A humble collection of teacher's voices, a multi colored melted crayon blob, held up to the sunlight. You can see the individual color strands at the edges, but the center is a dense glob. All honest, all authentic non fiction turned fiction, some fiction turn into non fiction, all distilled down to the truth
16 October 2020
#1
I am in a district that had made the following Covid choice: to stay remote until 14 October, which changed last week and is now 23 October, still remote but now we are to teach from an empty building. The daily schedule was eviscerated and replaced by 20 day sessions. This means I teach an entire semester in 20 days, online, in three hour blocks. Do you need a minute to wrap your head around that? Go ahead, take a moment for yourself. The district is set to go hybrid beginning the 20th, but our building is holding back electives and keeping them remote. I've started calling us "ejectives", based on a text autocorrect, because we are ejectable. At any time, you can just punt an elective out of the curriculum, nobody cares: Ejectives.
Teaching theatre remotely from an empty stage is like sitting on a grave. And sitting on a grave evokes Hamlet. The inability to act. The certainty of uncertainty. His proclivity to over thinking is what brought him down. I'm watching school districts spin and spit and suffer the slings and arrows of uncertainty. The entirety of Hamlet, audiences are flummoxed as to why he doesn't just kill Claudius already. His mind will not allow it. There are too many obstacles and outcomes to perceive and plunder and contemplate. Of course, pretending to be crazy was a great idea, ask Ophelia how that worked out. That's the only thing the guy could decide on: acting crazy. So he acted crazy and spun inside his own head until he sent his friends to their deaths. stabbed the old man, caused a suicide and eventually, finally, five acts later killed Claudius. As we all know from the CliffsNotes we read in college and the Mel Gibson movie we sort of watched, Hamlet does say he will put on an "antic disposition", but the meter is broken, indicating a man with a broken mind; yet he does make complete sense when he answers "Where is Polonius?" with "At dinner...not where he eats, but where he is eaten." Clearly not a stable guy, but possibly driven to instability by the insane circumstances surrounding him, and the power hungry Claudius. and the pending invasion by Fortinbras. and the angry Laertes, and by the way Ophelia's dead and the gravedigger is making sense...
Teaching theatre remotely from an empty stage is like sitting on a grave. The faces in Brady Bunch boxes are just ghosts, floating in and out from home as they feel engaged or not, popping from camera to avatar. They are Yorick, alas, from a previous life, returning to remind me that at one time there was playing on this stage. I blast musicals and sing at the top of my lungs and the bottom of my belt to no one, attempting to awaken the theatre ghosts, hoping they'll keep me company. Nobody even comes to see if I'm here. Or alive. Nothing happens, nobody comes. I look at other districts, or even buildings in my own district, and they are functioning in performing arts. It's not great, they stand in marked boxes ten feet apart on stage and there are no theatre games that engage or acting exercises that push students to proclaim "Fuck you, Stanislavsky!", nothing that can be experienced to light a fire of passion, but they're there, at least they're present. I envy them. Once a week I travel to another district, south, and teach in person at at performing arts academy that is still open and functioning and doing shows, and I wonder just how crazy I'd be if I didn't have that. I think we're the only dark district. I hear there are other schools where they're managing to rehearse and hold classes. Many have ceased reporting their Covid positive cases, and up north a district is preparing to open full on in person on the 20th.They've openly said that if you want to know their Covid cases, call the district, they won't be sharing that information.
I'd be fine doing all of this remotely if the student population was adequately prepared for college level history and lit theatre, but they are not. Three of my classes are freshmen. The others are victims of a shattered department that has seen more loss than should be allowed a high school. But I'm doing it, and those who stay are learning.
How is making me teach remotely from the building beneficial to my students? Hello?
I'm waiting.
As long as we've stopped here, I'm switching from Elizabethan theatre to Absurdism.
It isn't. It makes no difference if I teach from home or school or the moon, it makes no difference to the students. Shall we talk about the difference it's making to my mental health?
Teaching theatre remotely from an empty sage is like sitting on a grave.
The ghost of Ophelia appears beside me, she's brought a ficus. She slaps it on the stage between us and says "Like my tree?" She begins a monologue about the difficulty of reinventing yourself when what you were told you were is no longer relevant or realistic. She takes a moment to check in with me, as I'm clearly only half listening, and says "Because I was supposed to marry Hamlet, you get me? I was also female in a patriarchal society which rendered me to the status of chattel. Or property. Carrot?" She offers me a turnip and continues, as I phase her out. First her voice, then her physical being die out-she died twice, like Buffy-and I sit on the empty stage again...
My older colleagues are retiring. My young colleagues are looking to get out of education altogether. I have no such options, I have to stay at least five more years to make retirement even relevant, and I am too old to be of use to anyone else. Ageism is real. I am trapped on an empty stage, alone. Where'd that ficus go? I walk a circle and listen to the same song on repeat. Polonius tries to emerge, but his will is not strong enough through age and death and five hundred years and my own disinterest in hearing him talk any more, even if we are trapped and I am alone. If he says "To thine own self be true" I may just lose it.
I've never felt so old, so useless, so used up. So used. Who Cares?
Nobody Cares.
Nothing happens, nobody comes. The rest is silence.
And so, I sit in the graveyard and play music from a dead era and reimagine theatre education for the Brady Bunch cubes.
I'm waiting.
Scene
#2 December 2020
Admittedly, I have been remiss in recording the hell of the last year. This is in part due to the plethora of memes flooding social media, and many blogs that are much more thoughtful than mine, as well as journalists who are trained to tell stories. I felt like my voice was just adding to the shouting.
We do not live in a civil society any more. We seem to believe that shouting is the only way to be heard, but when everyone does it, the system overloads. Not everyone can talk at once on a Google or Zoom meet, it gets overwhelmed and nobody is heard. In theatre, you must mute your mike unless you are speaking or singing, because you interfere with the central message of the performance. It's not your turn to talk, so your mike is muted.
Nobody seems to know that these days. Nobody Cares. Just yell. It's fine.
Teachers were heroes for about ten minutes in May of 2020 when it became clear nobody was going back to their buildings. Parents understood they had to parent and teach, with the help of the remote teacher---let me repeat that: no parents were being asked to homeschool their kid with no outside help. We were there, with you in the kitchen, at the dining room table, in your makeshift classroom/ playroom. We were working. At that time, it seemed that was understood: teaching from home is still teaching, we're still working.
When August rolled around and districts began to struggle with how to safely open schools with no guidelines, parents began to grouse. "I have to go to work, so should you, you lazy ass teacher."
First, I am working. Thanks.
Second, I am sorry that you have to leave your house to go to work, that is not my fault. I did not make that decision for your company.
My "company" told me I have to stay home and teach from home. I did not make that choice.
So step off, please.
I have not worked so hard since my first year teaching, and I'm 18 years in. I had to reinvent everything I do on a dime for a content area that is thrives on energy and succeeds only in person and relies on performances in person. I invite you to come spend a week doing what I do. I will happily switch jobs with you. I would love to leave the house and go to work and see other adult humans, that'd be great. Better, I'd like to see my students again in person.
"If grocery workers have to work, so should teachers." Again, I refer you to my introductory theme and remind you that we are working. I get that you're mad, but grocery workers are the ones who should be striking because they are not paid enough to risk their lives to do their jobs. If that's your theme, please join their union and put pressure on the corporations who are forcing them to work for under minimum wage in a pandemic.
I will not beleaguer my point with more examples, you get it. If you're mad because you have to work, then go on strike, work from home, quit your job--all suggestions that have been shouted at teachers via social media--- but stop suggesting that teachers are not working.
Speaking of striking, things really got ugly in Chicago, and here in Colorado, when it became clear that the districts were sending us back into our buildings with full classrooms before we were all vaccinated. Mathematically, the grocery worker comes into contact with more people than teachers do daily, but they can control how close they get to them, and limit their time with each customer. Teachers are trapped in a sealed room with 30 kids for anywhere from an hour to three hours, depending on how jacked up their Covid schedule is. Regarding the number of people that you choose to come into contact with---please note, grocery store clerks have plastic shields between themselves and the patrons checking out--vs forced, long term exposure in a closed, improperly ventilated room. Both suck, but one sucks more. Guess which one?
Got into a pissing contest there for a second. My apologies. That was unprofessional.
Teachers have been abused for years. I knew that when I signed up. Yet, I wanted to teach kids. I wanted to teach kids in person and ignite a love of theatre. I did not sign up for this online BS.
I also did not start Covid 19. It's not my fault we're in a pandemic. Nor is it on me to fix the problems that ensued. I'm just trying to hold my classes and my department together long enough for everyone to get vaccinated.
I'm exhausted. Emotionally and physically.
Please do not yell at me, none of this is my fault.
Teachers did not start the pandemic. Why are we expected to fix the fallout?
But if you keep yelling at us, we're going to do as you suggest: "You don't want to go back to work, then quit."
Best Wishes, Warmest Regards to y'all when half of the teachers leave at the end of this year. You think you have it rough remote learning from home now?
#3
I have used the Ferlinghetti "I Am Waiting' example in classes for years. The beauty is that you can rewrite it every few months, and it has a different tone. I wrote one in December of 2020, and this one was written in May of 2021. I performed it on the stage in front of about 15 audience members and a live feed. It is the first performance I have done live in years, and the evening was the first real 'Live' performance the high school stage has hosted in 14 months.
I Am Waiting with all of my love and apologies to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Samuel Beckett.
