Bob’s Blog

In August, I started my first teaching job. I am a 23 year old high school social studies teacher. From time to time, I’ll share some of the stories from my classroom. I hope to one day keep a set of memoirs on the experience and maybe, just maybe, publish them one day. If you’d like to read all of these stories so far, all you simply have to do is click the “Teaching” tag on the right hand side of the page. Enjoy.

My school is a circus. If it isn’t something with the kids then it’s something with the administration. In the past couple weeks, my administration has done the following:

1. Cut my lunch short by 10 minutes. Might not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but it’s a big deal when your lunch is only 30 minutes long each day. Yes, my lunch at this school is only 30 minutes long. So why did it get cut short? Well, we had food fights – and lots of them. I didn’t realize kids still even DID food fights anymore (I’m only 23 and I can’t ever remember a time in high school we had food fights. But I digress.) In fact, we had close to 8 in a span of 4 days (all taking place in the different lunch periods)

So, what does the administration do to handle the situation? They cut lunch short for everybody and send everyone onto their next class. Because instead of managing the situation and handling it the right way (by keeping your cameras on to review, nabbing the kids who pulled these stunts, and forcing the kids to sit back down and calm them) they instead cut our already short lunches short.

2. Not notifying us of longer periods. We had a half hour set aside each day during school for enrichment. Depending on your grade level, you would work on various skills such as english, math, science, social studies, or how to adapt to the high school setting. Sounds nice, right? Wrong. It was a total failure on all fronts. The kids didn’t care about the class and the teachers didn’t either. After lunch, the kids would get sent to these classes. They’re all hopped up on sugar and the social time, so they just didn’t care about something like this.

So, the administration ditches it. Only thing is, they never told us. And still have not told us. We get notified in our mail boxes the other day about a new schedule. First period is nearly an hour and a half long. 4th period is nearly an hour and a half long. And 6th period is an hour and 5 minutes long. Normal class time is 55 minutes.

A bit important to tell your teachers about, no? Especially if you’re hounded daily by walk-throughs and scolded by asst. principles for not “teaching bell to bell”.

4 work days later, no given explanation on what’s going on or why exactly this was decided on now…in the middle of the year. Rumor has it, they could not give credit for this enrichment course (as it was explained to everyone, including parents and students) and the administration is just finding out about it now. But if this is the case, why wasn’t this figured out over the summer?

3. Suspending kids for…no reason. Our school is off the chain in terms of behavior. We have some pretty bad and obnoxious kids. So, my principle decides to go on the warpath and informs teachers at the beginning of each class period to send the kids out into the hall who have been “chronic trouble makers” inside of your classroom. The kids were sent to the main lobby and written up on the spot.
Again, no notification that this was taking place. This was just as much of a surprise to us as it was to the kids. I didn’t feel comfortable sending any kids out because well…they didn’t do anything that day. Now if it was at the END of each period, perhaps that would be a little different. But you CANNOT discipline kids for what they did prior (especially if you’ve already disciplined them). That’s double jeopardy. And I didn’t feel comfortable taking part so I refused.

Teachers were sending out half their classrooms. Some had smiles on their faces while doing so. That was the only day I’ve seen some teachers smile while in that building. Makes me a tad nauseous. Nauseous that it’s gotten to that point.

In 2 days, we had nearly 400 kids suspended. That’s a quarter of the entire high school.

Unreal.

A teacher of 20+ years at the school said to a fellow teacher today that, “This is the worst its ever been here.”

I sometimes think this is all a dream and what’s going on is not really happening.

And we think product placement is bad now.

Despite 2007 being a rocky year for me, I’ve been fortunate enough to have been blessed with great friends and family who have been there for me through it all. The past few days have proved that. There are a lot of people in this world who can’t say that; I’m fortunate to be where I am in life and it’s mostly due to my friends and family.

In other news, I’m looking to move and find a new job starting in about a month. I know what I want out of life and I refuse to settle for anything less. Moving back to Ohio is an option; but I think I’m going to continue to stay in the ATL and give it another shot. To be frank, I deserve better (in terms of job environment) and I can’t handle the dysfunction.

Happy Thanksgiving. Be kind to one another; it’s that time of the year where you should put aside all petty differences and be thankful for what and who you have in your life.

In the past 2-3 years, there’s been a lot of talk about the US torturing Iraqi’s and detainees in Gitmo. There’s no doubt that the US carries out and has a hand in torturing others, despite what President Bush and his administration says.

We’ve heard a lot lately about water boarding and how it may or may not be torture. Bush is for the use of it and denies that is torture. For those that don’t know, it’s an old medieval technique of making people talk where your lungs are filled with water and it is a simulated drowning. It’s been regarded as torture for over a century now and was banned by the US military a couple years ago, but the CIA is still allowed to carry it out.

Here’s a video of how it’s done.

Less than two weeks from now, I’m going to be with my family and friends for Thanksgiving. My excitement level is off the charts right now. Knowing I get to see the people I care about in 13 days when I haven’t seen them for 4 months (in some cases, much longer) is what’s keeping me going right now.

My move to Atlanta was abrupt and unexpected; it had happened in only a matter of a couple weeks. Since most of my friends go to school or live in various parts of Ohio and Michigan, I never had the chance to say “goodbye” to most of my friends. So, I’m pretty excited to spend an entire weekend with them.

As for seeing my family? Well, no explanation is necessary for how excited I am to see them. Especially my mom. My mom has been here for me more than anyone else. She sends me a lot of mail; and it always makes my day no matter how bad it was. I’ve been blessed with such amazing parents, words can’t describe what they do for me and how much they mean to me.

For a long time prior to this move – I talked about getting out of Ohio. I made it no secret that I wanted out and needed to move, to become challenged, and to go to an area where there’s a lot of opportunity and growth. I did it. But for as great as the city of Atlanta is and how much I do love it, it’ll never be Cleveland to me. Cleveland, at the end of the day, will always be home and I’m excited about going back.