Recycling, 101

I should be grading my last set of finals, but after emptying file cabinets and book shelves all day, I am coated in sweat and the equivalent of what my dad used to call “purse dust” (you know, the hair strands, lint, tissue, paper, receipt and wrapper scraps that cling to the mints that fall to the bottom of a woman’s purse). I suppose it’s apt for me to reflect on leaving behind my public school career, at least for a year. 

As usual, my classroom has not been swept in a week, the floor has not been mopped in months, and the only way my desk is cleaned is if I personally take my napkins and my Formula 409 to it.  If I ever see the large, square man they call the Plant Manager, he is usually strolling across the quad at a man of leisure’s pace, bluetooth in his ear, phone clipped to his belt. I never see him with a broom or dustpan, screwdriver, hammer, or any other tool of his supposed trade for that matter. Frankly, I almost never see him. So even though there may be a cause other than budget cuts for all the filth that has piled up in my room, after a full day of wading through the detritus of a career well spent, and after sneezing all day from the dust agitation, I am just pooped. Worst of all, I am not even close to finished packing up and getting out of there. 

Fortunately, a few of my extraordinary kids stuck around this afternoon to help me reduce what had originally been eight boxes of files to three by tossing all but two hard copies of every handout I have created and amassed over the years. Of course, since I teach in a music academy, we listened to musical numbers and did our share of dancing around the room-- “It’s Too Darned Hot” was a fitting fave-- but we still finished the task and by the time we finished, we were shin deep in paper. 

One of my kids, a conscientious planet lover who puts me to shame because of her pure-hearted devotion, piled her car trunk with the ton of paper we tossed. She’s going to take it to a recycling center near her home since the school (let’s just say if it could make money out of the wasted paper, we’d all be millionaires) keeps its recycling bins locked up and generally inaccessible. 

I can now rest comfortably knowing that paper bags will soon be made of essay topics on Thoreau and Shakespeare and Poe and Homer, I could go on; paper cups will soon be made of critical essays about Whitman, Anderson, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Spenser, Petrach, Shelley, Keats, again I could go on; and more paper will be made out of quizzes and finals and review sheets and short stories and poetry and plays. And one can only hope that all the benchmark tests and district directives and other bilge from on high will be turned into its most useful form: toilet paper. I must say, there’s something heartening about this recycling notion.

My kids will also be part of this great recycling in that they will take what I have tried to impart and turn it into part of their ever evolving perspectives. All week they have been openly reflecting as they try to hang on to the life and literature lessons they felt were invaluable, all in an effort to turn their grief about the end of things into something useful. 

The week has been tremendously sad with kids giving me photo tributes, flowers, cookies, lemons from which to make lemonade, Reese’s cups (they know my pedestrian tastes), unabashed love and tears, even a mock parking ticket on my car, citing me for “excessive grammar corrections.” They have come into the room to hang out and to sift through the remnants of my classroom decor. They took whatever was meaningful to them--postcards, statuettes, posters, paper trays, books-- and I was happy as hell to give it all to them.  They think my absence will leave a hole in their hearts and should only know the hole they will leave in mine. 

It’s not to say that my next job won’t be good, but I am leaving my current school at the top of my game, so to speak. That I have now been asked to work in a school where I will be treated with a modicum of dignity,  along with better hours and stellar, supportive colleagues, is no small thing, especially after the debacle that was this year in public school--everything from the consistent public drubbing by colleagues to hurtful pay cuts. All of it petty, and all of it dispiriting.  Right now, however, I am feeling valued all the way around and that is a good way both to leave one job and to start another.  

Unfortunately, as I have mentioned repeatedly in one way or another,  the district fosters in our ranks a cannibalistic survival instinct that can instantly turn the sublime into the ridiculous. . . .

As my 10th graders were furiously scratching out their last essay for me, in walks a teacher with whom I have a passing hello relationship. She said, with great surprise in her voice, “I hear you’re leaving” to which I nodded and looked appropriately sad as I waited for some sort of commiseration. I mean, why else would she have walked all the way out to my classroom? Right? 

Without missing a beat, she said, “Can I have your file cabinets?” 

Then during the next final, another teacher, this one I have seen only once or twice on the campus, came out to ask me whether what he had heard about my leaving was true. When I told him it was, he then asked, “Can I have your file cabinets?” 

Let the recycling begin!

“'Did you ever get fed up?' I said. 'I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something?'” or SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS

In my last entry, I posted my version of the 95 theses that have me fed up and ready to start a new movement, or, in my case, move to a new job, away from the deeply embedded institutional complacency.