12 MAY 2021
I am waiting for art and theatre and poetry to be revered
I am waiting for students to turn on their cameras
I am waiting for my pay to match my passion.
I am waiting for Broadway to open her eyes and yawn and ask what's been going on
I am waiting for the dog to self wash so he does not smell like a Frito
I am waiting for an apology
I am waiting for karma
I am waiting for a revolution of kindness
I am waiting for Christ to come down from his bare tree and end this absurdist cycle with a tip of his bowler and a magic turnip
I am waiting for Beckett and Ferlinghetti to smite me for invoking their genius in my silly poem.
I am waiting to follow Keanu and Dolly to the promised land
I am waiting to win a new coastal home from HGTV!
I am waiting for the revolution of kindness
I am waiting for my internet to reconnect
I am waiting for Comcast to care that my internet won’t reconnect
I am waiting for the cats to get jobs and contribute to the household and I am waiting for my obsession with Schitt's Creek to cease
I am waiting for laughter.
I am waiting for Hamlet to kill Claudius already
And I am waiting for wait loss to be easy.
I am waiting for someone to care
I am waiting for the victory of decency
I am waiting to move forward, to stop hovering like hurricane Harvey over Houston
I am still waiting for students to turn on their cameras
I am waiting to feel mentally stable
I am waiting for kindness
I am waiting for my hair to grow out
I am waiting for a haircut
I am waiting to be discovered or uncovered or recovered---
I am waiting to recover.
I am waiting for my groceries
I am waiting in the drive through because everybody quit will you please pay these people a living wage already, I’m Waiting.
I am waiting for the tribes to finally rise up and reclaim what is rightfully theirs and for Karen to stand down and relinquish what is not hers.
I am waiting for my favorite ancient shirt to disintegrate and fall off of my body as a metaphor
I am waiting for the brain fog to clear or the clear fog to brain and I can’t remember anybody’s name I am waiting to see clearly
And now you’re waiting for me to remember your name.
Thank you for your kindness.
You may not wish to wait.
#4
I have wanted to be a teacher my whole life. Ever since second grade, when Ms. Wolcott let me take home a stack of geometry worksheets for the summer. I just liked the stack of paper, I didn't much care what was on them. I spent all summer playing school with my friends, and pretending to grade the squares and triangles and circles.
When I became a teacher at 22, I was thrilled. I was ready. I worked in a Title 1 school for a year, before moving to a rural school up north. Same population, different issues. Which means, it is politically incorrect to say, the kids were all the same color up north, but were struggling because their families worked the harvest, not because they were in single parent households battling gangs. I'd never say that out loud to anyone.
So when I was hired for the 2019-2020 school year, in the biggest school district in the city, I was again excited. I researched the building, and discovered that their teacher retention rate was shocking. They had been through five math teachers in one year, only. But I steadied myself. I'd worked at a title one just three years ago, I could do it again. I loved that population, I loved diversity. Those kids needed teachers who would stay. I am/was young, I can/could adapt.
Then Covid hit, and any one who could afford to leave teaching, did.
My first day at the city school, I arrived at 6:30 am. As I was turning into the parking lot, there was a kid, maybe fourteen, wearing a "V for Vendetta" mask, and waving a gun. Several cars simply turned ahead of me, not seeming to notice. They were clearly teachers, nobody else would be arriving in the school parking lot at that hour. They just pulled into the lot and parked their cars. The kid on the corner screamed and pointed his gun at me as I turned.
I did not turn into the parking lot.
I flipped a U turn and went back home. I called the police to report the kid, then called the school and told them I'd found another job. Which I had not, but I spent the day applying, and crying. I cried all day. I thought I was a failure as a teacher. Clearly, nobody else at this building was concerned about the behavior on the median. They all saw the same kid that I did, and they all went to work, anyway.
I found another job almost immediately in a "premier district" in a southern suburb. I am very happy there. I weathered a hybrid year with weird remote Wednesdays. The kids bring Kleenex and hand sanitizer by the truckloads when they are asked. The parents give me Starbucks cards and thank me when they see me. My worst behaviors are related to entitlement, which I am equipped to deal with.
I was not equipped to deal with a kid waving a gun outside of the parking lot at 6:30 am.
Politically correct or not, it's the truth.
#5
"How do you teach kids who don't love your content as much as you do?"
He was not a teacher, nor did he love his content. Or his job. It simply was a choice he made in college that would guarantee job security. But as a parent, he had asked his children's teachers this question. They always laughed and smiled and said something about how great the kids were, and they love teaching. It always seemed genuine. And some would mention job security "We'll always need teachers."
He had lost his career and his retirement in the recession of '08. An MBA meant only that Walmart said he was overqualified and didn't want him. At 45 years old, nobody else did, either.
He remembered a college professor telling him that teaching was great job security, a solid fall back. He was not interested.
Now he was watching his 26 year old child struggle with a career that was allegedly job security: teaching.
They (he was careful not to misgender, even though he still said "she" in his head) had started teaching middle school for the 2018-2019 school year. The district was a well funded one. "I am benefitting from years of systematic racism and white entitlement," his child had told him when they were hired. Outside of school shootings, he was not worried about their physical health.
Now, Christmas 2021, he sat with his coffee watching them talk to themselves. Twice this holiday visit, he noted they would begin a task and then walk away, forgetting about it. He got in the car to go Christmas shopping, and they drove in the opposite direction, toward the mountains. He said nothing, he just let them drive. Twenty minutes into it, they turned to him as if seeing him for the first time "I'm sorry, dad, where are we going?"
He had asked them how they felt about teaching a core content, asked about passionately teaching to those who do not care. The first year, he received an earful of tactics, strategies, visual aids, hands on projects and in class sketches that made him believe a person could teach to those who do not care. He received the same response during the Covid remote/hybrid year.
When he asked how it was going this year, he got a shrug with "I have a job. I suppose job security is real these days in teaching. We're leaving the profession at an alarming rate."
He fell silent.
He had chosen his own career, based on security and pay scale, only to lose it all at 45 years old. His history made him believe that there was no such thing as job security.
"Do you still like teaching in general?"
That shrug again. "I lived through remote/hybrid/What-The-Hell-Is-Going-On-Today. I can live through anything."
"But do you still like it?
They rubbed their eyes and stared into their coffee.
"No."
He sat with his offspring, wishing he could offer some comfort.
"You do not need to stay in teaching if you're unhappy."
"I know," they said. "My therapist says I should do what makes me happy. Teaching made me happy. Now I have a therapist and a psych, and need meds to make it through the day." Shrug. Again.
He waited. They let the cat jump into their lap and nuzzled her old face. "She's twenty now, isn't she? I don't remember life without this cat."
He smiled "I do. The house smelled better."
"The thing is, I keep thinking this will be over. The old normal wasn't working, I don't want the old normal, I want education to change. I want it to be what the kids need. They're so traumatized now, and I'm traumatized, and nobody's helping either of us by saying 'Let's go back to normal, the building is open, teach to the tests, hurry hurry catch up they've lost so much!'" They stopped abruptly, and he realized they were crying. His child was not one to cry. He tried to remember the last time they cried. It might have been when they fell off their bike in second grade and got their toe caught in the spokes. They cried in the car on the way to the ER, and they stopped immediately upon arrival.
"You like being an accountant?"
He smiled. This was a conversation they had had together since they started college. "Nope. Job security."
HIs child smiled back, looking into his eyes. "Family trait."
#6
Mine is not a long story. No moment from my day, or details about my personality.
I simply burned out.
I got tired of working harder than the students, getting no support from admin and being asked to work additional duties, go to meetings, blah blah blah, etc. The latest sub shortage put me over. I now sub during my planning periods, which is not OK.
That does not even include almost two years now of The Covid Debacle.
I finished my Masters Degree. I think I may leave teaching altogether. Even at the college level, there is a new element of apathy I am not interested in combating.
I am quitting because I no longer wish to struggle to teach those who've no interest in learning. From my perspective, the quality of student in every district has been on the decline since early 2002. It began with a surface apathy, and then mutated into a combination of student apathy and parental coddling of their child coupled with the need to control their child's present and future. Somehow teachers got elbowed out, shoved to the sidelines. Until it's time for us to be evaluated, that is.
If these kids and parents want control, give it to them. I'm out.
#7
Today I was waiting in the center classroom for the students to return from specials. I received a phone call from security that one of our paras was being taken to the hospital. She has been with us only a few months. When I went downstairs, I got the following story:
The para was accompanying the student to his art class. He became dysregulated by a passing general education student who bumped into him, then called him a "fucking retard", and moved on. The special education student turned to the para and physically picked her up off of the ground and smashed her into the wall twice. She crumpled unconscious onto the floor, and the student then entered the art room. When asked where his para was, he shrugged.
I have been a special education teacher for only two years, and one of them was in remote/hybrid learning.
While I have been bitten and punched, I have never been knocked out or had furniture thrown at me.
When I did my student teaching, my mentor teacher told me she had a chair smashed across her back a few years ago in a different building, and she spent the rest of the year recovering from a broken back. Other teachers have stories of furniture thrown, being hit accidentally by students who do not understand what they are doing and being bitten. They all stayed in the profession. I've heard all the stories, and yet I kept going.
The injured para is nineteen years old. She makes $15 an hour and my first thought was that I should be the one to call her mother...
I watched them put her into the ambulance, and was told I had to escort the student back to the center classroom.
