September 15, 2008

  • hello, school


    © je m'appelle liz

    it's been a little quiet here because school has started, and my life has ended.  just kidding.  but not really.  one of my draws to the corporate world is that you get to leave your job at the office.  once school starts for me, it follows me everywhere.  from 5:55, when i wake up in the morning, to whatever hour i'm graced to let my head hit the pillow, my mind is running in some form or another in "school mode."  on an unlucky day, i even dream about school.  it's not so much that i am a workaholic as it is that "teacher" is an amorphous job description.  you do a little of everything and then some.  at the beginning of the school year, you hear teachers talking about their preps.  what tends to happen a lot is that you get a new prep when the school year starts.  that basically means you have a new class to prepare for that you've never taught before.  while this is usually exciting for me, it also takes a lot of work.  all summer, i was jumping up and down thinking of this french cinema class i was going to get to teach in the fall, but once fall came, i realized that i had no materials, no support, and no money from the district to supply this course.  so i did what most teachers do.  i went into my own pockets and started searching the internet for movies and materials to buy.

    i love teaching, but i hate all the other stuff.  the politicking.  the administrative duties.  basically, anything that keeps me from teaching.  and unfortunately, this other stuff is making up a lot more of teaching these days than the actual teaching itself.  this year, i have the equivalent of six classes, stuffed into four.  when the kids kept coming, i had to put them next to the closet or in front of the file cabinet.  i also have to travel between the high school and the junior high which means that i need to be 179% prepared because if i forget something at either school, the show must go on.  we used to have a language lab for the students this year with a smart board and computers for the students to use.  this was vital because a lot of the language teachers don't use textbooks since they are so outdated.  we have to find authentic materials online.  when we got back to school this year, we found out that they had turned our language lab into a math classroom.  two teachers and 120 students have displaced fifteen teachers and over 700 students because world languages aren't as "fundamental" as mathematics.  sigh. 

    all of this got me a little down this september.  it's sad because i see a lot of teachers, including me, shutting down when things like this happen.  they have tied our hands behind our backs and pushed us into the arena with a nudge and a jab.  "Teach!"  ha...if it were only like that.  i guess the worst part of the teacher job description is the one that reads "miracle maker."  give a teacher a classroom of thirty kids, and ask him or her to create a vibrant school lesson, in the absence of adequate materials of course, which will then be observed and used as a marker of his acumen as a teacher.  yes, it's enough to make veteran teachers relive their first year over and over again.

    so i'm trying to stay positive.  i'm trying to focus on the good.  when i got my class lists this year, i felt so incredibly overwhelmed, but i got some good advice.  i don't have to reach everyone.  even if i can just reach one, it's worth it.  so while i was throwing myself a pity party today, i decided to focus on just one.  and the one that came to mind is félix.  that's his french name.  i had him last year.  he wasn't my strongest student, but he worked hard and managed to pull himself into my honors class this year.  i had the students presenting about their summers this week.  he was one of the last students to go, and in his best french yet, he told the class that he worked for his dad this summer.  his dad is a vendor of sorts, and félix spent much of his summer selling drinks and snacks in a traveling carnival.  in the midst of all his classmates who talked about the three trips they took to bermuda, florida and las vegas, after they finished sleepaway camp, i found his presentation to be incredibly bold.  it actually kind of breaks my heart to think that he was working so hard over the summer while his classmates were bouncing from one summer activity to the next.  but i was really proud of him, at the same time, because he presented himself with flawless dignity and pride.

    a lot of kids got As on their presentations, but somehow félix earned the golden A.  in the grade books, it looks just like any other A, but in valor, it's, as they say, worth its weight in gold.  if i get front row seats to something like that, then i guess it's truly worth it...