But, one of my peccadilloes, which is as much my strength as my weakness, is my need to offer solutions to any problems I see. I admit I suffer the limitations of an English teacher’s perspective, and I have a touch of pie-in-the-sky syndrome, but somewhere in this list is a way to fix things--again, at least, as I see it:

a culture that allows middling teachers to present mind-numbing, misguided in-services designed to pander to the promoters of standardized tests and the bogus data these tests generate

SOLUTION 1:
Observe teachers, know their strengths and weaknesses or establish a team of teachers to do this, and “differentiate” "professional development" (usually a misnomer!) around more general departmental “directives.” 

If the directive is to examine data--departments and administrators should take a HARD look at what teachers are asking of their students to see whether expectations are clear, whether the assignments are appropriately stimulating, rigorous, and relevant to the course of study, whether the students skills meet the  requirements of the assignment, and whether the teaching aligns with these requirements.

a culture that uses “data” as if  that data were sacrosanct, objective, and instructive, when it is most often skewed and misleading

SOLUTION 2:  
The data needs to aims higher, so the teachers will aim higher. 

1. All teachers should have to turn in a legitimate syllabus that shows what they are expecting to teach in their classes week to week and what students are expected to do.
2. The department must take a look at the "scope and sequence" of the literature that should be taught from grade to grade and the kinds of assignments we are giving at various levels in each grade. 
3. Go back to Solution 1 to determine if the teaching matches what's assigned and expected.  

a culture that blithely hires sows ears and spends all its resources trying to turn them into silk purses (at great expense to those who were silk purses to begin with)

SOLUTION 3: 

1. No more in-services that patronize teachers by teaching them how to do what they were supposedly hired to do. If you have to give a teacher a script, if you have to teach a teacher to break down a reading or an assignment, if you have to teach a teacher how to read or analyze a text, if you have to teach a teacher when to jettison poorly written, picture-filled text books in favor or more quality readings, then you need to be observing those teachers, writing them up, and getting them OUT!
2. Learn where your strengths reside. This is where the rubber meets the road, as the expression goes: with the excellent teachers and use those teachers effectively.
3. NURTURE GOOD TEACHERS by allowing for and working with their strengths. But you will have to KNOW them first (See Solution 1--again observe them and see what they are teaching, expecting and receiving from their students). 

a culture where enormous class size kills the ability to offer class variety 

SOLUTION 4: 
Be brave! Offer tried and true rigorous courses to tried and true rigorous teachers, even if the classes are small. Show that you are pandering not to the lowest but aiming to teach everyone to aspire to becoming the best! 

It it's only about money, CUT STANDARDIZED TESTS, WHICH GENERATE AN ENDLESS STREAM OF NONSENSICAL IN-SERVICES AND MEETING AGENDAS, ESPECIALLY SINCE THE CREATION OF THESE TESTS IS OUTSOURCED FOR A SMALL FORTUNE AND THE GRADING OF THESE TESTS DURING FACULTY MEETINGS  IS MORE OFTEN THAN NOT A DEMORALIZING WASTE OF TIME.

a culture that doesn’t understand that enormous classes will mean that either the lowest or the highest performing kids will be left behind 

SOLUTION 5: See Solutions 1- 4.

a culture where so many kids who have no interest in education get to oppress, practically with impunity, anyone who dares take the enterprise seriously

SOLUTION 6: 
THIS SHOULD BE CAMPUS WIDE AT THE START OF THE SCHOOL YEAR:  ZERO TOLERANCE FOR DEFIANCE. 

1. Early in the term defiant students should be sent to the office immediately, not with lengthy notes that take a teacher’s time, but with a bright colored pass (like a library or nurse pass), and they must REGISTER as an offender with the counselor or dean and be put on a list. This way a paper trail can begin. If the student has been asked to “register” by several teachers, we will see the pattern immediately and know where to put our attention, just as we do for IEPs.

2. Determine how many students are really the problem. Is it a few in each class who move from class to class? Once true numbers are determined, solutions can be tailored. 

a culture where rude kids don’t know what rude means

SOLUTION 7: See Solution 6

a  culture that tolerates back-sniping teachers whose professional jealousies and unchecked inadequacies ruin any hope for collegiality and change

SOLUTION 8: An administrator must never allow a “witch-hunt,” where teachers can air out their personal feelings about any specific teacher to an entire department (or to any student for that matter). 

Here’s how to prevent this:

1. GO BACK TO THE TEXT, as I tell my students. The teachers with the problem and the teachers being attacked should be asked to take out their work; then all should look at what they are doing in their classes, asking of their students, and getting from their students. Try to find the common ground based on what the teachers are producing or trying to produce in the classroom.
2. Insist that teachers cut down tension and stay focused on the issues and NOT the personalities.
3. If the problem turns out only to be personal, just as a meeting with parents must stay focused on teaching methods and reasons for students’ success and/or failure--and NOT on a teacher’s personality--personal condemnations should be prohibited.

a culture where standardized testing eats into so much class time it’s really testing the testing instead of  teaching and learning

SOLUTION 9: 
JUST SAY NO TO STANDARDIZED TESTING. There are already outside contractors like the COLLEGE BOARD, who offer good enough standardized tests for all students. 