I did, and then I sat down at my computer and wrote my letter of resignation.
#8
The setting is an urban high school, intended to be anywhere. The names of the high schools mentioned at the end were events that were reported nation wide.
The characters are three teachers in the lang arts department office and the voice of the principal. Ages are not really too relevant, but FRESHMAN is younger. Sexual identity is also irrelevant, even though statistically we have more female than male teachers. They do not have names for a reason, they are identified by what they teach, furthering the thesis that this could happen anywhere.
CHARACTERS
SHAKESPEARE Language Arts Department chair. Near retirement, but likes teaching in a "diverse" school and thrives on the aggravation it begets. They do not teach a Shakespeare class, but teach Shakespeare in all of their classes, just because they want to.
SPEECH AND DEBATE New to the building last year during Covid, has yet to experience the "behavior challenges" that plague most city schools. Spend 15 Years at a well known school after it reopened, left for a diverse school environment after students brought bees into the classroom to be "funny". One of the students had a deadly allergy, was not stung, but admin did nothing to reprimand the student who brought live bees into a high school. After 15 years of tolerating white entitlement, this incident was the final breaking point for this teacher, who opted out of the district.
FRESHMAN COMP AND LIT Graduated in December of 2020 with their teaching credentials. They spent the spring of '21 subbing in this building before getting hired in March of 2020 for the fall of 21. This person is not white. They almost dropped out of the education program twice due to anxiety issues, and changed content majors three times, resulting in a double major in Lit and History with a minor in Psychology, which resulted in more classes and a "late" graduation date. They have come to realize they love learning, but are not sure about teaching.
PRINCIPAL'S VOICE This principal has just been through a year of Covid Hell and was excited to have students return when they had to immediately call a lockdown protocol. They may sound exasperated, they may sound neutral, but they are not breathless or panicky. They are not new at this.
SCENE opening
Three educators are seated in an office, with two desks, a couch, a microwave, a refrigerator. This was a place that looked more lived in before Covid, but has been unpacked, sanitized and barely moved back into by August of 2021.
( SQ Principal's voice: " We are implementing a lockdown protocol, please see the charts in your classrooms to familiarize yourselves with Code Orange. If you are already in a classroom, Please remain there. Students, if you are in the hall, please move quickly to a classroom near by. If you are upstairs, please go to the cafeteria. Teachers, if you are in the halls, please assist students who need direction. This is a code orange. If you have an exterior window please pull your blinds. If you are in your classroom, please check the hall for students before locking your door. I'll be back on with an update later. Be safe.
S&D
Really? (looks at Freshman) on your first day? It's 7 am, school hasn't even started yet. Are there kids in the building?
SHAKESPEARE
Swimmers, mostly. Some newspaper and yearbook kids. Us.
FRESHMAN
Does this happen a lot?
SHEAKESPEARE
What's today?
S&D
Tuesday.
SHAKESPEARE
Somebody's not paying attention, today is not Bring Your Gun To School Day, that's Thursday. Tuesday is Shank a Friend. (They laugh). Freshman, your question requires more information. What do you mean by "A Lot?"
FRESHMAN
What?
SHAKESPEARE
How frequently is "a lot" in your mind? Once a week? Twice a day?
FRESHMAN
I don't know...once a week? is that a lot?
SHAKESPEARE
That's cute. Once a week is normal. A lot would be three or four times a day. (pause) I'm mostly kidding. These kids bring guns every day, they just don't always get caught.
S&D
We had drills in my previous building The only time it was 'real'-well, after the one incident- was if someone robbed the bank on the corner, or a kid at the Alt School took a gun from home and was walking to school with it.
SHAKESPEARE
We usually don't go on lockdown. The kids put the guns in their pants with their shirt open, security sees them before the get to the door. One kid shoved his uncle's gun so far down his pants, he tripped on it coming out of his pant leg while walking across the parking lot. Hilarious.
FRESHMAN
What district were you in?
S&D
White Entitlement In The Suburbs. Our kids opened fire with out any warning.
SHAKESPEARE
You're safer here, nobody actually uses their gun. They bring it to show their friends.
FRESHMAN
We had lockdown drill training in the district I did my student teaching. They never had a real lockdown, they said, but they did drills twice a semester.
S&D
During Covid? Are you kidding me?
FRESHMAN
No, no I am not.
S&D
Shakespeare, do I need to actually walk over to my room to let kids in?
SHAKESPEARE
No, your door is locked. Even if a kid was here, they know that and wouldn't try to get in. The ones who are here will go to counseling and clog up the lobby there. They never go to the cafeteria, I don't know why they always tells them to do that. They never go. The performing arts kids all go to the theatre, nobody actually goes where they're told. If we had a real emergency it'd be a mess.
FRESHMAN
So if this was real, we'd have to close the blinds and leave the door unlocked?
SHAKESPEARE
This is real, it's just not an emergency. Class just hasn't started yet. You're in the office, not the classroom. (nodding at S&D) Speech and Debate, What'd y'all do for yours back in the 'burbs?
S&D
We were supposed to have an automated system with a pre recorded voice calmly instructing us as to what we should do. But the two times they tried it, the alarm went off but the voice did not work, so the principal got on the intercom and read the instructions. The second time it was real, we went on lockdown when the April 2019 shooting happened, even though it was miles away. The kids were great, calm and on their phones looking up the story as it unfolded. I played BALLZ and waited for it to be lifted.
FRESHMAN
That was horrible, I was up at school when it happened. A lot of my cohorts changed their degree programs from teaching to anything else after that.
SHAKESPEARE
We are too far north for it to have mattered here. (pause) So, Freshman Lit, first day, first year teaching! How're your rosters?
FRESHMAN
When do they stop adding and dropping students?
SHAKESPEARE
When you retire. Next question. (Shakes and S&D Laugh loudly)
FRESHMAN
Does class start late today since there is a lockdown before the bell?
SHAKESPEARE
The principal will make an announcement. Probably we'll start ten minutes late, it depends on whether the kid was caught inside or outside the building. Takes longer if they got in.
S&D
About that, you guys don't have metal detectors do you? I didn't see any.
SHAKESPEARE
Nope. We're on the "Eyeball System". Usually security will see it before the kid gets in the building.
S&D
I guess that works....
SHAKESPEARE
It must. I've been here 20 years, we've never had a shooting. We've had stabbings and a few all out gang fights, but that's it. (noting Freshman's face) Stop with the eyes Newbie. You're fine. You can't go to class with that terrified expression on your face, the kids will eat you alive. We have bigger issues here, like getting kids to come to the building in the first place, and then getting them to come to class in the second place and to stay in class in the third place, if they show up in the first place. Never mind the district's screaming about the Achievement Gap and College Readiness.(Shakes and S&D again laugh too loudly, years of experience and administrative rhetoric recall finding its way out of their systems.)
FRESHMAN
I'm lost.
S&D
You won't be by May.
SHAKESPEARE
Come talk to me before you implement any Tier of Intervention, or classroom rules.
FRESHMAN
They used that at the middle school I student taught at. They said it worked really well.
S&D
That was out south, right?
SHAKESPEARE
You ain't in Kansas any more.
FRESHMAN
To be fair I finished my student teaching and graduated during Covid. Nothing was normal, everyone was home.
S&D
But in the 'burbs, y'all were mostly in person, right?
FRESHMAN
In quarantine a lot, somehow every time there was an outbreak I was exposed.
SHAKESPEARE
Nobody knows how this is going to go. We were remote all year, pretty much. The kids who cause trouble didn't log in, it was very different. I'm shocked a kid tried to bring a gun this morning, honestly, I'd think they would return on their best behavior.
(Principal's voice on intercom: Thank you for your safe behavior. We have lifted the lockdown. Teachers, you may return to your classrooms, or open your blinds if you are already there. Students, thank you for your quick response. Please continue to your first period. School will begin on time.)
S&D
Allrighty then. See you at lunch?
SHAKESPEARE
I'll come join you in your room. (Looking at Freshman) You are welcome to join us. I'd like to get to know you a bit better.
S&D and SHAKESPEARE stand to leave. Freshman remains seated.
S&D and Shakespeare say good bye, sound of door closing behind them.
FRESHMAN
I should get up and go to my classroom. I need to stand up and walk to class. Today is my first day. Get up. Stand up, and walk to class. I got this. Here I go... (does not move)
Door opens.
S&D
Are you coming?
FRESHMAN
I can't move.
S&D
Can you turn your head to me? (does) Lift your finger? (does) Breathe (does)
You aren't in a building where kids shoot teachers. Repeat that.
FRESHMAN
I'm not in a building where kids shoot teachers.
S&D
Look at me. I did fifteen years at a school that reopened after a shooting. Columbine reopened. Granite Hills High School reopened. Santana High School. Arapahoe reopened. Campbell County High School. Pine Middle School. The STEM school reopened. I have the list memorized. People work there. Guess what else I found out after getting hired here? Ten years ago a teacher got caught in the crossfire of a gang "disagreement" and was killed. It wasn't this building, but it was this district, and kids from this building were involved. You get up and go to work and you believe that you are not in a building where kids open fire, otherwise you won't get up. (pause) Both of our rooms have huge windows, you can see the front of the school. That helps.
FRESHMAN
I believe I am not in a building where kids open fire. I believe I am not in a building where kids kill teachers. I believe I am in a safe building. I believe I am safe. I believe.
