Great Thoughts to End the Year

This is the text of an email I received from a colleague last week. No comment is needed.

“After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said: 'Let me see if I've got this right.

'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning. 'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job.

'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure that they all pass the final exams.

'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card.

'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletin board, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps.

'You want me to do all this and then you tell me. . . I CAN'T PRAY?”


Happy New Year everyone!

Merry Christmas

Christmas Break Begins!

Semester exam week ended with no make-up exams needing to be scheduled. All 128 of my students were present. The list of students restricted from taking exams because of unpaid tuition contained only 31 names at the beginning of the week; and by Thursday all names had been removed.

My students did reasonably well; especially the AP Chemistry students, considering how long and difficult their exam is. The average in my AP Chemistry class was 85% with only 3 failures out of 39 students. Honors chemistry achieved an average of 86% with only 4 failures out of 89 students. The honors chemistry exam was 100 multiple choice questions; about 30 of which required a calculation. I credit the new study guides I produced for each section with helping to prepare the students.

The faculty Christmas luncheon on Wednesday was quite nice. Each year the service that runs the cafeteria operation donates a “high class” meal for the school’s use. In the past this special meal was used to reward donors; but this year the sisters decided to use it for the faculty. I had prime rib, lasagna, green beans, and roasted potatoes.

My Christmas shopping is finished, my exams are graded and recorded, and I am looking forward to two weeks of rest. I have taken off next week from tutoring, scheduling only one day the week after for a few students. I plan to rest, sleep late, get some exercise at the health club, and generally spend time with the family. I will need to work on next semesters schedule and lesson plans, but that should only take a day at home in my office. As I wrote in the last post, it is an extremely needed rest.

One of the topics for discussion at my luncheon table was Christmas gifts from students. Everyone agreed that high school students typically do not give gifts to their teachers at Christmas, and I would have to say that they never have, in my experience at least. I got several cards, 3 bags of candy, some cookies, cologne, and gift certificates to Panera Bread and Starbucks. The largest gift from a student was a $50 gift card. Several of the nuns at our table remarked that in their grade school teaching days, every student gave a gift at Christmas. My uncle, who taught grade school for many years, told me that he used to get enough cologne every year to last the rest of his life.
My tutoring students were remarkably generous. One family gave me $250 and another $30. Two girls who I tutored last year sent gifts in the mail; one, a pair of statuettes for my bookshelf, and another sent a gift certificate.
Christmas gifts from students’ are never expected, but for most teachers, even a small gift from a student means something special.

At this Christmas I am thankful for my relatively good health—it would be excellent if I could get my blood sugar under better control every day. Two of our teachers are in the hospital; one just had surgery and is resting comfortably. I spoke to her this morning and she is groggy, but feeling better, hoping to be released today. The other has been hospitalized for a week. He received a kidney and pancreas transplant several years ago, and still has many nagging health problems related to his condition. Another man will be undergoing surgery for prostate cancer after the break and will miss 6-8 weeks. His replacement is a former student. Another woman in the English department just had double knee surgery. She is due back at the beginning of the next semester after being out for about 5 weeks. One of the assistant principals had some heart related problems and, while back at work, is not feeling 100% just yet. Health related issues are a major concern for me and my family. I am always looking to find ways to improve my condition and feel better. To be perfectly honest I have been feeling tired lately—probably related to the number of hours I work each week. I know that better lifestyle choices would probably help and I am committed to working toward them. I will also admit that that bag of chocolate covered pretzels a student gave me looks tempting—but I plan to go the health club instead.

Food For the Poor

Reports from the weather station on the top of the building display on an electronic board outside the chemistry lab. It is 2° outside with a wind chill of -16. The rooms are warm; the heat being turned on in all wings as of our return from Thanksgiving break.

Today is the pick-up for the annual Christmas food drive for the poor. Each homeroom is assigned a family to provide for. The families are referred to the school by a local charity, “Respond Now”. The family my homeroom has been assigned has a mother, 8 and 9 year old girls, a 17 year old girl, and a 9 month old baby. My wife pointed out that the baby probably belongs to the 17 year old; something that, while probably true, I would not have figured out myself.

My homeroom is cooperating well with the project—mostly because I offered 5 points extra credit for donating $10 to buy food and gifts, and bringing in some cans of food. This is an AP Chemistry class who are so conscious of grades that they would crawl naked over broken glass for 2 points. I did not have the same cooperation last year when my homeroom was a regular chemistry class. The average students cannot be bribed by extra credit to cooperate with any project—they don’t care that much about grades.

I have heard that a substantial number of teachers in the building were having significant problems getting the students to do anything. In the past the teachers would spend their own money to provide for the families; fearing the embarrassment that would come from having nothing on pick-up day. I was one of these, but have decided not to do the work myself anymore. At the beginning of the drive I decided that I would not shop for food, gifts, or donate my own money.

All of my 27 students donated $10 and all but 4 brought in food items from home. If they had done nothing I would have made them bring the empty boxes down to the collection and experience the embarrassment of their lack of concern and effort first hand.

Three of them volunteered to shop for the gifts. I gave them $20 for each family member from the money I had collected, some suggestions for what to purchase, and sent them off to shop. Each did an exemplary job, even adding money of their own if they thought something extra was needed. Two girls volunteered to do the food shopping, one picked up non-perishable items Tuesday after school, and another bought perishables last evening. I checked in at the drop off point this morning at 7:10 and she had already turned her items in. We have 4 boxes of gifts and 11 boxes of food—plus the perishables being stored in the cafeteria until the family gets here. An alumnus donated turkeys for all the families, as he has done for the past 25 years. These families are destitute and don’t qualify for public aid until the beginning of the year. These donations are everything they will have for the 2-3 weeks around Christmas.

Our students, with a few exceptions, are relatively well-to-do, making their callous indifference all the more disturbing. My friend in the Theology Department spoke to me about one young man who, when asked why he had not donated any money, said that he needed it to buy a video game. When she tried to shame him by asking whether the video game was more important than food for a desperately poor family on Christmas he replied, “I really need that game.” For those who think that this indifference to the needy is a recent phenomenon, I can tell you that it has always been this way. The only thing new now is the inability of the teachers to afford to cover for them. At dinner last night my daughter told me it was just as bad when she was in high school almost 10 years ago. She helped organize her homeroom’s food drive and explained to me that the more money the student had, the more cheap and uncaring they were. It is my hope that there is an especially unpleasant place in hell for these, mean, ungrateful children.