The End of the Aspie Teacher

When I originally published this, I altered facts to protect my identity. I don't want to change it and it doesn't make a difference in the end.





Will there ever be more Aspie Teachers?

November 5, 2011

Teaching: A vanishing safe haven for people with Asperger’s Syndrome.

When I was emerging into what has passed for my adulthood, at the age of 25, I took a job as a teacher. To my friends, I said it was because I had a passion for kids and for writing. The truth was, it was something that I could imagine doing. Period.

My favorite teachers had been, what a friend of mine called, “extremely ugly people.” They didn’t pay any attention to conventional ideas about appearance. If they thought about what they wore at all, they conspired to find a compromise between clothing which was comfortable and which conformed to the norms of an intellectual/artistic or political aesthetic, however marginal. It wouldn’t have occurred to them that they were aligning themselves with “subcultures” – that they were weirdos. It was your loss if you didn’t know how comfortable Bierkenstocks were, or that Levis fit a man’s legs better than designer jeans or pressed slacks. If you prized variety over finding the perfect cotton shirt which you then bought en masse, that was your choice. I had a history teacher who might have stared at you for several minutes had you asked him why he always wore the same kind of white shirt. First, there would be the simple irrelevancy of the question. Then, the stupidity of it – why would you make something like dressing more complicated than it had to be when there was HISTORY to be studied.

So, yes, at 25, it seemed a safe bet that I could stand in front of a group of teenagers in black jeans and a distressed polo shirt. I took the leap that I might be able to make them laugh and then maybe teach them. What made any of it possible was that I didn’t have to put on the costuming of any particular social class. If you thought I looked like the janitor, well, maybe I did. So what? The difference between the janitor and me was supposed to be what we did, not what we wore. I also took for granted what I had since I was four years old; that my command of the English language would provide its own credibility. People could tell I was smart. They always had.

Surprising as it might sound, the bluff actually worked. My classes weren’t instant successes, but I got better at teaching. And I was funny. I was also close enough to the age of my students to find a common bond, and that rapport saw me through a lot of rocky lessons. Being in the classroom engendered the passion I pretended before I got there. In time, I became pretty good at helping my students jump through the necessary hoops ahead and to like writing in the process. They also learned that I really did care about them. Everyone continues to learn, and I hope to, but the changes in the teaching profession which have occurred in the past 6 years have increased the odds against me.

The new requirements that stand in my way have little to do with student performance, but now seem to have everything to do with my personal survival. If I can’t adapt, well: The work force has no place in which my skill sets or strengths will naturally assimilate. In my 50′s, it might be best if I were to go on disability because I’ve accrued some legitimate illnesses and injuries over the course of my almost-adulthood. Or, I could just go mad. Would it ronically, have been better if I had given up at 25, 26 or 27 rather than invest my energies in mastering a profession which would then invalidate the successes of my late twenties through the end of my forties?

You would think that the years of experience in the DOE would’ve have made me secure, or almost. The joke, however, was on me when in 2008, the Department of Education closed the school in which I had been working and producing excellent Regents exam results, as had the rest of my department. Nothing about my department’s results had anything to do with why we were closed. I didn’t want my school to close, but, at least, you’d think that my track record would still be valuable and my years of success would help me to find a new position. Actually, it’s the opposite.

Funny, right? But, the real punch line had already been written two years earlier, in the last contract negotiation between my union and the Dept. of Education. Traditionally, you joined the Dept of Education and spent the early 15 years of your career or more with little choice over where you taught. Schools with strong academic performances or special programs hired teachers with lots of experience, and those teachers were also able to transfer into those institutions by virtue of their seniority. So, not to worry, right? I should be able now to have some choices over where I will go next. But, enough of my fellow members accepted a contract with a fairly steep pay raise, in exchange for letting go of the seniority transfer. I can’t blame anyone for the choices they felt worked best for them. All I know is how this contract has affected me and other teachers I know with A.S. (I voted “No.”)

Wait, however. It gets better. After the contract was signed, the Dept of Ed decided it would no longer provide schools with the extra funds they had relied upon to allow them to hire experienced teachers REGARDLESS OF THEIR SALARIES. Meaning, now schools were stuck paying their teachers out of their own, soon to be further slashed, budgets. And here were a whole crew of teachers with fat salaries thanks to the new contract. Who can blame anyone for wanting a raise – and normally, who would argue with a union for getting them one. But, the DOE’s move put all teachers, especially those whose experience earned put them at the top of the salary scale, in an awkward position. Some of these folks were now looking for positions, their schools having closed. A few of them have a developmental disability that makes it harder for them to handle competition in a conventional market.

The reaction of school administrators was predictable: get rid of the fat salaries we have on board, and avoid adding new ones, at all costs. “Why hire you, when I can get those two teachers for the same, price?” That’s not an easy question to answer if you don’t have AS. If you do, you find yourself dumbfounded. We’re not a population that knows how to shmooze or to do our own public relations. I have a very flat affect. That means that my face seems almost expressionless (except when I am having a really good time, like teaching a lesson and fielding all sorts of questions.) So, not only am I not good at debating my merits, I’m not interesting to look at. My clothes are plain and designed to allow me to move. What are my odds against people at my own salary range, let alone someone cheaper, sexier and less discouraged?