S&D
Good job. Put it to music and you could be in Book of Mormon. Can you stand up?(does). One foot in front of the other. Just one. Good. Now the other. Great. (Singing I BELIEVE from Book of Mormon) I beeeeelieeeeeeeeveeeeee-----
FRESHMAN
Will you walk with me to my classroom?
S&D
Only if you sing along. I beliiiiieeeeeeeeve
Door closes behind them.
Scene.
#13 Menopause
#14 Found a better job on the outside
#15 School Shootings
# 16 White Savior Movies Starring Michelle Pfeiffer
# 17 Gang Shootings
#18 Gang Fights In The Building
#19 Bullying Admin/Out of Touch Admin
#20 Covid
# 21 The Fallout After Covid
#22 School Shootings
#9
"What the fuck, Miss?"
She stood four feet away from the student. He was double masked, both an N95 and a cloth mask, and because of his goggles she could not read anything in his eyes. He had already had to repeat himself twice, as his enunciation through the mask was garbage.
"That's not stellar word choice, Miguel. I don't enjoy students hurling obscenities at me, regardless of their intent. I can't hear your vocal inflection through the mask, and your eyes are obscured by your goggles." She stopped there, not mentioning that the fact that his gloved hands only exacerbated the situation. Usually Miguel loved it when she used big words when talking with him, it was part of the fun. She told him she felt she needed the words to penetrate the masks, goggles and gloves he wore daily. The first day of class, he had written three simple words on his 3X5 card in response to "Tell me something about yourself: "I am paranoid."
He looked like he was costumed as a military extra in The Crazies. It had been twelve weeks, and still she had no idea why this kid had chosen to enroll in an acting class. To be fair, he was really funny, and he was truly working on being heard and understood through the masks. The gloves and goggles made it impossible for him to truly participate in any acting exercises, and the day they learned to play a verb, he covered his ears because everyone was too loud.
"I said 'What the fuck' because I just went to the nurse. I have a headache and I'm coughing. She gave me a mint." He held the mint out as evidence.
"I dunno, Miguel. Can't you just call your mom---" she stopped talking as Miguel began to vomit. He left both masks on, and was clearly struggling to breathe. Somewhere in the midst of the massive upheaval, he removed his goggles. Perhaps he was hoping to breathe through his eyeballs.
It should have been ten steps to her classroom phone, but she made it in three.
"Angelo," she said into the mouth piece "Seriously, security. I have a kid puking uncontrollably in the theatre classroom. Send help."
As she hung up, she watched the other students in class react. One started retching herself. Two ran from the room. One, the closest thing Miguel had to a friend in the class, stood next to him looking helpless, saying "Take off your masks, Miguel!" over and over again. One of the special ed students began to cry, while the other started making monster noises and walking like Godzilla.
Two girls pointed their phones at Miguel and began to record the event, making retching noises mixed with giggles.
Her student assistant was kneeling with the sobbing Sped student, keeping an eye to the rest of the room but clearly unsure of what he was to do with himself.
The rest of the class were in varying states of horror and humor, unsure how to handle the situation. She realized with terror that Miguel had fallen to his knees, his friend was holding him up by his armpits, screaming "Take off your MASKS! DUDE TAKE THEM OFF YOU'RE GONNA DIE!"
She walked two steps to the bank of windows and opened the first one she was able.
She turned and looked at the hysterical commedia slapstick that was unfolding in her room.
Then she sat calmly down at her computer and clicked on a document she had opened earlier in the day. It was titled "157 Reasons I'm Leaving Teaching."
As security entered the scene, she typed "Reason Number 157."
#10
I teach math in a private high school. It's a middle/high, grades 8 through 12, but I only teach high school.
I am also an actor.
I have done musicals all over town, much to the joy of my students, parents and administrators, who think I'm the most talented math teacher, ever and admire my breadth of abilities.
I love my job.
I love being an actor.
I have no interest in teaching acting, or theatre, I think I would start to hate it. I don't want to teach it to people who don't love it as much as I do. I already do that with math, which I do not love but I do respect.
All of my theatre gigs went dark during Covid, I was thrilled to be cast in a play and get back to my love. Last night, I opened the first show I have acted in in two years. It seems to be well received, we had reviewers last night. My director just emailed me the review. I sat and read it at lunch just a minute ago. Absolutely glowing, praise for the entire production. I take all reviews with a grain of salt, but now I think the praise is even louder, the word choice stronger, and I swear they are no longer criticizing the shows, they're celebrating them!
I just spent almost two years learning every platform known to man to teach my own classes and to attend masters classes. I returned to my building knowing that we were not going to be shown the same "grace" that we are expected to show our students. When I pointed out this inconsistency to my AP, I was told "You're an adult. You can handle it."
My husband and I had many discussions during what he called 'The Lockdowns', regarding my retirement plan. I openly owned my own mental health crisis, and together we came up with a strategy. We decided that, when the theatres reopened, I would not take the next sugary musical that was offered to me, but look for a play more meaningful. Something to feed my psyche. This sounds like it would be the opposite of what a teacher needed after such a devastating experience. You would think I'd rather to a comedy, or a silly musical. But I've always been a fan of the Absurdists, and when I can't get my hands on a Beckett, I am drawn to dark realism.
So when auditions for Bent were announced, it was a no brainer. I have loved every second of this soul ripping drama. Every solitary phrase. It forced me to look at an event worse than what I had lived through, and to attach my own experiences as a gay man. Opening night was not just an opening performance for the audiences, but for all of us on the show. We've been changed on a molecular level. The director has walked with us every moment of the way, supporting our journeys with empathy, and the passion of a man who needs to tell this story.
I was sitting here ruminating on the last rehearsal, not paying attention to my screen, when an email popped up from my principal. My evaluations are all up to date, there is no reason for her to contact me. I clicked on it
"Mr. M. It has come to my attention that you are in a theatrical production. Please see Mary to schedule an appointment with me to discuss this."
I would be lying if I said I didn't see this coming.
Maybe I chose the show on purpose.
I did not invite my students, clearly the show is too intense for them.
But as an actor, I do not want to spend my life doing shows that I find unfulfilling.
As a certain type of person, my principal hates the concept of the show.
As a certain type of principal, she made it clear that as long as I chose frilly, empty headed musicals, we would not have any problems.
As an administrator, she has no right to tell me what I can and cannot do outside of school.
As an educated educator, I knew when I accepted the role that it would cause issues with admin. I accepted it anyway.
And now I was being called into the principal's office to be fussed at, her unnaturally long, bony finger waving at my face. Shaming me for what she will call my "questionable judgment" and "gently suggesting" that I quit the show.
I know this because I have had other conversations with her, in other contexts about content. I played her at our senior talent show and received glowing reviews from everyone but her. She called me into her office and wagged her unnaturally long, bony finger at me, called my judgment "questionable" and "gently suggested" that I never imitate her again. Even though every teacher and administrator was skewered at that performance, I was singled out. Wag wag shame shame.
What surprised me was this: I was not upset. For the first time in two years, I do not feel anxiety about a decision.
I will not be making a meeting appointment. I will ignore her email and do my job.
If she wants to come down here and talk to me, that's her choice.
Or better yet, come see the show. Talk to me after.
But I will be damned if I will slink down to her office like a dog who piddled on her rug, just to be shamed for being an actor.
#11
The young man ran into the room, breathless, eyes wild. The class looked up only briefly. He had made such entrances before. They were generally entertaining, and contained some element of news update.
"Oh my God, I almost just died!"
The statement warranted nothing more than a nod from the students, deeply buried in their WWII jigsaw assignment. Mr. Brown's look lingered, however, as something in the boy's face suggested real distress. He stood and walked to him. The boy had collapsed on the classroom side of the door, and was leaning against it, as if to keep whatever was chasing him outside of the room.
"Connor, what's up?"
"Ok, I just got in the middle of a gang fight. A Gang Fight."
"Con, you know the gangs here are mostly cliques. Their moms dropped them off this morning--"
"'--so pull up your pants', I know. But for real. I was like, walking to this class right? And this huge Mexican kid --" he waved his hand at Mr. Brown, who was raising his own hand and shaking his head " He's from Mexico, it's fine, his name is Miguel, whatever, the point is, he yelled something in Spanish, and he was right behind me, you know? and I turned around and he was running right at me, he was yelling and running at me, and I was like, I'm going to die, he's going to kill me, so I ducked because -I don't know why, I should have run but I'm small so ducking when there's somebody bigger makes sense, so I ducked and he like jumped over me to punch some kid I don't know, he was white, right in the face and I was right there and then suddenly the hall was full of these kids all swinging at each other and I don't know where that security guard was, maybe he was on his way or something, but I literally had to crawl out of there to get to class. Crawl. On my knees. Mr. Bown, do you even know how humiliating that is?"
He paused to take a breath.
Mr. Brown looked up. The entire class was now on their cell phones. He heard "It's true, it's on snap chat. Oh my God, Connor, you're hilarious, look at this!"
And just like that, class was over for the day.
Mr. Brown sighed. At least once a week his class was disrupted by some sort of fight. The kids in this building all came back angry, apparently.
There was a pounding at the classroom door. A young voice demanded he open the door. The voice said "It's the police." Mr. Brown reached up and locked the door.
Every American teacher and student know not to open a door during a lockdown, or when someone bangs on it. Connor crawled away to the other side of the room.
He heard the lockdown alarm go off, and the automated voice told him to lock his door, turn off cell phones and cover the windows.
