Industrial Strength

I teach my classes in an old portable at the back of my school. It’s a bit smelly or so I am told by my students. It’s funny what you will get used to after a couple years. Though I guess it’s equally funny what you won’t. Sometimes at the end of the day after my students filter out, I cup my face with my hands and fight back a tear. Things seem to be getting worse and daily fewer and fewer things make sense. When I started teaching I wanted to change the world, after a couple years I decided if I could just make a little difference that would be good enough but now many days I am just interested in surviving and going home and I am not alone.

Mr. Smith (not his real name) teaches regular education math at the same school I work at, geometry, algebra and such. He has been a teacher for six years all of it here, which means this is our forth year working together. Even though we teach different subjects (I teach special ed. science) we have a fair amount in common. We’re both Italians from Ohio who relocated to Jacksonville, neither of us are big fans of the cold and two years ago we started a staff fantasy football league. We also have a daily routine which consists of me complimenting his shirts and him telling me the (I am sure made up) history behind them. Pretty silly I know but sometimes it’s the silly things that you have to grab onto to get you through the day.

I visited his classroom a while back and found him standing near his white board (a modern day chalk board) with a little tub in his hand. What’s that, I asked. He turned to me and sighed a little bit. Its board cleaner, make that industrial strength board cleaner, he then sighed again and added, I might finally be able to use my board.

I was a bit flabbergasted, as I said Mr. Smith is a math teacher and I always figured that math teachers had to use their boards more than any other type of teacher and I had no idea that for the whole year he had been unable to use his. I would be lost without mine, well the half of mine that works anyways.

He later told me that he let the administration (the same administration that kicked me out of my sixteen year old portable for three days so they could retile it), know before pre-planning had even begun (some four months ago) that his board was useless and that he had reminded them several times since. How have you been teaching math without it, I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and pointed at his over head projector and a small 3x3 portable white board. It’s been a struggle he said and then he added, like most things this year have been a struggle.

I could tell he needed to talk which was okay with me because I sincerely believe that teachers have to be there for each other, because if we’re not, then who will be. The district and even the administration are too far removed from the classroom; so far removed they really don’t seem to have a clue as to what is going. The public doesn’t seem to want to get a clue and all the union seems to only care about is teachers’ hours and pay.

If the district cared they wouldn’t give teacher more work than they can do. If the administration cared they wouldn’t send unruly children back to class without consequences for their behavior. If the public cared they would be in the streets clamoring for change. And if the union cared they would realize there are so many other things that affect teaching than just hours and pay. I however do care about my friend and his plight which I figured was most likely my plight as well so I asked him, what’s wrong.

He went on a rant, saying there was too much work and a lot of it that didn’t have anything to do with teaching. He felt the scrutiny on teachers was too great, he didn’t know how to make children care about themselves or school or how to get parents involved and those things reflected on him. Then the district with all their formatives and tests wasn’t giving him enough time to teach the material, his students, most of who didn’t arrive to him with the basic skills needed, had to be caught up before new material could be covered. He went on also mentioning a lack of support from the administration, his classes being too big and being filled with too unruly kids that made learning nearly impossible for those students who wanted to learn; he mentioned all those things and more.

He then looked at me and with a look of defeat on his face that I had never seen from him before and said, “Chris, the worse thing of all is I am afraid I am starting not to care anymore.” When he said that I knew I was right, our plights are the same.

I thought about saying, why should you. Like most teachers he comes to school every day and fights a losing battle. Kids uninterested in school as well as being defiant, disruptive and disrespectful are common throughout the city. The state and district are piling on teachers like never before, which means many teachers routinely work ten hour days just so they don’t fall to far behind and that’s on things that only has a peripheral relationship to learning. Mr. Smith doesn’t need a data notebook the size of several encyclopedia volumes to be a better teacher, what he needs are white boards that work.

I thought about saying why should you care when the state, the district, the administration, the parents and the union, entities with the power to make things better didn’t or at the very least didn’t appear to care.

Like I said, I thought about saying why should you care, along with those thing s above and I even thought about adding why should any of us, maybe it’s time all teachers stopped carrying and made making it through the day our only priority but I didn’t, instead I said, hey at least you got the board cleaner, I paused and added, the industrial strength board cleaner.