Teaching: TARFU*
I was prepared for students with attitude. I was prepared to share a classroom. I was prepared to move from classroom to classroom. But I was not prepared to have no classroom whatsoever. Not when classes start next Tuesday.
When I received my schedule/room assignment, I saw that I would be in room 328. But when I got to the third floor, I couldn’t find room 328. Room 332, 331, 330, 329, 326 . . . but no room 328. I wasn’t yet worried. This is Chicago Public Schools I’m dealing with, after all.
So I went and asked the programmer. She pulled out her map of the building and showed me room 328. It immediately became clear to me that this building map was way out of date, because it showed room 330 as half the size I knew it to be—and it was right next door to room 328. At some point, the two rooms had been joined.
Now I had a problem.
Well, I thought, someone will have to share room 330 and team teach two classes at once. I’m down for teaching the sophomores, however, and Jan, who was assigned room 330, is teaching freshmen. Either I’d have to switch with Ms. Harris (the other freshman English teacher) or she and Jan would have to share room 330. Or some other pairing of teachers could share room 330, but someone would have to share. According to the programmer, there isn’t any more room available in the building: sharing is our best option.
I took this plan to the team, the other Achievement Academy teachers. Nobody liked it. “Administration screwed up, administration should give us another room,” was the general consensus. OK, I agreed, let’s ask for the ideal solution. Might as well, what have we got to lose?
We got the principal and the assistant principal upstairs and told them the situation. They were sympathetic, but obviously couldn’t just build another room. This had to be looked into, all possibilities explored.
I should mention that the assistant principal who approved these TARFUed room assignments over the summer found another job and is no longer working here. Either way, we’d have a problem, I still wouldn’t have a classroom, but still, the timing of her departure is just the icing on the cake. I feel strongly that people should always clean up their own messes. That's obviously not going to happen in this case.
This is such a logistical nightmare that the principal won’t be able to fully address the problem, and offer a solution, until tomorrow. Other administrators, people responsible for supporting the Johns Hopkins Achievement Academy model in CPS, have been called and will be present tomorrow to help us resolve my classroom issue.
But since this issue isn’t resolved, despite the hard work and good intentions of the administrators involved (the ones who still work here, anyway) I was unable to spend any time this afternoon putting my classroom together. Since there is a chance I might switch to teaching freshmen, so I can team teach with Jan, who I get along with really well, I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do right now, how to most effectively utilize my time between now and tomorrow. One day of lost planning can’t possibly screw me up any more than this room TARFU has. This isn’t the end of the world. I will eventually figure out what and where I am teaching.
But this is not an isolated occurrence. This kind of crap happens ALL THE TIME in CPS. If it’s not a problem with a missing classroom, it’s missing student rosters, and if the rosters aren’t missing, then they’re late, or out of date, or incomplete or incorrect or all of the above. Supplies are hard to come by. Teachers get shuffled around all the time, with little or no warning. Ella, a young woman who spent six days in training to teach in the Achievement Academy, just found out TODAY that she’s actually teaching in the regular high school, even though The Powers That Be made the change on Monday.
THIS kind of bureaucratic nightmare is the reason public schools are in such bad shape. This kind of slipshod planning creates a tense and chaotic climate during the first days of school, days that are crucial to getting kids on the bandwagon, to getting them focused and on track and caring about school. They can sense when things aren’t right, when the teachers are upset and distracted and stressed out. And all of this could be avoided if someone could just invent a bureaucracy that actually ran smoothly.
* A military acronym related to SNAFU. Stands for Totally And Really Fucked Up. The only condition worse is FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. So you see, I’m being generous by describing my current situation as a TARFU: I know it will get fixed eventually, somehow, even though the solution is likely to be inconvenient for all involved, and not fully serve to undo the damage to the school climate the students will feel the moment they walk in the door.
When I received my schedule/room assignment, I saw that I would be in room 328. But when I got to the third floor, I couldn’t find room 328. Room 332, 331, 330, 329, 326 . . . but no room 328. I wasn’t yet worried. This is Chicago Public Schools I’m dealing with, after all.
So I went and asked the programmer. She pulled out her map of the building and showed me room 328. It immediately became clear to me that this building map was way out of date, because it showed room 330 as half the size I knew it to be—and it was right next door to room 328. At some point, the two rooms had been joined.
Now I had a problem.
Well, I thought, someone will have to share room 330 and team teach two classes at once. I’m down for teaching the sophomores, however, and Jan, who was assigned room 330, is teaching freshmen. Either I’d have to switch with Ms. Harris (the other freshman English teacher) or she and Jan would have to share room 330. Or some other pairing of teachers could share room 330, but someone would have to share. According to the programmer, there isn’t any more room available in the building: sharing is our best option.
I took this plan to the team, the other Achievement Academy teachers. Nobody liked it. “Administration screwed up, administration should give us another room,” was the general consensus. OK, I agreed, let’s ask for the ideal solution. Might as well, what have we got to lose?
We got the principal and the assistant principal upstairs and told them the situation. They were sympathetic, but obviously couldn’t just build another room. This had to be looked into, all possibilities explored.
I should mention that the assistant principal who approved these TARFUed room assignments over the summer found another job and is no longer working here. Either way, we’d have a problem, I still wouldn’t have a classroom, but still, the timing of her departure is just the icing on the cake. I feel strongly that people should always clean up their own messes. That's obviously not going to happen in this case.
This is such a logistical nightmare that the principal won’t be able to fully address the problem, and offer a solution, until tomorrow. Other administrators, people responsible for supporting the Johns Hopkins Achievement Academy model in CPS, have been called and will be present tomorrow to help us resolve my classroom issue.
But since this issue isn’t resolved, despite the hard work and good intentions of the administrators involved (the ones who still work here, anyway) I was unable to spend any time this afternoon putting my classroom together. Since there is a chance I might switch to teaching freshmen, so I can team teach with Jan, who I get along with really well, I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do right now, how to most effectively utilize my time between now and tomorrow. One day of lost planning can’t possibly screw me up any more than this room TARFU has. This isn’t the end of the world. I will eventually figure out what and where I am teaching.
But this is not an isolated occurrence. This kind of crap happens ALL THE TIME in CPS. If it’s not a problem with a missing classroom, it’s missing student rosters, and if the rosters aren’t missing, then they’re late, or out of date, or incomplete or incorrect or all of the above. Supplies are hard to come by. Teachers get shuffled around all the time, with little or no warning. Ella, a young woman who spent six days in training to teach in the Achievement Academy, just found out TODAY that she’s actually teaching in the regular high school, even though The Powers That Be made the change on Monday.
THIS kind of bureaucratic nightmare is the reason public schools are in such bad shape. This kind of slipshod planning creates a tense and chaotic climate during the first days of school, days that are crucial to getting kids on the bandwagon, to getting them focused and on track and caring about school. They can sense when things aren’t right, when the teachers are upset and distracted and stressed out. And all of this could be avoided if someone could just invent a bureaucracy that actually ran smoothly.
* A military acronym related to SNAFU. Stands for Totally And Really Fucked Up. The only condition worse is FUBAR: Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. So you see, I’m being generous by describing my current situation as a TARFU: I know it will get fixed eventually, somehow, even though the solution is likely to be inconvenient for all involved, and not fully serve to undo the damage to the school climate the students will feel the moment they walk in the door.
posted by Christopher at
5:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home