He turned to the class, whose entire focus was on the door.
"I'm too old for this, " he said, as he flopped into his desk chair and put his head down on the desk, like a child playing 'Heads Up, Seven Up".
#12
I rushed into the theatre when the lockdown announcement came, running from the office and through the choir room, because I knew there were kids in the theatre. When I arrived, M said clearly, eyes wide "We shut all the doors, kmart. We didn't know if we should try and find you, so we shut all the doors." I said "You're definitely Aurora kids." Which made her smile, but was unsettling on every level.
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The second or third time the principal came on, he sounded annoyed. I think kids were running out every door instead of obeying the lock down. His subtext was "I SAID lockdown, people and I meant it. Do not make me turn this school around...." which is funny/not funny as our school is, in fact, in turn around. I laughed at his tone, anyway.
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The kids were in the theatre during lunch rehearsing for cabaret that night. Once everyone was relatively comforted and had located their friends and texted family, they said "So I guess cabaret is canceled tonight?" I shrugged "Anyone feel like coming back here tonight?" They shook their heads. "Then it's canceled." Fifteen minutes later, I received an email from the district that all after school events had been canceled. I read it to the kids. We all had a chuckle. "Way ahead of you, buddy."
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"It's technically not a school shooting. Those are white kids inside the school. This was outside the school..." I said to nobody as I watched students' lives change forever.
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The kids on stage were watching snapchats and reading tweets from kids in the parking lot. One was of one victim, in a white shirt, covered in blood, his buddy trying to apply pressure. Student A said "That's my math partner. Guess I don't have a math partner any more. Hey kmart, do you think my math teacher will give us an extension on the quiz due today?"
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When we came off of lockdown into secure perimeter, the kids immediately started singing "When You're An Addams" and doing their choreography. Because that's how theatre kids process trauma. I texted a friend "We've reached the musical theatre portion of the lockdown." The random kids who had been pulled from the front of the school and the lobby, and then thrown into the theatre, sat silently in the house. Theatre kids are weird, and we have proven it yet again.
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When we realized, after an hour, that we could be here multiple hours, we started strategizing where in the theatre we could pee. We were not allowed in the halls. The semi permanent band sub who was stuck with us said brightly "Which part of the stage do you care less about?" We laughed.
The same sub received a text from her father "I saw your car on the news."
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When the Aurora police banged on the door of the theatre and said "Aurora police, we're coming in" I answered "Thank you, Aurora police." Because theatre.
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When I left, I drove straight to the pub. I hadn't spoken to anyone outside the building all day. When the bartender asked how my day was, I laughed and said "Watch the news". She said "My God, I know right, what the hell is going on?" I took my beer and said "I work there." When I returned later to settle my tab, she quietly told me she had bought my round.
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I’m taking a CLDE class. Nothing is due right now, the assignment is in process, but I’ve been struggling. Today I tried to work on it, only to be embattled emotionally.
I sent a note with the assignment to my lead teacher: “It is what It is. There are shell casings outside my classroom window. The struggle is real.”
Scene.
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Things I have said this year, postcards:
Three weeks ago there was a shooting off campus, involving one of my students.
He sent me an email “ I have to pass this class to graduate, but I’ve been shot. What can I do to make up the work?”
My reply boiled down to “Survive senior year, dear. “
postcard
An email was sent to me at 11.14 am on Friday, 19 Nov regarding a scholarship recommendation, due by midnight on Friday.
At 12.05 Friday we went into lockdown.
Today I submitted the letter of rec, with this note: “My apologies for missing the deadline. We had a shooting.”
Scene.
The Six Things That Have Driven My Spirit Out Of Teaching
6 entitled lying students
5 their entitled, snowplow parents
4 bullying admin, in kahoots with #5 and #6
3 covid
`` 2 Tik Tok Lick Trend
1 School Shooting
Nobody is OK. I process by writing. Nobody said you have to read it.
#12
I have been a middle and high school music teacher for thirty years.
I don't want to leave, but I think it's time.
In thirty years, I have been in six buildings and three districts.
I stay for five years, then I go. I tell people I'm like Mary Poppins, I go where I'm needed.
Which is a bald faced lie, I've always been in privileged schools with strong performing arts programs. All I had to do was swoop in and maintain the status quo.
The first time it happened, it seemed natural enough. My first job was a suburban building with an amazing, award winning program. I took over for the teacher who had been there for 25 years. He had left a deep legacy, and it was not difficult to keep the momentum going. After four years, once I began to get to know the kids, I became engaged to my college boyfriend, Kyle. His job was out south, so we decided to move that direction after the wedding. I got hired in the other district easily, as the urban sprawl was getting under way.
The second time, I was pregnant with my first child, and thought I would take a sabbatical. My building would not allow a sabbatical; my choirs had won many state awards, and they did not want the program to languish for a year under a one year substitute. Their relentless pursuit of trophies was reprehensible. So I quit, and was hired at the middle school-which was, after running two strong programs that frankly Ate My Life, very much like a sabbatical. I stayed there another five years until my son started kindergarten.
When my son was five, he was in a private school near our home, and I stayed local again and was lucky enough to find a job nearby in a new building that had opened in the still expanding district. Looking back, it's really surprising I was able to switch as frequently as I did, as performing arts jobs are not easy to find. We are usually a one person show, unlike the cores who have teams, and someone usually has to die for one to get hired.
I had become aware of my commitment issues with buildings, and started to wonder about the PERA program. If I was going to bounce around, I had to make sure that for the last three years of my career, I was working at a high salary. My fourth year I ran into a friend from high school who was a former teacher. He had only taught a few years before leaving for an investment firm. His specialty was teachers. This would have been 1996 or so, he was convinced the PERA set up was not going to make it through our careers. So I started saving with his firm, and that took the pressure off of me to worry about my last years. I only had to make sure that what I made was enough to bridge the gap left after Kyle's salary.
The first building I worked at, there was an art teacher who retired after 33 years...in the same building. I remember wondering how somebody does that? The mere idea of walking the same halls for more than a few years makes me cringe. Sure, the building changes, and principals change, and the kids graduate, but it's the same building. I would take a hostage. And it would likely be an administrator. It's best for everyone that I do not like to stay in one place for too long. I like different choir rooms, different pianos. I like adjusting and bringing in my one box of personal items to display on the desk. I have colleagues who dug into their rooms, and started photo galleries of their choirs on the wall, and banners of every All State and Southwestern Conference with kids' names. I was in three of those rooms, and I kept up the tradition. But I never started one, and I never ended one.
I won't drag on here with every story. As one language arts teacher I worked with used to say "All in all, to sum up, in conclusion", it's been thirty years and six buildings. I survived marriage, raising two children, twelve principals (it's true, one building had a new principal every year for the five years I was there), six student suicides, four fatal student car accidents, five students with cancer, students whose parents were getting divorced, a number of non fatal car accidents, a school shooter, sibling deaths, musicals, concerts, state choirs, my own divorce and teaching choir online.
I did online very well. I taught the tonal qualities of water in a glass based on how full it was and the thickness of the glass. We made string instruments from yarn and dining room chairs. They sang their hearts out into Sound Trap, and I spent hours editing it into a choir.
And in August of 2021, I realized the kids I had been teaching online were the top 10% of my classes. Those who cared. The rest...did not. I had forgotten about them while online, they never logged on or participated. You can't run a choir program that has 150 students enrolled and only 15 that are committed to showing up, learning music, and performing. This is simply a fact. Because we were remote, I had been fooled. Once they arrived in class, live in person, late, in pajamas and addicted to their cell phones, I realized I had been duped. Sadly. I blame my age.
This year, which everyone keeps saying is "after" Covid (but that's ridiculous and all thinking people know it, we're still dealing with a pandemic) has been the hardest. THAT is true. The expectations on teachers have not relaxed, and our kids have been taught during remote learning that the expectations for them are so low for success, they really only have to wake up and show up. This year was harder than any of the previous 29 years. Period. It broke the back of the choir I was working with, even though I did everything I could to keep them interested online. I've never taught so much history or allowed so many days of karaoke; I created music lessons with glasses of water, and with found objects and spent hours mixing their individual recorded voices into a "choir". I believed that the kids were actually getting something out of this debacle. I thought we "made" it.
Then when they returned, they just couldn't get to class on time anymore. They were bringing blankets, wearing slippers and refusing to put away their phones. They talked incessantly and can't sit still for an entire class period. Our fall concert was disappointing, they waited until the day before to learn their choreography, and the entire tenor section was out sick the week before the concert, causing me unprecedented anxiety. The holiday concert will be only slightly better, as I have had kids out sick every day, and for days on end, and they can't rehearse. I was going to feature the smaller groups more, but out sick is out sick, and you can't learn your harmonies from home on your Chromebook. I have never been this exhausted, and frustrated, and angry.
For the first time in thirty years, I wake up in a great mood and by the time I walk in the building, I'm already mad.
So, after thirty years, it's time to go.
#13
She sat on the couch in the principal's office, wondering what it felt like to have a private bathroom.
As the newspaper sponsor in the building, she had been called into this office on several occasions. Every principal she had in the building seemed to need a tutorial on student's rights to freedom of speech. She had only been in the building for five years, this was her fourth principal. She'd joked that she was the Principal Trainer, like How To Train Your Dragon. She was always the first under fire, and she was always in the right, and the new principal did not seem to know what the students' rights were before calling her in.
