bulletin bored

"there is some shit i will not eat..." e.e. cummings

you ever have one of those days where your brain whispers to you, quietly, after one stupid thing then a second, third and increasingly more stupid things, "stop"? just that. "stop". and you know how you're always surprised, if you're the sort whose brain does this sort of thing, you're surprised by how light the load of that last thing is. by itself you could carry it without even noticing. someone could slip it into your backpack or bag and you'd never know. but teetering on top of a wavering stack of ridiculousness, it finally makes the weight of the whole pile clear.

today, for me, it was.... bulletin boards. that's right. we've been down this road before. i hate them. my school, my district, the city of new york- all place an incredible amount of value on them. not the ones in my classroom. the ones in the hall. in this case, one in a hall two floors away from my own classroom. so today when one of my administrators called me during my class and proceeded to ask me when i thought i might put together my next bulletin board, i said, "i'm not doing it." that simple. this was today sometime between 8 and 9 am. i went on teaching the next three hours then visited a bit with other teachers who thought it was funny our school (and all schools in nyc) spend so much time and energy on something as stupid as bulletin boards while ignoring glaring problems like children with knives.

i went down to the office and was handed the most spectacular letter. it read:

re: counseling memo

i am writing this counseling memo to request your presence at a meeting on tuesday, march 17, 2009 at 1:00 m in room 107 (main office).

when we spoke on march 16, 2009, about the fact that your bulletin board was not yet complete, your final response was "i will not be doing it".

the purpose of this meeting is to discuss the practice, procedure and expectations of teachers in regard to the display of student work and your expression of dissatisfaction with your assignment.

there's a little note at the bottom promising me this is not a disciplinary action. i suppose if i continue to express my dissatisfaction, it will become one.

now, here's the thing. when a student in my class threatened to shoot all of us and said he had a gun with him, this same administration offered me nothing in the way of a counseling memo. it's not that kind of counseling. and although this same child has threatened several other people and has been in countless fights in class, my administration weighed my own life against his mother's obliviousness and my own life, the lives of my students, weren't worth protecting. i'd like to say that again in context. my administration wrote me a letter and would like to discuss my refusal to put up a bulletin board, but when a child in my class said he wanted to kill us, they did not want to meet with me. they said, through action after action, that our lives weren't worth protecting.

then there's this other thing. i have yet to teach through a single hour without being interrupted by phone calls and poorly worded intercom announcements, mostly courtesy of my administration. the same administration who insists we teach bell to bell. it is difficult for me to do this when i get a call from one administrator asking me if i've seen one student. another administrator asking me what work a student is missing so she can help him make it all up today (because grades are due and although he hasn't been in class once this marking period, she really, really wants him to pass). a call from the dean's office explaining that a student i've seen twice all semester has been suspended and could i stop what i'm doing (which is attempting to teach children to read) and make up a set of three lessons for the days he'll be out and send them down via one of the students i'm trying to teach to read because clearly that student's time is as worthless as mine. but wait, then there's someone asking me if a student can leave my class and go to some other class that is not at all my class and make up a test he or she should be making up after school instead of during my class. then there's an administrative type who calls reguarly to sort of visit about the students she's repsonsible for.

the announcements are quite a bit like these phone calls but they are loud, garbled and available to everyone. they generally begin with, "please excuse this interruption..." no. no no no no no. when i am trying to talk to my class about setting in the novel we're reading there is an announcement reminding us all that wednesday is the day we can buy dollar donuts in the cafeteria from dunkin donuts. when my students are sharing their creative writing assignments, someone with serious breathing issues hisses that big brothers/sisters will be meeting in the library at noon. and then about ten minutes later, while this same class is finishing up their stories the big brothers/sisters announcer breathes all over us again. when a student is asking a question about the parallel choices made by the main characters in two novels she read, an administrator who really should not be allowed to use the intercom without writing down what he wants to say first gets on the microphone and talks out the remainder of my class about how students who are scheduled to attend night school should attend night school. i am not kidding. i would love to be kidding.

when i have nine students in one class who have not attended in six weeks and i can't get any response from any of nine sets of parents, my administration has nothing to say. when i am worried about mental health issues affecting my students, nobody has anything to say. so i am saying no. because this gets me an appointment and a little time to say to my adminisrators what i'm saying right here. i will start taking my own responsibilities more seriously when they do. quite simply put, my time with my students is more important than a stupid bulletin board and i will do the stupid bulletin board when my administrators start paying attention to the real needs of my students. for example- a class without five million interruptions. a classroom that isn't 85 degrees, with sealed windows. drinking fountains that work. small thing after small thing after small thing. just like a bulletin board.

but for those of you who worry my mouth will get me in trouble (for instance, my parents, who instilled in me all this obstinate behavior), i have a bulletin board in reserve. and if the wonderful folks i meet with are willing to fix the issue of this constant interruption, i will put it up. i should remind you now that i'm the faculty sponsor for the gay-straight alliance at our school. and my bulletin board will say simply, "gay people shape the world". it will have photos of gay people i think are swell, with a little bio of each, including that person's contributions to society. and just for kicks, here you go, courtesy lambda.org:

alexander the great
socrates
francis bacon
lord byron
walt whitman
oscar wilde
marcel proust
colette
cole porter
virginia woolf
tennesee williams
james baldwin
andy warhol
michelangelo
leonardo da vinci
tchaikovsky
willa cather
amy lowell
bessie smith
eleanor roosevelt
harvey milk
peter the great
langston hughes
frida kahlo
angela y davis
aristotle
and on and on...