Duncan OhNo

Arne will be the new Education Secretary for Obama, it was announced yesterday. So he can do for the country what he's done for Chicago? Front for the business/corporate community which wants to downsize public education?

Close schools, fire teachers, displace students, dismantle all the "underutilized" schools, siphon off public money for charter school showcases, to be closed quietly after a bit of fanfare and create a two-tier system, a whole set of second-class lower paid teachers, non-union unprotected, fired-at-will --

Think of the school system being run by Fedex -- or, doing for schools what HMO's and insurance companies have done for health care.

I knew this was coming and I KNOW you can only be disappointed if you expected something better.
AND my job is to get a job.

I do not have TIME or ENERGY to splutter about this and years of abuse. To me. There was a study on stress the CTU sponsored, but I can't get anyone to tell me about, where it is, or where I can read it. The study focused on, did teachers get harassed or abused by a)students b) other teachers, or c) administrators -- that is, physical or verbal abuse.

I flash quickly on, the talk in faculty meetings about, oh no Ms B, the students don't see me like YOU!, and hearing the most obstreperous students tell me, I HAD to pass them because I 'wasn't a real teacher'.

Thank you NCLB for sending to the students the information that I had not taken a Spanish competency test -- which I'd never been told was necessary. The req's were changed after I got an endorsement, and I found out about the change by the letters to students telling them I was not "not highly qualified". When I passed the test, no such school wide mailing was sent out correcting the undermining information.

Unraveling this little story, I do need to remember that I got into the mess by being assigned to teach off-certificate, a history position teaching Spanish 4 classes by my principal. and other things like it-- put in a classroom barely big enough for ten students, with a full class-load, no windows -- a room the previous teacher had died in, when he had a heart attack. All those changes I dealt with by..ignoring them until I left the school -- out of the frying pan into the fire.

Splutter, splutter.
I know ( all the paragraphs start with I today) there are teachers in schools where they feel supported. But even as I write, I realize, I'm never going to be one of those teachers, not in this system. It is so hard to let something go that I love. Can't let go of the anger or the fond memories,
like the moment the other day when the student made an ignorant comment about, it's okay if a gay gets attacked by a monster (Halloween stories) and I jumped up to say -- you know, one out of every ten people you KNOW are probably gay -- could be, your teacher! Really, another student asked, are you a lesbian? (Freeze, is it safe? Breathe caught in my throat) Yes. Cool, my mom is too! And she high-fives me. You, another says, are the coolest sub we ever had! I think they call that, a teachable moment.

So, there are moments which I use like a pro biotic, to reintroduce the living part I love.
And try to remember why it's necessary to do something else.

So many stories, so many details to the painful etchings I carry around with me, trying to find a place to lay them.