She knew what it was about. A senior, who had spent their entire junior year in remote learning, wrote an opinion piece on the vaccine numbers in the district. They had cited research from the local health authorities, interviewed parents and students, and concluded that the truth of remote learning slowing the spread of Covid will never be known, because parents did not have their students tested. It was widely known within the district that parents were sending kids to school with coughs and fevers, then not answering the phone when the school called. The student did not get any parents to admit this, but it was an "open secret" in the community. A twisted take on "don't ask, don't tell".
The student reporter had been visibly frustrated while originally writing an article on remote and hybrid teaching in the district. They said they could tell adults were lying to them, and had asked to write an opinion piece instead. As the sponsor, she had cautioned the student against any language that would be incendiary, or misunderstood as name calling. Teaching journalism in 2021 had become more difficult than when she started ten years ago. Students had to be taught what a fact was and how to research it without any real, contemporary examples to pull from, professionally.
The principal entered, five minutes after the meeting was scheduled and said "Good afternoon, Mr. Stern,"
She was not ready to do battle for herself. She thought this meeting was about the kids, not the principal's complete disdain for her gender status. After three years hiding her true self from admin and students on the western slope, she'd thought she had landed in a safe building. High socioeconomics, ninety percent of the parents had college degrees, LGBTQ club, two openly gay teachers and the median age of the teachers in the building was 46.
That was last year, before the new principal. She had not experienced any problems with staff or the previous administration misgendering her. She had not told her students, it was stressful enough to go through the process as a teacher, and she had decided that in two years, she would leave teaching altogether in order to complete the transition.
This particular principal, a PhD educated woman who had clearly thought the building she had been hired to captain was closer to Harvard than a public school, had made it clear she would not be referring to Chris as "she/her". Chris knew the union would back her, but because she had not known the topic of the meeting, she had entered the office alone. Rookie mistake, experienced teachers know to A) ask for clarification of the meeting topic and B) never go to an admin meeting alone.
The fight was going to be a long one. She had talked to the union and other teachers who had been forced into legal action. They all won, and their prize was to be returned to the same building under the same administration.
How is that "winning" ?
At that moment, she made a choice.
"I am she, you have been asked repeatedly to gender me correctly."
"That is irrelevant. I'm here to address a concern about your mental health from a student," the principal sat, crossing her ankles and staring through Chris' soul.
"Where is the union rep? I won't have this meeting without the union."
"I'm sure this won't take long. I want to address your identity with students."
"No. I was not informed ahead of time as to the nature of this meeting. I will not stay without my rep." She stood up and put her hand on the door knob.
The principal remained seated. She turned at the door to face her. She opened her mouth, ready to say something particularly cutting, then stopped. Instead she said "You aren't worth my breath, " and walked out the door.
#14
Principal Mark sat in his office with the door closed.
He liked being called "Principal Mark", and he loved being an elementary principal. The worst thing that had ever happened, until this morning, was...nothing. Nothing had ever really gone wrong in his building. Kids brought their Epi pens and never needed to use them. A few scrapes and the occasional fourth grade bully, but an appointment on his couch for a stern talking to was generally enough to stop that behavior. Of course, throughout the 20/21 year, there were issues with Covid tests, and parents refusing to comply, and coughs and sneezing and students who were compromised, and a staff of dedicated teachers who were exhausted. They had to create two separate lesson plans every day, one for the students online and one for those in the building. They were rock stars, and he showed them his gratitude in every interaction they shared. He knew they were all truly in it together. His staff called him a leader, not a boss, and this year he had subbed in many classes, and expected to do so in many more. The sub shortage was just one more delightful ripple of reopening after a pandemic. Or, as some would say, while the pandemic was still raging on.
This morning he was posted at the bus line entrance, ready to greet the kindergarteners who rode in on the bus. He felt they needed to see him when they disembarked, and he would always smile and give them a thumbs up. Pre Covid, they'd received high fives from their PrinciPAL, which he liked to emphasize. As they disembarked, he smiled at each one and made sure they saw him. There should have been nine of them on the #5 bus, but he counted ten. They all looked at him and gave him a thumbs up as they started toward the building. Before he could move to stop them and count again, a car pulled up between the buses. A women emerged and ran toward of the smallest children who had just stepped off the bus. She scooped up the child and, holding her, turned and began hurling obscenities at Principal Mark. In that hysterical moment, he realized he was not her "pal". He kept screaming it in his head "But I'm your PAL, I'm your PAL."
He stood doing his best to decipher what was being said. It seemed that the child she was holding was the younger sibling of one of the students, and had stepped onto the bus with her brother. How or why it happened was not as important to the parent as yelling at the principal for not being at the bus stop to manage the students, and for not driving the bus or in some other way being physically responsible for the child. Who was a younger sibling of one of the students.
The hysterical mother screamed at Principal Mark while walking toward the bus, where she screamed at the bus driver. Frightened students huddled at the entrance while teachers looked to him for guidance. He indicated they should go ahead and walk their students into class, remaining as calm as possible. The older sibling of the hysterical mom followed his class into the building, not looking behind him for even a moment. His teacher put a protective arm around his shoulders as she walked him in.
Principal Mark walked to the #5 bus to see if he could defuse the situation. The mom was clutching her child on one hip and waving her other hand at the driver, a woman in her sixties, who happened to be a retired teacher, expounding on the sub par public school system. Mark gave her a few feet of clearance, hovering and waiting for her to recognize him. When she did, she whirled her free hand back and punched him directly in the nose.
He did not react, he simply turned and walked straight to his office, where he now sat with an ice pack on his nose that the gym teacher had kindly located for him. At 38 he was a young principal. He had a degree in chemical engineering, but turned his career toward principalship after substitute teaching for a year in an elementary school. He loved the kids, and he loved the teachers. In recent years he had begun to become wary of parents, something had shifted around 2015. He noticed a definite alteration of focus from parents at that time, and a sad affectation of apathy among students. Of course post Covid, he was only one of a handful of principals left standing in the district. They'd also lost their Superintendent and thirty percent of their teachers. But he had held on.
As he stared at his framed Master of Education diploma, a small plastic ice pack with the school mascot-a puma- stamped upon the cover pressed to his nose, he wondered why. Why had he held on? He sighed deeply, opened his lap top and began the incident report.
#15
He thought he'd already been through the worst of it. As a science teacher who was also the Chess Club sponsor, he had little to no patience for a principal who was a former football coach. A principal that the coaches called "Coach" and all the female teachers avoided.
He thought that was the worst.
They'd hired a new principal, a PhD educated elucidate who clearly had no time for sports. She had only been principal two months thus far, and some things were changing that seemed a bit like micromanaging, but nobody called her 'coach', so he felt good.
He pulled his motorcycle into his usual spot, up against the door by the science rooms. He'd been parking there for ten years.
Today, the principal was standing in his spot. Not understanding what was happening, he pulled right up to her, turned off the bike, and removed his helmet.
"You can't park here any more, Glenn," the new principal stated with the flat tone someone who believes everyone else is a moron.
"Why?" he asked, then said "I've been parking here for ten years."
"It's too close to the building. It's a fire code."
"Wasn't it against fire code yesterday? Or two years ago?"
"Just because you did it before, doesn't make it right." Again, that horrible bored tone.
The next day, when he pulled in, there were two orange cones and yellow tape over the spot.
Two days later, there were two by fours and poultry wire, clearly setting the stage for a cement block. He looked up to see the principal's face in his classroom window, watching him.
The day after the chicken wire, there was a cement block.
That day, he pulled in, stopped to regard the cement block, looked into his classroom window. He flipped off the face floating there, turned his bike around and rode home.
Two days later, he was hired at the community college.
He parked his bike by the science room doors.
Nobody cared.
#16
He checked his email as he did every morning, to see that the lockdown drill was scheduled for fifth period. He shook his head, they had just emerged from a year of remote and hybrid and partial classes, last year had been a mess. The kids seemed grateful to return, he had trouble believing the lockdown drills were necessary. More security around the restrooms would be great. He had taken to shaking his fist at students and declaring "Curse you, Tik Tok!!!" Other than that glitch, everyone seemed happy to be back.
He had been the Speech and Debate coach for ten of the fifteen years he had been in the building. He enjoyed the weird celebrity that came with being a POC in a white, suburban school, and S&D gave him more visibility. He also loved being the only Shakespeare teacher in the district. He had proudly built the class to withstand any cuts or disinterest, and had started a small "Shakes Day" in the district, which was not unlike a Renaissance Fair, but with staged beheadings to compete with the plays, He liked the kids, he had no real issues with the current administration, and had met his wife in the building. To be clear, she was fellow teacher, not a student. The only issue seemed to be the stress level of the students, which infected the entire student body as well as teachers.
He turned You Tube on his laptop and listened to the Wednesday morning fall jazz coming through the tiny speakers. He sipped his coffee and continued to check emails. Once complete, he flipped to his google classroom to check plans for the day. As he did so, another email popped up, this one from the principal.
He clicked on it.
The first words were those he had read too many times before. Too. Many. Times.
"Sad news...."
He caught his breath, knowing what would follow.
"...died unexpectedly...send students as needed to counseling for support...."
He sat quietly. He had stopped counting the number of times he had received this exact email. Nobody ever said "suicide" in an email, the code words were "Died unexpectedly."
He heard his classroom door open and close quietly. He did not have to look up to know it was his wife, she had also received the email. They both knew the student.
