From the department of new teacher dissention

I started teaching in September in a very poor, large urban school district. (Think of the basic environment in the movie Teachers, with Nick Nolte.)

I’ll try and make the litany of unreal crap between then and now as brief as possible. (Most likely this will not happen.)

Two days before school starts, I show up. Our studdering principal gave us a long speech saying to keep our agendas out of our lessons. (note: he did not have a speech impediment, he was just unable to finish a single thought.) How about a staff handbook? How about a tour of the building and introductions to other staff? Maybe a “Hello” to the staff as individuals would have been nice.

Several hours later, I know where my room is and finally track down a key. Stacked outside the room are 75 boxes of supplies. I open the door to an unbelievable sight: paper spitballs cover the walls, the desks, and parts of the ceiling; nearly hundreds of pencils are poking out of the ceiling tiles. Paint and glue cover the chalkboard, the storage cabinets are overflowing with mostly garbage. In the next day and a half, I inventory and put away the stuff from the boxes (half of which belongs elsewhere or is useless to everybody.) I scrub the desks, board and walls with cold water because the hot water does not work. One of the shop guys gets me a ladder to clean the ceiling, and of course, the thing had a bent leg and I had to put a book under it to steady it. Luckily, while I was exhausting myself and risking life and limb (without the children there yet…) the janitor comes by to comment about how hard I am working. I am glad that someone noticed, however that person is also supposed to have finished cleaning the rooms before I got here. Some help at this point would have been nice. Once I finished white-knuckling the ladder, I had copies to make for my classes. I manage to find every copy machine in the school and also find out the hard way that not even one has any toner left. So I track down the Operations Manager, who informs me we have no toner in the entire building, but it’s due to arrive within the week. Great.

I go to Kinkos and have 400 copy packets made up for the kids, costing over $150. Fine.

The first few weeks of school go on with the usual incidents of kids who really hate school: Kids tell me to fuck off, call me names and refuse to shut up when I am talking. As long as I stay calm and keep going this is fairly uneventful within an average day.

Over the first two months some more serious things that happened: I was pushed by three students and put my back out, I had a student try to set another student on fire in my classroom, I had a girl try to stab another girl’s eye out with a pencil (luckily she missed), A student put cleaning fluid into my drink (also lucky, I smelled it before drinking) the kids trashed my room on a day when I was out sick and I broke up more fights than I can count.

I was counting the days to June and making a stiff drink for myself at 4:00 every day, but I was going to stick it out. At this point I was vomiting almost everyday before school and during lunch from my nerves. The nervous shakes were the norm on any given day (and I teach Art and I have to draw for the kids.)

Then a student slammed my classroom door on my fingers. On my right hand (no more drawing for a while.) Two of my fingers were broken. I stopped going to work because I could neither draw nor write. Workman’s comp covered two weeks off, but my fingers took months to heal. I was told to go back to work, because teaching IS “light duty” work. Okay, now I am pissed.

It took five hours to press charges against this kid in the precinct that stunk of urine and stale cigarette smoke. On a personal day. I also had to testify against him, another personal day gone.

I was transferred to another school after making a huge deal about the hell hole I worked in that they tried to pass of as a school.

My new job is better, although it still has its moments.

The reason that I am really pissed: Teachers new to the district are supposed to get a $1500 bonus in February. I did not get mine and after my umteenth phone call I was promised it in this paycheck. Okay, so I make plans for the long weekend to relax and get rid of some stress. My. Money. Is. Missing.

I call the HR people and tell them I want my money (as my usual polite self) they do the usual blame another department routine. So, I tell them I will come down in person, I will get a check, I will… Still no money.

This is the last straw:
I am handcuffing myself to the Superintendent’s desk on Tuesday.

I may need some help with bail.

Call the state labor relations board and state board of education.

Then call whatever TV station has the most obnoxious “investigative team.”

Umm, you’re scaring me. In less than two years, that will likely be my life. Do I really want to do this?

wmulax,

I planned to work in a cushy job in the burbs when I was in college. But, I live in a city and that’s where the jobs are.

I have gotten used to a whole lot and I can handle extreme situations without blinking now, after this experience. College does a lousy job of preparing teachers to handle these situations. The bottom line is that everybody has their own personality and their own style of dealing with things you can’t learn in school.

Also, keep in mind this is the neighborhood A prayer for the City was written about.

I’m a second on getting a message to some obnoxious news media person.

I think when those guys says “Channel 666 has learned about horrible conditions at PS 1313…” what they mean is we got a phone call.

Good GOD-what age were these kids?

Good luck.

I currently work in high school, but the problems mentioned, and most problems in general were in a middle school. Grades 5-8.

URL=http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/5922677.htm]See this recent article about a middle school teacher.

Fixed link

I don’t know what to say, except that this depresses me.

:frowning:

Wow, where do you live? Around here, all the school districts - urban, suburban, and rural - are hungry for teachers.

Sadly, the labor board is not much interested in “bonuses” not received. In fact, my employer still owes me about $170 in “real” wages from incorrectly calculating my hourse five times over the last three months and they’re not much interested in that, either.

It’s makes me depressed hearing about stuff like this. Inner-city schools need good teachers, but good teachers don’t deserve all the violence and insults and no-gooders. So they flee, and the situation gets worse.

:frowning:

Guin, thanks for fixing that link. I guess my convoluted point is that during a teacher’s shortage and in places where conditions get continually worse there are things that a system does to teachers that also feeds into the shortage.

