This post originally written on the afternoon of Wednesday November 9th, 2005, but posted on the evening of Thursday November 10th, 2005. I needed to cool off.
It's because those of us who play by the rules, plan ahead and adjust to things as information becomes available, GET SCREWED. This is essentially what I stated emphatically to an administrator today at 2:35PM and then promptly walked out of the Math Dept. office, to my car and drove home. I brought no work home.
"To promote responsibility...." this is one of the five tenets of the school mission. I try and live my life in a way that is an example of living responsibily. That means, I am always prepared for class, I plan ahead and give my students the time they need to learn the material. I believe that were my students polled they would agree that in my class, they know what the expectations are, know that I give them all the warnings they need and that I hide nothing. Tests and quizzes are always returned at the next class period because I honor their efforts of taking the exam on the day its scheduled so they should know their results as soon as possible.
As usual, I need to set the stage by giving some background information. Six weeks ago, or so, there was a Friday evening dance. Some students were drinking and in the aftermath, one student was riding on another student's car and fell off subsequently requiring hospitalization for what turned out to be a minor head injury. This all happened in the school parking lot. As a consequence, all dances for the entire year were cancelled. Included under the perview of all dances, the Prom.
At about the same time, I planned my curriculum and determined that I would give a test on Monday 11/14/05. The benefit for me of giving a test on Monday is that it is the only day in which my three sections of Geometry are in sync. On Mondays, my three sections meet 1st, 4th and 6th periods. The rest of the week they are a day off because two sections don't meet Tuesday and the third skips on Friday. Every other day of the week, the third section is at least two lessons ahead because their last class of the week is Thursday first period which is before the the third meeting of the week for either of the other two sections. By giving a test on Monday, I can minimize the worry of having students talking to each other about it, which even though they sign a pledge that they won't, they do. I am also not willing to write two versions of a test.
As I am a person who plans ahead, I posted my Geometry test on the schools online calender. I was the first test on the calender for 9th graders and therefore I couldn't be bumped as the rule is there can only be two tests per day for students.
A couple of weeks ago, the administration and class deans decided that the students should be given an opportunity to discuss the dance ban and make their own suggestions as what they could do or pledge to do in order to have them reinstated. It was emailed to all faculty that a discussion would be held during the assembly period on Friday 11/11/05 (in advising groups). Needing to capture the "spirit" of that discussion, the students, again in advising groups, would then meet again and sign a document on Monday 11/14/05. This second meeting would cancel 1st period class.
Woops. My 1st period section would have their test time eliminated. So, being the responsible teacher I am, I rearranged things on the calender and moved the test for all sections back to Friday 11/11/05, allowing my 3rd section that doesn't meet on Friday to take it last period on Friday if they didn't want to take it Thursday morning 1st period. It would mean that I would not benefit from my schedule of not having Friday classes after lunch and stay until the end of school. No problem, I should stay to the end of school anyway.
This rearrangement of my teaching comes in addition to the fact that 1/3 of my Statistics class was not in class on Tuesday 11/8/05 because of a Bay Area Ecology Field trip to Point Reyes as well as not having 1/3 to 1/2 of my students on Wednesday afternoon 11/9/05 due to the fact that all students taking French were gone watching a French film at the French foreign consolate. I also might be missing students Friday 2nd period because the Jazz students need to set up for a preview of their performance held at a prominent Jazz club in a few weeks time. Lastly, some of my Thursday first period students will be in class after travelling two hours, both ways, to play, or watch, a playoff soccer game at 7PM Wednesday evening.
So earlier this week, in another email to all faculty, it was announced that the 1st period class on Monday would be reinstated. With this news, I told my students that their test was on Monday 11/14/05 as first planned. To fill this extra day I created another lesson plan. Today, I found out that in fact on Monday 11/15/05 we would run what is affectionately known as a "squeeze schedule." All classes would be shortened by 5 minutes in order for an extended advisory period to be included so the student could sign the document pledging whatever they needed to pledge in order to have their dances reinstated.
This threw me for a loop and I was pissed, but I managed to keep a lid on things for the most part. I did go in and make my point abundantly clear to the administration that I felt that I was trying to hit a moving target in trying to pin down what the exact schedule was. In addition, I pointed out the unintended consequences of decisions being made and then being changed. For example, I have 8th graders who come up from the Middle School for one of my Honors Geometry classes. When a squeeze schedule is run for the Upper School, my 8th graders either miss class or show up half way through.
Then at lunch today, I was informed by another colleague that one of my Geometry students informed her that my test had changed and therefore I was the third test for most 9th graders. Since I hadn't changed my test back to Monday on the online test calender, I was third in line and therefore out in the cold. At this point, I lost it. I erupted. It was the end of the line to the point that my dear friend Shahana told me to cool it because I was making a scene. Well if making a scene lets people know how I feel that I'll take the consequences and reprimands. If I had ignored the second change in schedule I would still be first in line to give my test on Monday 11/14/05. Now, I'm having to rearrange my teaching schedule for the third time.
What is at the core of my anger? It's that I feel that we are rewarding those who don't play by the rules. Just because a couple students used poor judgement and broke the rules, we are rewarding them with the opportunity to try and get their dances back. In reality, is a school responsible for providing its students a social life? If students want dances, their parents can organize them and hold them off school grounds.
At the end of the day, an administrator came to see if I was alright and asked if there was anything he could do. He said that he'd be willing to take the heat, essentially saying that I could administer the test on Monday. But that would be bending the rules again, and those who would be affected would be the students. The students shouldn't have to suffer because of the decisions of adults. So I said that it wasn't necessary for him to change the rules. I wanted to take the high road and play by the rules.
The next day.........
So, I did a bit of creative juggling. I had the two sections that skip class on Tuesday to come on Tuesday to take the test and then have their free on Wednesday instead. I will introduce material for the next chapter on Monday instead of giving the test. I do have to report that my class that was supposed to start at 10:35AM this morning after school meeting didn't start until 10:42AM. More fuel for my fire.
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