She waited. It was if they had rehearsed. She was standing with her backpack, as if she'd just arrived.
He stood. He retrieved his own bag, his coat and car keys. He removed his badge and left it on his lap top. His wife laid hers beside his. Wordlessly, they walked out of the room, and out of the building. The security guard, someone who had been there as long as they had, quietly nodded as they exited.
He believed he had stopped counting, but as they got into their car, he said "That's thirty. Two each year I have been here. That does not include alumni or car accidents."
She nodded. She turned on the radio and let the jazz fill the car as they drove away.
# 17
"Miss, what are we doing?"
"The same thing we've been doing for three days, dear. You've been in class, I have seen you with my eyeballs."
"Working on the scene, right, right? With our group."
Smith nodded at the student, named Devin. Generally speaking, they had no issue with autistic students-in fact, they were some of their favorite people. However, this young man was not really high functioning enough to be left without a Para in class, and was eating up at least twenty percent of their class time. Mostly repeating themself for his benefit had become routine.
This is my fault, they thought, I'm the one who said "Rehearsal means repeat."
The general population in the class had acclimated to him, for the most part. For the most part. There was one girl remaining who had some sort of issue with Devin. Which confused Smith, as both students had parents from Ghana. The Islanders in the building all seemed to get along, and the kids from Mexico and Vietnam, so Smith made the very wrong assumption that camaraderie held for other groups.
It did not.
The student was named Layla, and like Devin, was a freshman. Both students were freshman in a district that was primarily remote or hybrid for 20/21. This meant that they had not been in a full classroom since the seventh grade. This was a factor all teachers district wide thought they were prepared to face back in August, and they immediately discovered there was not enough man power to deal with the waves of issues that were drowning the building.
When Devin performed, Layla would sit on her phone, deaf to Smith's nudging, protocol reminders or the low grade she was receiving in the class. As a cheerleader, she was allowed to have an "F" and still cheer. It appeared she had chosen this class as her token "F".
Smith stood on the apron, watching as Devin gleefully set the stage---his favorite part of scene work--and Layla, as per her habit, strolled in ten minutes late with a Starbucks. Without looking up at her, Smith said "Layla, trashcan. Hallway. No food or drink in the theatre. You know that." Layla rolled her eyes and dragged her feet back to the hallway, where she finished her expensive iced coffee while talking to friends. Smith heard another teacher in the hall urging the group to disband and get to class.
Smith watched Devin's group for another minute, then fussed at a second group who were on their phones instead of rehearsing, before venturing into the hallway. There they found Layla, leaning against the wall on her phone, ignoring the security guard who was walking toward her saying "Get to class, please."
Smith stopped a few feet in front of the student and said "Hey, Layla, your group needs you to come rehearse."
Layla shrugged.
Smith tried again.
"Layla, is there something up today? Do you want me to write you a pass to counseling?"
Layla shrugged and rolled her eyes. "Just because I don't want to be in this stupid fucking class don't mean I need a counselor."
Smith paused, looked at the security guard, who was within two feet now, for help.
The security guard said quietly but authoritatively "If you are supposed to be in class, please go to class."
"Make me."
Smith stood flabbergasted. They had no authority to ever touch or speak harshly to students. Teachers had been told repeatedly to have grace, to speak softly, to allow kids to readjust after eighteen months in remote learning. Smith had encountered everything in the last twelve weeks from being completely ignored to being told to fuck off, both when asking students to be on time to class. In ten years of teaching, it was the roughest they'd ever seen it, but there had been no confrontations.
This was new.
Usually the expletives were thrown over a dismissive shoulder. Passive aggressive seemed to be the new trend, and Smith preferred it to confrontations.
"Excuse me?" Smith asked quietly.
At that moment, Devin blew through the double doors of the theatre into the hallway, bellowing "Layla, are you in a group? We need another girl in the group, can you be in our group? You're supposed to be rehearsing, the scene is due Friday."
Without any change in tone or demeanor, as if she were answering any other question, Layla spoke again.
"Fuck you, retard."
Smith recoiled as if they'd been hit, and the security guard blinked.
"I don't gotta do nothing I don't want to, nobody can touch me, and-" she looked directly at Smith "I don't want to listen to this bitch dyke any more."
There was a pause. Layla sucked down the last of her beverage, the sound of her empty plastic cup floating eerily in the air between the two adults. Smith surrendered the fight to the security guard, and returned to class.
At 3:35, Smith dropped their keys and badge at the front office and said simply "I'm out. I've lived too much life to be treated like this."
They were the seventh teacher to quit the building since the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. They were twelfth in the district. They were the first of the school year to walk out midday.
They were teacher number 27,005 nationwide to quit since August of 2021.
#18
He sat staring at the broken drum.
He knew there was no money to replace it.
He knew he didn't want to be here any more.
What he did not know is which student broke the drum.
He was the fifth band teacher in three years, one of whom--his friend William- didn't even make it to the end of the first quarter. To be fair, Will had quit during Covid, so that one didn't count in his mind. Will was s a fellow jazz musician that Li had worked with in college. He had quit over administrative issues. Since William had been teaching online, he was unaware of what the student population actually was.
Now, at 27 and in his second building, Li should have known better than to apply under those circumstances. He just wanted out of where he was, thinking nothing could be worse. He had blindly applied to every open position. Nothing could be worse than the hell he had endured for the last two years.
He had been wrong.
William had come into conflict with district policies on grading, which he found to be insulting and racist. He had had no issues with the building admin, or with the students he was teaching online.
Li knew immediately that the kids showing up to class online were not going to be the majority he would encounter in person. The live majority were talkative, restless, addicted to their phones and relentlessly rude to teachers. He thought he could handle it, then the Tik Tok "Hot Lick"challenge destroyed their small bathroom and flooded the hallway.
But he came back the next day.
Then his car was vandalized.
He came back the next day.
Kids used racial slurs in every exchange with him.
He kept coming back.
He stared at the drum. It was worth more than a month's salary, and they had simply beaten it to death. What he couldn't figure out, was how this happened? He had been in the room all day. At what point did they snap the struts on this thing? How did they kill both the resonant heads and top heads, as well as punch a hole right through the center without him seeing or hearing the attack?
He sat looking at the destroyed instrument, trying to convince himself that he had somehow left the room unattended. Maybe he had forgotten to lock the door? But his office was off of the band room, he would have heard it.
He sighed, a tear slipped from his eye as he gently bundled the drum up and left it silently in his office. He scribbled a few words on a peach sticky note, picked up his trumpet and left the office. As he locked it behind him, he placed the sticky note on the door.
It read simply "Reason #156".
He sobbed as he drove home, feeling like he had been beaten in a boxing match. When he got home, he went to bed.
#19 postcards from a shooting (names changed)
I rushed into the theatre when the lockdown announcement came, running from the office and through the choir room, because I knew there were kids in the theatre. When I arrived,Kaylen said clearly, eyes wide "We shut all the doors, kmart. We didn't know if we should try and find you, so we shut all the doors." I said "You're definitely Aurora kids." Which made her smile, but was unsettling on every level.
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The second or third time the principal came on, he sounded annoyed. I think kids were running out every door instead of obeying the lock down. His subtext was "I SAID lockdown, people and I meant it. Do not make me turn this school around...." which is funny/not funny as our school is, in fact, in turn around. I laughed at his tone, anyway, which invited concerned looks from the students. That laugh may be why Kaylen brought me a small teddy bear the following day, saying I looked like I needed it.
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The kids were in the theatre during lunch rehearsing for cabaret that night. Once everyone was relatively comforted and had located their friends and texted family, they said "So I guess cabaret is canceled tonight?" I shrugged "Anyone feel like coming back here tonight?" They shook their heads. "Then it's canceled." Fifteen minutes later, I received an email from the district that all after school events had been canceled. I read it to the kids. We all had a chuckle. "Way ahead of you, buddy."
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"It's technically not a school shooting. Those are white kids inside the school. These are brown kids outside of school..."I looked at a student who replied "You're not wrong," and proceeded to show me a snapchat of one of the shotting victims.
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The kids on stage were watching snapchats and reading tweets from kids in the parking lot. One was of one victim, in a white shirt, covered in blood, his buddy trying to apply pressure. Adam said "That's my math partner. Guess I don't have a math partner any more. Hey kmart, do you think my math teacher will give us an extension on the quiz due today?"
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When we came off of lockdown into secure perimeter, the kids immediately started singing "When You're An Addams" and doing their choreography. Because that's how theatre kids process trauma. I texted a friend "We've reached the musical theatre portion of the lockdown." The random kids who had been pulled from the front of the school and the lobby, and then thrown into the theatre, sat silently in the house. Theatre kids are weird, and we have proven it yet again.
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When we realized, after an hour, that we could be here multiple hours, we started strategizing where in the theatre we could pee. We were not allowed in the halls. The semi permanent band sub who was stuck with us said brightly "Which part of the stage do you care less about?" We laughed.
The same sub received a text from her father "I saw your car on the news."
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When the Aurora police banged on the door of the theatre and said "Aurora police, we're coming in" I answered "Thank you, Aurora police." Because theatre.
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When I left, I drove straight to the pub. I hadn't spoken to anyone outside the building all day. When the bartender asked how my day was, I laughed and said "Watch the news". She said "My God, I know right, what the hell is going on?" I took my beer and said "I work there." When I returned later to settle my tab, she quietly told me she had bought my round.