To further help our students, we must create our OWN benchmarks, but this goes back to Solutions 1-4: 
Presumably we provide these benchmarks in AP classes, and this same mentality should govern every class: we need good teachers, clear and consistent scope and sequence, and consistent and equivalent practices and rubrics for those practices, so that teachers can effectively grade one another’s papers and exams in each grade at each level by using the same standards.

a culture that is willfully blind to its tendency to defend and promote only the status quo

SOLUTION 10: See all above

a culture of mediocrity and enforced enervation

SOLUTION 11: See all above

a culture where isolation rather than collegiality is the route to survival

SOLUTION 12: See all above

a  culture bent on moving towards teacher accountability, a meaningless pursuit since teacher standards vary so widely 

SOLUTION 13: 
Departments should create consistent department-wide rubrics based on clear goals that all teachers understand, that all teachers understand how to teach, and that all students understand.

a culture that believes self-esteem is generated by empty praise instead of hard work and genuine accomplishment

SOLUTION 14: 
Consistent and equivalent syllabi, rubrics, classroom standards. The A grade must be as justifiable as the Fail!

a culture that can neither praise nor punish

SOLUTION 15: 

1. Recognize the only goal of any teaching institution is to NURTURE GOOD TEACHERS SO THEY AND THEIR STUDENTS CAN THRIVE, and notice and handle everything and everyone that obstructs that goal! (See all above!)
2. "Differentiate” teacher professional development, which means presumably to treat all equally by attending to their different needs with the same goals in mind. 
3. Let the students have a voice and INSIST on student evaluations that ask the hard questions about teaching practices (as in the 7 C' --a teacher's caring, controlling, clarifying, challenging, captivating, conferring, consolidating) to discover whether a teacher’s work is in line with the simple goals of teaching kids to read and write independently, analytically, and intelligently!

a  culture that, to borrow from the late coach John Wooden, mistakes activity for achievement

SOLUTION 16:  

1. Meet only when necessary; have a tangible and relevant goal that relates to students writing and reading independently, analytically, and intelligently; craft a clear plan for how to reach that goal; and make the focus of each meeting a clear step towards that goal.
2. Teachers and students should never be asked to do busy work!
3. See All Solutions Above 

"And you all know, security is mortals' chiefest enemy."

When I look at the pictures of the suffering sea birds in the Gulf, I see an apt metaphor. Being a good teacher in this school district forces one to feel like one of those sea birds covered in so much muck it’s impossible to fly. 

That pretty much sums up the reason for my impending departure from the district at the end of this term.

Naturally, I look around at the kids who were counting on me next year, and at the circle of chairs in my room, and I sob. I think about what I will leave behind--a solid reputation, a pretty good schedule, a strong purpose in life that allows me to sleep at night--and I sob. I think about the ease of slipping back into my routine, bumps and all, next year instead of trying something new, and I sob. I think about the few colleagues who understand me and see me as a valuable peer and good friend, and I sob. I think about losing the key to the gate near my classroom, which I finally got after years of begging, and I sob. I think about cleaning out my room and closing the door for the last time, and I sob. . . .

Then I think about what I might be missing next year:

a culture that allows middling teachers to present mind-numbing, misguided in-services designed to pander to the promoters of standardized tests and the bogus data these tests generate

a culture that uses “data” as if  that data were sacrosanct, objective, and instructive, when it is most often skewed and misleading

a culture that blithely hires sows ears and spends all its resources trying to turn them into silk purses (at great expense to those who were silk purses to begin with)

a culture where enormous class size kills the ability to offer class variety 

a culture that doesn’t understand that enormous classes will mean that either the lowest or the highest performing kids will be left behind 

a culture where so many kids who have no interest in education get to oppress, practically with impunity, anyone who dares take the enterprise seriously

a culture where rude kids don’t know what rude means

a  culture that tolerates back-sniping teachers whose professional jealousies and unchecked inadequacies ruin any hope for change

a culture where standardized testing eats into so much class time it’s really testing the testing instead of teaching and learning

a culture that is willfully blind to its tendency to defend and promote only the status quo

a culture of mediocrity and enforced enervation

a culture where isolation rather than collegiality is the route to survival

a  culture bent on moving towards teacher accountability, an ultimately meaningless pursuit since administrator and teacher standards vary so widely 

a culture that believes self-esteem is generated by empty praise instead of hard work and genuine accomplishment

a culture that can neither praise nor punish

a  culture that, to borrow from the late coach John Wooden, mistakes activity for achievement

Hmm, so why am I still sobbing?