Not In My Job Description

Carrying along the theme of "responsibility" which is most salient these days, I find myself consistently redefining what my job is. If I were to write a true and faithful description of the responsibilities that I have incurred as a result of my position in the Miami-Dade County Public School system, my resume would more resemble a gangsta novel than a non-fiction text. Unfortunately, that is the reality of working at a job in an underresourced, understaffed, underregulated, and overlooked low-income school. Several events serve as fantastic exemplars of these types of activities. The down side of trying to be a responsible person is that you end up picking up the slack when other people can't seem to do the things that they are required to do at their job.

For some reason, there seems to be a miscommunication about what is and is not part of different staff members' job description, creating confusion and often chaos when incompetant assholes decide that their job includes 2 hour lunch breaks, taunting students, and encouraging physical violence. Apparently, these tasks are the purview of the high school Security Guard, unbeknownst to me. Really, someone should send out a memo about modified job responsibilities to clue in the rest of the school, just so we're all on the same page.

Two Thursdays ago, before the rash of suspensions that spread through campus quicker than syphilis British Renaissance royalty, I wish people could have just done their jobs. My job, in case I haven't been explicitly clear, is that of a teacher. This means I am responsible for maintaining certain documentation, controlling the classroom, delivering instruction, and assessing my students. While I was in the process of doing my job, two of my little darlings decided to get into a shouting match.

The smaller of the two, a 4' 4" young man who likes to talk a lot of smack, may or may not have instigated the confrontation when he came into class late. Regardless of whomever was responsible for starting the conflict, he and his antagonist, a girl expelled from her previous high school for pulling a knife during a fight, began to abuse each other verbally. As with many confrontations at my school, most of this centered around whether or not each child was ready to "step," or engage in a physical fight. Also, as can be expected, the insults soon degenerated into the steadfast "yo' mama" comments. The most colorful of these I believe was "That's yo' mama's pussy that smells stank."

After taking the steps necessary to fulfill my job requirements, I write down what each child is yelling at each other, give them verbal warnings, and confront them both with what they have said. Keep in mind, I would have to be straight up insane to approach either student physically in order to separate them from each other. That is most definitely not within my rights or responsibilities as a classroom teacher. That's why we have another staff member on campus called a "Security Guard" who is allowed to physically remove a student from class. Playing by the book (stupid Thea, when will you learn how infrequently this ever has positive results?), I walk outside and request that the Security Guard remove the more aggressive female student from the class.

I'm not an expert on the best-practices for Security Guards, but I'm going to hazard a guess that when a young lady is screaming about how stank somebody's mama's pussy is, calling her name softly from outside the door is not going to be your most effective strategy for dissipating the conflict.

Hey, guess what, I was right.

As I turned my back from the incident to grab a referral form from inside my desk, the girl gets up out of her seat, walks over to the boy sitting at his computer, and punches him in the head. Not even knowing what to do, the attacked kid tries to hide against the computer. At this point, the security guard has done nothing. Incredulous, I run across the room and frantically try to think of what I need to do to solve the crisis. I'm not thinking "Hey, that fat fuck over in the corner should be handling this" or "Why doesn't that useless ignorant sorry excuse for a sentient being move his lazy ass." I'm thinking "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." With these eloquent words rolling around in my head, the larger girl takes the boy's head and slams it into the computer monitor. The monitor slides off onto the table, and my first thought is not "Wow, I really shouldn't have to deal with this" or "Oh, I'm sure the security guard is rushing over to intervene." It's "They're going to fire me for letting the kids break computer equipment."

Then, the boy starts to fight back. Both fall to the floor, and my fear of reprimand from the administration gives way to my very real concern for both students' safety. I kick my way into the fight, trying to separate the two. As they writhe away from each other and stand up, still yelling nonsense about somebody's mamma, they fly at each other again, knocking over three desks and a chair, nearly flattening two frightened timid girls. I grab one student's shoulders, and another student intervenes to grab the other belligerant one. I can't even remember which was which.

Now that the immediate violence has abated, I whip around to assess the classroom situation with as much rapidity as I can manage. What should I see but our security guard grinning at the doorway, arms crossed over his rolling gut.

