Random Thoughts on the Last Day of School

It is the last full day of school and, as of 5th period, everything is going more or less smoothly. First period my English teacher friend came to my room to deliver two exams she had taken from students in first period study hall. She said they were working together and she confiscated the tests. I told her that the test was “take-home” and it was acceptable for them to work together. She was very suspicious of them because when she caught them the students lied to her about what they were doing. Everything would have been fine if they had told her the truth—that they were working together on an assignment and I had said that it was all right to do so. They lied, even when the truth would have kept them out of trouble. This is very common among students; the tendency to lie when confronted by authority figures. You can only wonder why they act so stupidly.

On May 18th we had our graduation ceremony at a large outdoor music theater. It was very cold and I wish I had worn something warmer under my graduation gown. So much for global warming! Every teacher wears a graduation gown that represents their degree and university.

The ceremony lasted about 90 minutes, including reading the names of every one of the almost 400 graduates. The reading of the names takes up about half the time. The senior class president and the valedictorian each give a brief speech, both being rather good as these speeches go.

Overall I hate going to graduation, finding it to be a waste of my time. Our contract requires us to be there, but I don’t know if our attendance means anything to the students.

Next week we give final exams. The juniors in A.P. Chemistry already took there’s with the senior’s last week. It was the multiple choice section of the 1984 exam. The Honors Chemistry final is comprehensive over the whole year, and the students have had a review packet for 3 weeks. In the first three periods today nobody had a question about anything on the review. This means that either they have it finished and need no help, or none of them have started it yet. We will find out next week which one is the case.

The Crapshoot

Interviewing prospective teachers is a lot like trying to pick the chocolate in a box with the cherry inside. They all look the same on the outside, but some have a special something inside, that “something” that all school administrators look for. Finding that person who will become a special teacher someday is as much luck as it is science.

Most administrators I have worked with have certain things they look for in a candidate.
Some prefer experience and look for established teachers with known track records; others prefer young, inexperienced new hires that will be low on the pay scale. A friend that teaches in a local district sarcastically tells people that the district policy on hiring is to get the “cheapest person possible” for every opening. At my school, there is no set policy concerning experience. We will hire a teacher with experience, but generally give new hires credit for no more than eight previous years of teaching. In some cases, where the candidate has a special talent or skill that we want, more credit can be given. One teacher in my department, who has a special degree, was given extra years of experience in order to make our offer more desirable for him.

Our interviews for the new Biology teacher all took place last week. Two of the candidates were new teachers with only one year experience. The third was a teacher with 6 years experience. All three gave a very professional interview. The principal has a set of questions she asks all teaching candidates; what made you want to become a teacher, who were the major influences that make you who you are, what things do students do that “push your button?” My questions centered on their teaching style and how they felt about teaching a set curriculum. I am more concerned that the person we hire be a team player than they are a superstar. One department chair’s superstar is another’s pain in the ass.

One candidate we both agreed to reject, feeling that she might have discipline problems because of her inexperience. Of the other two I preferred one and the principal preferred the other. My preference was the other inexperienced teacher, an alumna who I had taught. The alumna is outgoing and confident, not afraid to speak her mind. The experienced teacher that the principal favored was meeker, her soft spoken personality hiding a quiet confidence. I was impressed with both.

As you can guess we hired the experienced teacher, and I feel this was because of her personality. I don’t mean to suggest that I am unhappy with our new Biology teacher, or that I think the other choice was significantly better. They were both very close in ability and potential, and I can live with either and be happy. My preference for the other candidate was subjectively based on familiarity not on any objective measure. Like I suggested, hiring a new teacher is a crapshoot at best.

My Interesting Week

This has truly been one of the more interesting weeks of the school year. In fact, so much has happened that I am going to write two posts about it.

The week began with a department meeting on Monday. There was little new business to take care of, only a few minor announcements to make. At the last Department Chairman meeting I announced that we would be offering Honors Biology as a “zero hour” class for local eighth graders next year. Math does something similar, offering Algebra I to eighth graders who qualify first period. These students, if they attend our school for freshmen year, would begin their math education with Geometry. The zero hour Biology would allow these students to accelerate in both math and science, taking Chemistry as freshmen. One of the assistant principals at the Department Chairman meeting asked to see me after and, at that time, expressed his concerns about the staff chosen to teach the class. His concern was not that they would do an unsatisfactory job, they are both excellent teachers, but that they tend to call in sick in the morning rather than the night before. He was concerned that if they call in sick in the morning, he would have a difficult time getting a substitute for them at that early hour. He wanted the teachers to be responsible to get their own subs if absent so he would not have to be bothered with it.