The shortage would not be exacerbated if there were not abysmal numbers of teachers quitting. In the article about the teacher being beaten it was handled to the best extent possible, the kids who beat up this teacher were placed in another school. (Forget about expelling these kids, it doesn’t work that way anymore.)

Many situations occur that are not handled that well at all. A teacher could show up and have a student who assaulted him/her still in class. It is an overwhelmed system with many lazy and incompetent people scattered throughout.

However, the adult employees who are making policy and dealing with teachers should very well not add to the problems of teachers. Simple as that. The kids may be unpredictable but, the administrators in the picture need to deal with those of us who are willing to teach these kids with Respect.

If someone with half a brain opened up my personnel file, they should understand that I have put up with a whole lot of shit. SO FOR FUCKS SAKE PAY ME!!!

Altoid, welcome to the front lines. I have retired from battle in a school that sounds like the one you have described.

I went to a college that at that time was ranked number two in teacher training in the nation. When we took “methods and materials,” we begged our instructor to talk about discipline issues. In the last five minutes of the last class, she said that we wouldn’t have discipline problems if we had good lesson plans.
That same teacher called me when I was in the hospital after being beaten to the point of unconsciousness by a trespasser from another school.:mad: That was near the beginning.

I chose to teach in inner-city schools because I wanted to make a difference in their lives. As long as I could keep my heart alive, I stayed with it. I loved my students. And I loved whatever time I was actually able to spend on teaching. It was the administrators who were the greatest problem.

During those twenty years I taught at least eight murderers. (I lost count after that.) Convicted rapists were placed in my classroom without my being informed of their pasts.

There is no way to adequately describe the utter chaos I endured. Once when I was in a hospital for depression, the principal gave my phone number to the substitue so that she could call me. She was having trouble with student behavior in my fifth period class and wanted me to solve the problem. When I returned to school after five weeks, the principal, on my first day back, suggested that I hadn’t been in the hospital at all. :confused:

Then there was the time that another principal came into my classroom and began to berate me in the presence of my students. When I tried to leave the classroom, he blocked my way. (Two years later he lost his job because of conduct unbecoming a professional. I wasn’t the only teacher he had abused.)

On the first report card day of the 1989-90 school year, I had a routine appointment for a physical after school. The doctor put me directly in the hospital and said that I had to walk away from my career or accept the fact that it was going to kill me. I have been retired on disability with my pension and social security for fourteen years now.

Within the first four years of my retirement, two other teachers in my department died of stress related problems. One blew her brains out. (There had been only eight of us in the department.)

The greatest mistake that I made in my life was staying in that job beyond the time that I had the heart for it. Until teachers are allowed to return to teaching, I wouldn’t recommend the profession to anyone. But I’m sure that my views are colored by my own experiences.

The state has now threatened to take over the school.

If you decide to stay in teaching, I urge you to join your local education associated. They were my salvation for as long as I lasted.

Fucking hell. :eek:

I have no idea what else to say or suggest. :frowning:

Aww thanks, Zoe.

Now that I am in a new situation with high school kids, I do enjoy my job and I do get to teach. My kids are still rough kids and some have done awful things in their past, and I don’t want to know.

The good thing about being placed in the worst inner-city school as a greenhorn (Catholic school teaching does not count) is I have that experience behind me. Those kids sense that I have been seasoned and I do not get as much grief as many teachers would. I know how to avoid many situations and I get to talk to these kids as people.

I see teachers who are a little too jaded, and I feel for their students. One of the problems with this job (besides the aforementioned) is that it can be a 30-40 year gig, with little chance of firing or advancement. Teachers are forced to challenge themselves or decide to move to a different school.

Stress is very real as a cause of some teachers cracking-- I have two co-workers who did spend some time in the rubber room after some stange behavior in their classrooms.

Whenever someone comments to the fact that all teachers are lazy, etc. I invite them to volunteer for a day in my classroom. That shuts them up.

I am delighted that you have found a position where you have more control and can enjoy teaching! Keep your heart alive.

Wow. All I can say is, I’m glad there are folks like you still willing to TRY. I hope you have at least one student who later remembers that you made a difference in their life. And I hope you call the local news and embarrass the school district half to death!

altoid, Zoe - your posts very nearly just broke my heart.

I just finished my first year of college, after deciding that there is no doubt in my mind that I want to be a teacher when I am done school myself.

I accepted that I won’t make much money as a teacher. That’s fine.
I accepted that I’ll probably get stuck teaching something other than what I’m going to school for (biology).
I accepted that I’m going to have to deal with some smart-ass kids who will cause me grief.
I accepted that I’ll be placed in front of a classroom full of kids who have no real interest in what I’ll be there to teach them.

There are a slew of ads in the paper looking for teachers in my comfortable little suburban area, and I’m pretty confident in being able to get a start here, but damn, I don’t know. I think after reading this thread I’d feel like a coward.

Many hugs to those of you teaching in tough schools. When I get to whining about some of what’s going on in my district, this reminds me of my first year teaching/subbing in truly scary schools. We may not have a foreign language department anymore, but at least my students are largely well-behaved sweeties.

Oh, altoid, I teach high school art too! Psst-- any ideas on textile projects?

BadBaby,

Let me know if your e-mail is correct on this site and I can e-mail you a couple of projects. Kinda funny that I don’t want to hijack my own thread.

Really, thanks for the view into urban teaching. I’ve been considering moving to Detroit to teach after I get my certificate and degree, but now I have to analyze that a little (ok, a lot) more.

Again, thank you.