Apparently, he needs a friendly reminder about what is and is not in HIS job description. Call me a lunatic, but I'm going to guess that it was his responsibility, not that of a TEACHER and a STUDENT to break up the fight in the classroom and ensure everyone else's safety. If I do nothing else this year, I will get this man fired. He is the scum of the earth, and a fantastic example of why Miami-Dade Public Schools are fucked. Speaking purely from my own personal anecdotal experience, our school is falling down a long spiral into whatever sort hell your spirituality permits you to imagine: the deep, dark, fiery pits of it.

This was a Thursday, about ten days ago. Mercifully, I'd planned a trip to New York that weekend, and was able to escape the torments of Miami's blistering inferno...for the biggest blizzard to hit Manhattan in recorded history. See, I didn't know it, but I'm actually a well-refined magnet for calamity, natural disasters included. Nearly every day since then, there has been some sort of traumatic event at school, save today.

On Monday, the school board voted to change the calendar, moving the semester up two weeks, making failure notices due in three days. For the next three days, I spent 11 hours at school. I spent more time on 35th Avenue than I spent in my own damn house. On Wednesday, a student in my 4th period stabbed a boy in the arm with a pencil. He was bleeding. Now, I officially reached the end of my rope. Fraying fibers, rope burn, grasping frantically for sanity. My job is no longer teaching, but crowd control. I shut down into war mode...



Phase I 13:00 casualties at zero, maintain position and await commands from headquarters.

13:35 combat site under lockdown, following aggressive action

Phase II 14:30, new bogies intercepted, 18 incoming hostiles

RETREAT!! 15:35 RETREAT TO BASE!!!

Base is now Starbucks, where I reconvene and attempt to process the events of the afternoon. I will narrate them thus:

Girl 2 (not Girl 1 who attacked small boy at computer on Thursday, but different, wholly unrelated girl) says something like "get away from me, little bitch" to Boy 2 (not small boy beaten up Thursday, but singularly different boy) who stands over her at a table. Boy 2 does not move, but Girl 3 stands up out of seat and begins screaming. Girl 3, hitherto to be known as PPLPOSDC (psychotic pathological liar piece of shit devil child) gesticulates wildly while yelling "Now, I know you heard that! That's a referral! [Girl 1] was cussin'! If that was me, you'd a wrote me up! Ms. Williamson, I know you heard that!"

Thanks. Caught that the first time.

Girl 3 is now officially hysterical, so I ask both her and Boy 2 to come outside to discuss their behavior. On his way out, I see blood (albeit a small amount) dripping from his arm. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Now, in the less than a week, blood has been spilled in my classroom. I probably saw more bodily fluids that week than my roommate's boyfriend, who is in medical school. PPLPOSDC continues to yell at me outside the classroom, and considering how this has happened at least 12 times so far this school year, I decide that it's not my job to stand there and be verbally abused by a spoiled 16 year old, so I call security.

Ha.

Did I say call security? I should clarify. By "call" I mean raise the volume of my voice, since there are no phones and no electronic means of communication with either the Central South Office or the security guard, incompetent fuck that he is. I ask an administrator visiting from the Main Campus where I might be able to find someone to take this screaming child out of my presence, and he tells me, I kid you not "I'm looking for him too. He's been missing for an hour." In disbelief, I spend a fraction of a second pondering the ironic fact that Girl 3 hadn't even been the cause of this fucked-up situation which had now escalated into a full-scale conflict, then begin to scream myself. Because that is the only recourse that I have left, when all of the proper steps and countermeasures in my job description have failed or were never even there as options as the first place. When I can't do my job, when I am completely powerless and want nothing more in the world than to ball up my fist, take aim, and land my knuckles right on her mean, abusive, deceitful lips, I scream.

"S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y"

I walk to the corner so that my words rattle the paint flakes on the concrete walls, and force all my anger out through my lungs: "CAN I P-L-E-A-S-E get some SECURITY?"

I bellow down the other corridor, towards the Madison office: "SECURITYYYYYYYYYYYYY"

Finally, a security guard employed by the Middle school which does not employ me took PPLPOSDC away so that I could deal with the sheepishly bleeding Boy 2 sitting on the bench. I talk to him about why he got stabbed with a pencil, and by now it's almost time to switch classes. My kids come out of the classroom, the halls flood, and PPLPOSDC comes back along with the Madison security guard. I tell both of them, as is well within my rights as a teacher, that I will not speak with her until I see a parent, so she should please leave the room.

