
lazy," seem to be the target of most of the innovations which are backed
by the latest research, require pots of dollars, consume vast amounts of
colored paper, and take up entire building wings.
My solution is simple and inexpensive.
Students failing to catch on to the old-fashioned formula material + effort = learning should be herded into portable
buildings where each student will be thrown a roll of bubble- wrap. The time
spent popping the little beads of air is less time spent scrawling gang glyphs
on desks and walls. Taxpayers will be delighted.
Every workplace has its disgruntled
employee, though not necessarily the kind who wants to give the boss
"what-for" with a loaded Magnum .44. No, at Dilbert
"I."S.D., the employee who is routinely subjected to workshops that
would be laughed to scorn in the real world will circulate a list of suggested
positive comments for the inservice presenters. Here are a few:
1.
She really makes that overhead projector sing!
2. The presenter's
power suit was so commanding that it caused me to question my own masculinity.
3. She put a lot of
work into this presentation. I could tell by the sweat on her upper lip.
4. Gripping! I hated to get up every ten minutes
I had to use the bathroom.
5. Quick! Somebody douse me with water! I'm all
afire with these inspirational ideas!
6. The stunning use of four-colored graphs on
the transparencies was evocative of Gaughin's oils.
7. Set induction, behavior patterning, closure,
visual/auditory/tactile experiences - it had all the elements of classroom
drama and, therefore, human drama.
Knowing that he is safe from retribution
because satire is lost on administration - also because he prefers to
work anonymously - the same ne'er-do-well at Dilbert "Independent"
School District will devise a slogan for their very own: Consulto, ergo sum. The experts in the rabbit warrens will have to devise
their own mission statement. - August 31, 1997
TEN-LANE FREEWAY TO FAILURE
Every year the Texas Education Agency
releases its accreditation list of public schools, setting in motion much
hand-and-handkerchief-wringing. Among the list of schools with the stigma of a
lowered rating was the school where I teach. A lot of things don't surprise me
anymore after 15 years of teaching, but one common thread among the low-status
schools bemused me--the dropout rate.
Encouraging teens to stay in school is
certainly laudable. Many useful options have been tried toward this end,
including after-hours classes, technical school, and weekend classes. If the
only goal were ensuring teens not to miss out on school in spite of home or
family responsibilities, I could be persuaded to accept a host of other
solutions.
What I see instead is a stream of
miscreants who repeatedly abuse authority and are sent back to class, and
chronic truants represented by a string of slashes in my grade book. I once had
a student who was on time for fewer than 14 days out of the entire school year.
Needless to say, she failed the course. The question ineluctably arises: Are we
are more concerned about buttering our bread, that is, maintaining a high
attendance rate to keep the federal dollars flowing? Or are we interested in
maintaining high standards so that a diploma can not only be read, but used as
a ticket to better employment? We are sacrificing the latter for the former.
The pressure to keep a low dropout rate has
forced us to lower both academic and behavior standards. I will not pretend
that if higher standards were emplaced, the dropout rate would not increase. I
am confident, however, that it would stabilize, and even decrease as more
parents decide public schools are a safe and excellent alternative to costly
parochial school alternatives.
We have come to view every dropout as a
self-indictment and devise makeshift arrangements to enable the would-be
dropout to not become another sign of reproach and loss of federal cash. Case in point: Last year we eliminated Fundamentals of Math for the get-tough
Algebra 1-B course. Pull back the
window-dressing and you will find-- Fundamentals
of Math.
At a recent school board meeting, the
mother of a former student blamed our faculty for "breaking her son's
spirit." She had brought the boy into the lobby where he threw a glass of
water at her, she testified, so she promptly pursued the administrators to see
to it that he got into class. As an incentive, he was allowed to choose his own
teachers. I wanted to ask her a couple of questions. One, if she were a teacher
and witnessed a boy throw something at his own mother, would she seriously want
that same boy in her class? Two, how many others have the privilege of choosing
their own teacher? How many employees in the real world have the privilege of
choosing their own supervisors?
Not long ago the movie Stand and Deliver regaled audiences with a no-nonsense teacher who was determined to teach calculus in an inner-city high school with a high dropout rate and low standards. The teacher, Jaime Escalante, did not exactly fit the mold desired by teacher inservicers. He was not touch-feely, he was occasionally abrasive, even sarcastic, and threw out students who did not want to be there, or showed up late. The movie scored a hit with teenagers and adults alike. Certain administrators are rumored to have enjoyed it as well, although I suspect they were uncomfortable with the notion that not every kid was going to measure up to his standards.
Another movie with a similar theme, Stand by Me, featured principal
Joe Clark who carried a baseball bat! Perhaps public schools should hire
Hollywood scriptwriters as consultants.
 |
| The principal will see you now. |
We must quit blaming ourselves for every
kid that decides to shag it. Let's face
it--not every single person is willing to sit still for five to six hours and
exert the self-discipline necessary to keep up with a more rigorous regimen
than a carefree life offers. Take a Biblical analogy. Christ Himself did not
chase after his erstwhile followers when they decided His way of life was too
hard.
The road to graduation need not be too
narrow, but it shouldn't be a ten-lane freeway either. - January 5, 1997
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