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I’m taking a CLDE class. Nothing is due right now, the assignment is in process, but I’ve been struggling. Today I tried to work on it, only to be embattled emotionally.
I sent a note with the assignment to my lead teacher: “It is what It is. There are shell casings outside my classroom window. The struggle is real.”
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Things I have said this year, postcards:
Three weeks ago there was a shooting off campus, involving one of my students.
He sent me an email “ I have to pass this class to graduate, but I’ve been shot. What can I do to make up the work?”
My reply boiled down to “Survive senior year, dear. “
An email was sent to me at 11.14 am on Friday, 19 Nov regarding a scholarship recommendation, due by midnight on Friday.
At 12.05 Friday we went into lockdown.
Today I submitted the letter of rec, with this note: “My apologies for missing the deadline. We had a shooting.”
The Six Things That Have Driven My Spirit Out Of Teaching
6 entitled lying students
5 their entitled, snowplow parents
4 bullying admin, in kahoots with #5 and #6
3 covid
`` 2 Tik Tok Lick Trend
1 School Shooting
Nobody is OK. I process by writing. Nobody said you have to read it.
# 20
After the shooting, a group of girls were hedging at putting away their phones. She stood over them, annoyed, only a week until Christmas break, two weeks since the third shooting, five weeks since Tik Tik Licks destroyed all but one boy's restroom, seventeen weeks since returning after Covid Remote Hell and the steady uphill trudge toward regaining control of her classroom/re engaging kids who come to school late and in their pajamas and stuck to their phones, she again said "Please, put your phone where I cannot see it."
"Man, my friend at Overview just snapchatted me, she's going to lunch at Panera. They get to go off campus, that's not fair."
Unable to stop herself, she said flatly "Do the kids at Overview shoot at each other?"
There was a dead silence, as four pair of brown eyes widened. Then the low whisper "Damn, Miss, that was rough."
She shrugged.
Truth is truth.
#20
7 December 2021
I don't care.
I don't care.
I don't care i don't care idon'tcareidon'tcareidon'tcare
they don't care so why should i care?
I used to care soo much I felt like I made them care, they were caught in my tractor beam of passion
Now I'm being slowly sucked into their lazy, apathetic indifference.
I remember people saying that Jim and Pamela Morrison sucked one another down, spiraling downward in their own drug induced cycle. It's like that. Without the drugs. Or the sex. Or Val Kilmer. Or love.
Just the sucking down part.
I used to love my content, I had such passion.
I used to love coming to school to teach. I would get up at 5 am so I could work out, walk the dog and make coffee before I headed out, and I'd still arrive an hour early to warm up my room, make copies, just be in the space, ready to welcome my kids.
I get up now with just enough time to feed the animals and start coffee. Most days I forget to bring it with me. I don't bring lunch, either, because I'm not hungry during the day. I don't really eat dinner, either.
I hate the kids.
How can they drag their feet and not care about getting to class on time? How do they have jobs? Do they have jobs? Will they ever have a job? It's like watching herds of sloths moving across the freeway, teachers are stopped along the edges waiting for the kids to move faster, move faster, stop talking you're clogging up traffic, get to class.
They Don't Care. Their indifference makes me angry.
So I hate them.
I know I am no longer engaging, and I don't care.
My margins are garbage, and I don't care.
This is neither literature or poetry, and I don't care.
Jimmy Crack Corn, and I Don't Care.
I used to be engaging. Students did not stop attending my classes because I was not engaging. I stopped being engaging when they stopped attending my classes. Those who do act out act up after Covid it's an uphill battle against behaviors with no hope or support or belief that they will recover from the trauma. Now I feel like a prison guard, my only job is to keep them in the room.
The impressive pile of discarded and frequently used acronyms clogging up my evaluations gives me anxiety twice a year, when I have to dig them up and write more useless words to prove that I am teaching, I do teach, I teach: here are some acronyms, a graph, unit planner, lesson plans and hours of my time to create these documents that I only look at when I'm evaluated an my evaluator only looks at when I'm evaluated but hours of my time, hours of my time and years of my life have been spent defending and proving that I Am Relevant.
Clearly I am not.
So I don't care.
I don't care, I don't care....I Do Not Care.
lALALALALALAlalallaalallalalaaaaaa
No Care I
Nope nope no cares.
Including me. If a bullet strikes me in a school shooting, it will not be because I was defending a student. It will be because I didn't care enough to move quickly, out of range.
just like a sloth
# 21 Using Hyperbole for good.
I am not a biology teacher she thought grumpily. This better be babysitting. She was walking through the halls, looking at the room numbers. The science wing was upstairs and on the opposite end of the building from social studies. I already teach six periods of IB, subbing today means I have no planning. The teacher and sub shortage had hit the building hard. So many teachers were overwhelemed that back in October the principal made the decision to assign subs per off period. So, if you had second off, you were assigned a partner teacher to cover for second period. If you were lucky enough to get an older teacher, or one who was just a bad ass, you never had to worry. But if you got one with small children or anxiety....you were screwed. Thankfully, Tina had been assigned a bio teacher who was known for never taking sick days. Today, however, he was mysteriously out. There were no sub plans, and the secretary suggested he could be out for a while. Which was usually code for "Covid".
Great, there goes my planning period for two weeks, she thought selfishly. Then she yelled at her own voice in her head I can be selfish, this is unprecedented, I survived Covid remote, I'm surviving the tidal wave Covid remote caused, I can be selfish. I earned the right to think of myself first.
She found the classroom. It was sterile. There were no personal items on the desk, no encouraging posters on the wall. It was just...empty. She checked the room number a second time. A student entered, walked straight to a table and sat down. "Is Harmon not here today?" she asked.
"No, you're stuck with me," she smiled. "Easy day, I don't know jack about biology and he didn't leave a lesson plan."
"It's in GC, we have a whole project we're working on."
The rest of the class filed in, and she took attendance. Then she addressed the class.
"I believe your project is in GC, so y'all just go ahead and work independently." The students all nodded silently behind their masks, and either got to work or watched Tik Toks. Not her circus, not her monkeys, she wasn't going to fuss at them.
A female student suddenly stood up, made a strange strangling sound, and collapsed.
The class sat frozen at their desks. Tina noted that the girl was clearly having a seizure, and immediately removed her mask. She looked up at the class and said "Can someone----" one boy ran out the door, and another picked up the phone in the room to call the front office. The girl's eyelids were fluttering madly, and she was still gurgling in her throat. Tina noted that she had also wet herself. Another girl knelt by her, looking down at the seizing student's face. Tina adjusted her focus, turning to tell the girl to return to her seat, when she was stopped by the girls' posture. She had her hands clasped in front of her, as in prayer. Her eyes were closed and she was whispering to herself.
Suddenly, a voice screamed in the classroom, some random words she did not recognize as English. A student on the other side of the room, who appeared to be screaming from the other side of a void, was sitting with his eyes fixed somewhere far away, screaming at a high pitch.
She knelt by the girl, who seemed to be through the worst of it. That is, until she sat upright and began to scream as well. She stared into empty space and screamed at whatever she saw there. It was a bloodcurdling, shattering, how are you not doing this outside scream. Then she looked directly at Tina and said "I know you" before collapsing again.
The boy who had run out the door returned with an AP. The student who had begun screaming on other side of the room stopped and asked if he could go to the bathroom. The AP stood in the doorway, seeming to sort out what to do next.
"Why was he screaming, is he hurt?" He asked, backing away from the boy as he exited the classroom. "Do you have a pass?" he asked the young man, who stopped for a moment to reply. "No," and kept walking.
"What happened?" he asked the room in general.
"I dunno, I'm down here"
"What is his name?" He asked, indicating the boy who was walking down the hall.
"I dunno, this is not my class."
"Why are you here?" He looked around the room while Tina watched his face contort. He looked like a five year old trying to understand algebra.
"My parents met at a school dance...I'm subbing, dumb ass."
"Did you call 911?" He stepped inside the door.
"No, I've been down here planting tomatoes. "
"Someone should call 911, " he offered, moving toward the phone in the classroom.
"Or the nurse. Where's Katie? Why didn't you bring Katie?" she looked at the male student who had brought an administrator instead of a nurse to a medical emergency "Why didn't you bring Katie?"
"Who's Katie?" The boy asked.
"The nurse."
"We have a nurse?" The boy walked back out the door.
"Make him stop screaming, " a student from the other side of the room.
She picked up a piece of paper, crumpled it, and threw it at different student.
"Your turn." He looked up. "Go get Katie, the nurse."
Students began to leave the room, pushing past the AP. "Students, you must stay in the room and seated, please, let us handle this." Tina looked up at him and laughed, hearing Kevin Bacon saying "Remain calm! All is well!" which she knew she couldn't share with this young AP, who had likely never seen Animal House.
Suddenly, the screaming stopped. She looked up to see the boy collapse, just as the girl had. He hit his head on the desk on the way down.
The teacher next door entered just ahead of Katie. She'd never been so happy to see a human being in her life. Katie immediately took charge. "Tina, I have her."
"Another one went down over there---"
"Tina, will you call 911. If we have two passed out---" Tina grabbed her cell and dialed. She noted the AP had disappeared. Maybe he went to meet the ambulance. Maybe he went to get Katie, not knowing who Katie was and that she was already present. The two teachers and nurse got the students safely stowed in the ambulance, parents called, reports written, incident logged in IC and students calmed down within thirty minutes.
Which was just in time for the fire drill.