Fuming, I resume the duties in my contract, to fill out a 4-ply carbon copy "SCAM," or behavior referral on all three students: Girl 2, Boy 2, and now PPLPOSDC. A good ten minutes later, now nearly an hour since the original pencil-stabbing took place, Fat Ass (as I now call Mr. B---, our friendly, useful security guard) comes into my class.

His words, concise and to the point: "Uh, somebody said you needed me?"

Slowly pulling my seething eyes up from the third referral form to inform him "I needed you twenty minutes ago, when a student was screaming in my face. It's under control now."

From this moment on, when my concentration returned to the green paper underneath my ballpoint pen, Mr. B--- has ceased to exist on the campus. I do not look at him, I do not acknowledge the fact that he is a group of cells which intakes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, he is not my peer nor my colleague like the custodians, the secretaries, the administrators, or the students who do their jobs. If you can't figure out how to do your fucking job, then I'll do it for you, AND mine too. It's not like I've never had to do that before.

Hot off the Presses

Lately, breaking news has been quite a crucial part of my life. It's taken me a week or so to get over the bottled up anger that I have inside about work, but now that I've rewarded myself with a long weekend and a trip to NY to visit Mandi, I have some time to think.

My relationship with the press began in October, when a member of the ESAAC Committee came to the Central South campus to see how things were going. He spoke with a lot of students over several days, and then sat down on a Planning day to talk with the teachers. We aired our grievances, vented about the ridiculous situation in which we had found ourselves this school year, and generally bitched. He left, and I assumed that our words would go the way of many complaints, suggestions, and solutions in the Miami-Dade school system: unnoticed.

Then, three weeks ago a vaguely disturbing email came by way of my work account saying that a "report" had been published about Miami Central. Confused, I didn't put much stock in the worries of the administration, who have categorically ignored the South Satellite all year. You blow me off, I blow you off.

That is, I blow you off until you attack me.

Following the press release of the 13 page ESAAC (I can't even remember the acronym it's so complicated. Something involving School Accountability Committee: a community oversight board), the state of Florida and the district of Miami-Dade county suddenly decided to "notice" us again. We had a representative from one of these educational organizations every day for three weeks; keep in mind now, that this is the place where we had to struggle, scream, and stomp to even get our own PRINCIPAL to pay attention to our needs. Ironic? Yes, I think so. My favorite day was when I had 9 visitors, including 4 computer technicians in my classroom on one day. That was Tuesday, two weeks ago. These IT people from the district told me that I was not only irresponsible for not contacting them about the malfunctioning computers in my room, but that my children weren't learning because of it. They did this in front of an entire classroom of my students. Super. Great. I proceeded to tell them, in professional but forceful terms, that their "computer glitch" did nothing but throw off some meaningless statistics required by the district, and that they didnt' know their asses from a hole in the ground regarding 1. my students' learning gains, and 2. the DISTRICT REQUIRED teaching program called Read 180 that they came to supposedly "monitor" and "troubleshoot."

After that, I was ripped. The Miami Herald published an article the day before called: "Central Kids Set Up to Fail" which of course the Administration freaked out about. My personal favorite line was "Dr. Simmons, the other principal, was unavailable for comment because she was out of town." Every fact in the article was true, and I sent an email stating as much to the author at the Herald. No response.

Wednesday rolled around, and there were more people than ever in the classroom. I made up my mind to attend the Town Hall meeting scheduled for that evening, but what exactly I would do/say was unclear. The meeting started, and who should I see on the dias when I walk in, but the same parent who had been at Madison in September and October. This was going to be interesting. Unfortuntately, the Superintendent refused to come to the meeting, claiming that the parents didn't get to decide when they would speak to him, but that he had the power to decide when he felt like speaking to the parents. Right. Anyway, the meeting dragged on with bickering about the new construction which hadn't even started yet. Finally, we moved on to the academic progress of the students, and one of our Assistant Principals spoke on that. She spouted off some statistics about benchmarks, learning gains, bi-weekly assessments, and crap like that, saying that they've been monitoring the progress of the students, and growth has already occurred. I was flaming mad, and could barely think I was so pissed. I get up out of my back-row seat in jeans an a central athletic jacket, walk over several of my colleagues getting out of the row, and step up to the mic.

