Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004
Life in a financial mess of a school, posted at 7:51 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Two science teachers were laid off today. Certified letters home. One had been there three years, the same length as me.No one is reporting it. Go read The Sun. Nothing about these secret layoffs that are occurring, that no one seems to care about.
I lived in fear all day about what I would find in my mailbox. Luckily, there was nothing bad. But I long for a day when I go into school and not have to worry about my job, to worry about the rumors that people seem to find out from unknown sources, that no one is reporting.
Lots of interesting discussions today during our book club meeting about The Interpreter of Maladies. Not much about the book, but plenty about the state of education, about how public school teachers are the most adaptable people in the world, perhaps even too adaptable because we just put up with so much. Tonight was parent/teacher conferences, and each of the parents I talked to was exhausted from all the anxiety about the schools - worried that their kids' teachers would be laid off and their kids would be put into 60-person classrooms. One even joked that eventually they'll just bus all the kids down to the Baltimore Convention Center and have one teacher teach all 70,000 students with an overhead projector.
I have no idea how my school will deal with the layoffs today, or the other two colleagues who have quit in the last two weeks to go work in the county. They're unable to deal with the uncertainty. I can't imagine leaving the kids, so, yes, I do blame them and think it sucks that they're leaving, but I also probably care too much and that's why my life is such a mess.
All I know is that I just want to get through this year. I had such a great day with the kids in the classroom today, as we tangled with Mrs. DuBose and wrapped our minds around Eve Mirriam's "How to Eat a Poem." You should have heard these kids make the connection between Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry" and this poem - their higher level thinking skills and text-to-text connections have improved dramatically. I just want to be able to continue it with them. Hell, if I get laid off and start getting unemployment, I'd still probably come in and teach.
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Still no car. Hopefully can afford it soon. Bill lent me some money, some people have donated (thanks!), hopefully soon.