Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2005
Fury, posted at 11:04 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com The day was a bad one, where I literally said to myself "I am infuriated right now" twice. At school, I'm feeling more and more ignored in the decision making processes, and that best practices for the kids are not being put forth. I'm feeling like decisions are being made behind closed doors without any input, and I feel like all I do is whine about it.First, the schedule. When I began teaching, I taught three ninety minute classes a semester and had 75 students. I did that schedule for two years, a time I look upon now at utopian. Around that time, it was decided that English should be taught for the full year on an A/B schedule, meaning I meet with groups of students every other day for the year. This means double the number of students.
This was only done for English and Social Studies classes, so we're the only ones who know the pain of a student load of 170 (my load), 182 (the load of the woman across the hall), or 190 (the load of the guy next to me). It was decided, though, that a two-year pilot was necessary to see if kids in English do better with it over the full year.
I think it's been a total failure. Not only is the student load horrendous - I can never get everything graded, ever, and can't spend a quarter of the time I'd like to on responding to student work - but I really feel that having the students daily is much more important than having them for the year.
So, about two weeks ago, we get word that we're moving to a 7th period day. The word came from outside, and we had to follow it. No input from teachers at all. Still, I was happy about it. It meant we'd have kids for the year in 48-minute classes. I think I could definitely get used to that schedule.
Well, today we get word that since we (teachers) supported the A/B schedule, we're heading back to it. The thing is, no one even asked teachers. I was so excited about the new schedule and now I'm infuriated about it.
The second moment of infuriation came when my kids' baseball uniforms were handed out. My Athletic Director is only giving me 20 of the 24 uniforms, meaning instead of the 3 kids I had planned to be without uniforms, I now have 7. It makes me so very angry that there's a JV football team and there's a JV basketball team and there's interest in a JV baseball team, yet we don't get one. Yet, there's a coach who decides to keep a de facto one, who plans meticulous practices to get all 27 kids involved so they stay in the program and into extracurricular activities, who has kids feel part of the team even though they won't get much playing time. And he's slapped me in the face not only by establishment bullshit and lack of funding, but by the Athletic Director who should be supportive. And he didn't even do it to my face; he had the uniform guy tell me.
I'm going to practice being direct tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty tired of being walked upon when I feel like I'm giving my life to this school.
That all being said, the day ended amazingly, with dinner at Cangelosi's on Charles Street with friends, then off to see a superb play at Center Stage. If you get a chance to see "Permanent Collection," jump at it. That's three excellent plays I've seen in a row there; what a great purchase the $60 subscription was.