I introduced myself, projecting my voice into a microphone barely held steady by my shaking hand. Then, I proceeded to call out the school on major "inconsistencies" in their statements, the first of which was my AP's claim that they have "documentation" of the kids' learning gains. My comment was "It's the 25th week of school I've only given 5 bi-weekly assessments to my students. I'm not a math teacher, but I can figure out that these numbers don't add up. And, I've also addressed this concern with each of the SIX administrators who have been in charge of the Madison satellite this year."

My own voice ringing in my ears, I made my way back to my seat and glanced at the smiles and astonished eyes of the Central teachers sitting around me in the back of the auditorium. There wasn't much of a reply from the Assistant Principal, some bullshitting and backtracking but nothing of substance. The reply came instead from a reporter for the Miami Herald, who sprinted over to ask for my name and teaching position. [enjoy the real thing here]

Unfortunately, absolutely no reply at all came from either of our principals. I was disgusted that throughout the entire 4 hour meeting neither of them got up to address the community. Such a disrespectful attitude is so frustrating; it's almost as if they absolved themselves of any responsibility in the situation, acted like it wasn't "their" problem. Yeah, that would be so stupid, if the principals actually were held accountable for what went on at the school.

The community response to my little rant has been slow in trickling in, but those people who either heard me at the town meeting, or read the Herald article which was published in the next day's paper have taken time to appreciate my very small voice. For the past year and a half, I have felt like I was screaming at a system that didn't make any sense, and did its best to make my life miserable. I have a shit job at a shit school that nobody wants to pay attention to. White suburbia doesn't really even want to acknowledge that places like Miami Central exist, let alone advocate on their behalf. I've lead a pretty emancipated life, and if there's one value that I take very seriously, it is the pride I take in voicing my dissent. Arguing a point, speaking up in class, and sharing my views has always been second nature to me, so I feel stifled and powerless in a system where you are expected to "C.Y.A." and tow the company line lest someone "write you up."

I may feel voiceless and disempowered, but I do have the freedom of a vagabond, without the strong social or economic ties to my position as a public school teacher. The Herald article wasn't the death blow to the Miami-Dade County Public School system, but at least a few people heard. One parent took the time to come in early before her job the next day to thank me for speaking out. Security guards, other teachers, and my family and friends have commended me for having a little puff at a very large whistle, but some part of me feels so unsatisfied.

There have been changes around school since the report came out, namely an actual clerk to do paperwork and copies, new headphones for the computers, and more attention from the Main Campus, but it's just too damn little and too damn late. Huge mistakes were made by so many people in so many levels of the school system, and each of those officials will get off scott-free at the end of the year. The people that their mistakes truly hurt are those who the system is supposed to serve: the class of 2009.

The parents can lash out at the administration, the administration can hand out the tired old 'no comment' line, and the district can apologize like Dr. Tosada did, saying "There is no excuse for that" but when the consequences are played out, it doesn't matter if the mistakes are excusable. The kids still missed out on nearly a year of normal education.

This is why I think it's amazing that some of my kids really are learning. In a positive backlash, I printed out all of my students SRI (Reading Inventory) scores and made a huge poster for my class to show all the assholes who are in my classroom every day, three times a day that no matter what the fuck they throw at us, we come to school every day and we learn. The State's not there every day; hell, our principals aren't here every day, but the teachers and the students show up every morning at 7:20, take out a pen, a pencil, a whiteboard marker, and a book, and dammit, we read.

Goddamn Windshield Wipers. Grr.

My cryptic angry post of last night should be followed by some sort of explanatory narrative. There's a lot of amargura flowing through my veins lately, mostly due to my work, but it's seeping into other parts of my life as well. In order to root out this poisonous feeling, I wanted to find the cause (FCAT signal word!) of all the ire and nastiness, and I wound myself into a frenzy trying to figure out what was responsible for my current feelings.

