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.