I decided to make an appointment with the principal to discuss the matter, not wanting to go against the assistant principal, but also not wanting to go against my teachers. I brought it up to the principal as something I didn’t know what to do about. “I can see both sides.” I told her when I apprised her of the situation. She told me she would handle it.

The next item on my meeting agenda concerned a formed department member who left six years ago when she became pregnant. Her child is now ready to begin pre-school and she has asked to return to work, part time, if a job is available. This was a very average teacher who I had no problems with, but left bad feelings behind when she quit. The other teachers in the department don’t like her for a variety of reasons, and the former principal was quite upset with the way she left. She had taken two months maternity leave and promised to return again, then decided a week before school began to resign. I discussed these problems with the new principal, making sure she understood the situation. We both agreed that we did not feel comfortable having her back, and decided to inform her that we had no part time position open, but thank her for her interest. It is our hope that she will hook up somewhere else.

The third item was printing for Biology. Biology students used to buy a workbook, but the new edition of the text supplies the teacher with a disk that contains the workbook files. Teachers have to print the workbook page, and duplicate copies for their students. We figure that the result is 40,000+ copies on our machines each school year. The Biology teachers what to get permission to send the workbook pages to an outside printer and have them make packets that each student would purchase at the beginning of the year. The students would pay $4.00 for the packet and the teachers would be saved from being chained to the copy machines every day. I was not sure that the principal would go for this, but I emphasized the 40,000+ copies that would be saved and she agreed.

Teen Violence

If you turn your TV or radio on today you will probably see or hear a news/talk show devoted to the topic of school violence. Big news the last few days has been the eight teens in Lakeland Florida who beat a fellow cheerleader because of something posted on Myspace. The local paper in Lakeland reports today that the girls are charged with kidnapping, battery, and tampering with a witness, and could face life in prison if convicted. We all know that won’t happen.

In Chicago, students have recently marched on the State of Illinois Building protesting for more gun control after a particularly violent few months where 20 teens have lost their lives to violence this year already. The fear was so bad at one Chicago public high school that parents were keeping their children home. I read a news story today about a 54 year old teacher in Baltimore who was sent to the hospital after being beaten by a student. At another local public high school, a student was arrested yesterday. He was found with a gun in his locker and ammunition on his person. This is not a inner city school but a mostly white suburban district. Any sane person would be frightened.

Fortunately, the school I teach at has only minor fights to deal with, and then only a few times a year. I have never been threatened by a student in all my years here, and only once was a teacher struck by a student. We suspend students for a first offense of fighting and put the student on probation. Last school year there were 4 fights the school administration had to deal with all year. A second offense will usually result in expulsion. Students are immediately expelled for having a weapon on campus, and while no gun has ever shown up a few students have been expelled over the years for knives.

You may be surprised that fights between girls are generally much more violent than those between boys. Boys don’t really want to fight, they want someone to step in and stop it. The altercation can easily be broken up by a teacher yelling stop. The fight is almost always over a girl or some perceived insult to one’s “woman” or “manhood.”
These altercations lack passion and are only face saving activities.

On the other hand, fights between girls are nasty, violent, and brutal. Girls fight in order to inflict pain and humiliation on each other. It is almost impossible to break the fight up without physically restraining the combatants. About 25 years ago I tried to break up a fight after school between two young ladies in the back hall of the main building. At the time I was 5’ 11” and 190 lbs and lifted weights three times a week. Both girls together weighed about as much as me. It took all my strength to hold them apart with my arms, each trying to climb over me to get at the other, until another teacher arrived and helped. Apparently, the boyfriend of one of the girls cheated on her with the other. One girl had a clump of hair in her hand and the other needed 7 stitches from a cut she received when she was pushed through a window. The girls were sophomores and the “cheating” incident had taken place when they were in 7th grade! When the disciplinary board meet with the girls another fight almost broke out between the parents of the girls. Both were expelled.
Fortunately, girls don't usually resort to weapons. Fists are much more personal and that's the way they like it.

It is silly to think that the world would be a safer place if women were in charge. We would probably have a nuclear exchange when the president of France made fun of the outfit worn by the president of Russia.