This afternoon, I was angry with my windshield. I've been more or less angry for a week. I've looked pretty damn hard to find someone or something to place the blame on, since that seems to be the theme to my work life at the moment, and then I had a rather revelatory moment in the car this evening. The truth may be that I need to stop thinking about blame, and start thinking more about responsibility. The problem isn't quite as clear-cut as the mechanical one with my car, but I think a lesson can be learned.

Here's the story.

On our way to Sanibel Island, the wipers just stopped. They sat there at a 45 degree angle stuck to the windshield. We managed to get them back to their resting position, and even made it out to Sanibel in the misty drizzle that blew away later that afternoon. Thankfully, the rest of the weekend was sunny beaches, bright mornings and good food, doing their best to cleanse the less-pleasant thoughts from my head. After a fun Superbowl with BBQ at M's apartment, I woke up to go back to school.

I didn't want to go. There is just too much to deal with there, and more horrendous crap accumulates every day. Example: on Monday afternoon, the teachers find out at the same time as the students that there will be a three hour practice FCAT the next day. Great. Thanks for the advance warning. The teachers have been stepped on, pushed out of the way, and ignored all year, and I'm about ready to bust on someone.

But I did not. Instead, I packed up my things, took D. back to the airport that night, and dragged my very reluctant self to work on Tuesday. Administering standardized tests is never very fun, so there were about as many people suprised by my wretched mood on Tuesday afternoon as there are penguins in Miami. [NB: there are no penguins in Miami. Neither are there glassblowing studios, reputable colleges or universities, or decent grocery stores].

To top things off, the grimy filth that sifts down through the lower atmosphere every day in South Florida had settled in a crusty layer over my entire windshield making it decidedly difficult to see. I was totally and completely powerless to fix the situation: I don't know enough about the mechanics of my car to repair it; I have not yet had the time to take it to a shop; I didn't have any way to clean the windshield on the way home; and I had forgotten to wipe it off before I left for work in the morning. All I could do was sit there and stew at the perfectly sparkling pane of glass that stood between me and the dusty crud. Ready to scream and throw an empty coffee mug through the window, I screamed at the car, hit the steering wheel, and tried to find someone or something I could blame for the wipers' failure.

Thinking through the possible reasons for the malfunction, I tried to figure out why I was so angry. A driving force was the fact that I was now responsible for fixing the wipers, which would be a royal pain in my ass. Then, as wheels kept on turning, I realized that while I may be responsible for the car and all of its parts, it is not my fault that they are broken. The blame lies elsewhere, if there really is any blame to be placed. Sometimes it's nobody's fault, or the culpability is fragmented in so many pieces, scattered in so many directions that figuring out who is at fault is futile. It's an old car, and sometimes shit happens to old cars. It may not even be *technically* my car, but it is my responsibility, and therefore I have to shoulder the burden of taking care of it. I don't mean to get too melodramatic about the wipers, but my contemplative little brain extrapolated the lesson to other parts of my life which have also made me rather frustrated in the past few months. It is NOT my fault that R. reads on barely a 2nd grade reading level. Unfortunately, until June it is my responsibility to see that he comes to school and at the very least sees people engaged in learning around him. I think it's healthier for everyone to take a step back, after yelling at the windshield wipers, and figure out whose responsibility it is to fix them, instead of getting our metaphorical panties in bunch over who has to accept the blame. The subtle difference between the two, blame and responsibility, is not something that I am finely attuned to, but I'm trying. Differentiating seems to be crucial to my psychological well-being, and should also make my work environment somewhat healthier.

Of course, none of this fancy philosophizing does anything to change the fact that the garage closes at 5:00 pm, and all this week I didn't even leave my room until 4:45, but that's another topic for another day.

What's my deal?

Why can't I just get my shit together?

Why is it so *fucking* hard to get a dentist's appointment? It can't have been this difficult when I was in high school.

Why does my job suck out my soul?

When am I going to get to do the things that I like to do? When can I blow glass? When can I cook? When can I write and talk about literature?

When will it not be such a struggle to be *heard*, in the classroom, by my bosses, by the "system" and myself?

Why is speaking up so hard?

I'm done for the night. 2.5 hour practice FCAT which I couldn't even complete correctly. 2 more days of work this week...get through this Thea. Get through this year.