Like the millions of workers over 40 in every other field in this country, I now find myself ready to collar the administrators who look at my resume with disinterest and say, “A man is not a piece of fruit.” Unfortunately, almost none of the new schools have Assistant Principals in charge of individual disciplines like English, so it’s more likely that I’ll be spitting through my teeth at a twenty-nine year old in charge of everything from ordering pens to designing the Curriculum Map for the entire school, and finally, rating all the staff. Even if he or she was an English teacher, there is no space in that circuitry for retrieving common literary allusions. The kid needs to get a slice of pizza, two liters of coke and five goddamned minutes to pick what gets done first while he/she’s busy doing what has to be done right now.

That may be how you run a corporation, but it doesn’t really leave room for managing the education of future voters or the voters who manage them. And being a principal is not the same as being a whiz kid CEO. It’s not like creating Facebook or designing the next cool APP. You can’t do it running on all-nighters while listening to techno and drinking coffee or beers or even organic juice. Even if you could, when are you going to do it and do all the other things which used to be done by a lot of other people?

Remember that the school closings, the budget shifts — all of these changes were made because theold system with all those unnecessary people wasn’t perceived to be working too well for the children. (Talk to any public official about education and count how many times they refer to “the children” as if they were Moses talking to Ramses. Or Charleton Heston as Moses, anyway.)The big schools were cut into many small schools, with fewer administrators and teachers per school, though there are probably MORE administrators in the building overall. Add to this that these new small schools are run by "Education Management Corporations" who are given hundreds of thousands of dollars to MANAGE the schools, but are not in the schools on a day to day basis to help out. So, a lot of money is being spent on a smaller school, with fewer people doing more work. Same class size as before. Smaller budgets. Therefore, to keep costs down, most of the people in the building are young and without much experience or lengthy track records. If you’re a parent, when your children aren’t doing well, do you give them less support while you try to do many more things – on purpose? Would you take your child to a doctor who suddenly took on two new specialties while working the same hours with no additional support or supplies?





Forgetting the altruistic arguments against the new budgetary constraints on our schools, there’s the basic question of survival of the employees. What are all these people supposed to do for work should they not be able to manage? Teaching is not like any other career in one very painful way. The skill sets do not translate to anything else. Yes, I can make arguments otherwise, but try that in an interview. “No, I’ve never managed an office, but I’ve managed 32 kids an hour, taught over 150 kids a year.” It’s sweet, charming, but incomprehensible to someone who is trying to understand if you can order the supplies for all the computers, manage appointments, run the website, etc. The fact is you haven’t done any of those things. It’s possible you could. However, the person who interviewed an hour before you has already proven he/she can. Which is what potential employer after employer said to me when I tried my hand at leaving teaching out of frustration with the changing political climate, years ago. In my mid-thirties. Younger, thinner, less gray and more hopeful.

The average teacher leaves the system in the first three years of his/her career. Does he/she even have anything more to show for it, besides interesting fodder for his/her Law School application essay? Suppose he/she doesn’t have the funds, energy or liberty to go on for more education. Start at the bottom of the salary ladder at something else, kid. It’s like you spent three years traveling through Europe. Worse, because you didn’t even learn a new language.

Where does that leave me? Now, I have never been good at mastering some of the major social skills of adulthood. I pay my rent and utility bills and I respect others’ space– that’s not what I mean. I mean, I don’t press my shirts and I am often rude when I am trying to get something done. If my students need something, I’m going to be pushy. I will apologize profusely, afterward. Years of teaching have also inured me to the expectations of “normal people.” Did I miss a button on my shirt? Should I care? I can teach someone to pass the English Regents from scratch. I can teach Othello off the top of my head. I can revise my lesson plan mid – air. My jokes aren’t funny anymore, but the slapstick of my hands and eyebrows helps me break up confrontations. My students have done well. I know what I’m doing, mostly, whether I “look smart” or not.

But, all proof of this has disappeared. My school closed. Many of my colleagues, retired, including two principals whom I served. Sure, I have had excellent results in my career, but who can verify my role in an overall school’s achievement, now? Even if I convert all of my records to data on a computer, who will believe me? And there is that, nagging reality that I don’t look like a corporate success and as soon as I start to boast of my work I become self-conscious. I don’t fit the “dress for success” themes of many small schools. My work used to speak for me. Now I just look like the common stereotype of the enemy: a slovenly, hippy-type academic, inefficient and laden with old-fashioned sentiment toward the students. No matter what I say, the principals who interview me don’t hear me. It’s the same rationale that used to make superintendents severely punish schools if they saw students wearing hats inside the building. “If you can’t get them to obey the ‘hat rule,’ what can you get them to do?” Sounds reasonable but the impulse to wear a hat isn’t driven by just one or the same reason in every kid. There is nothing which says a kid who wears a hat won’t study, be respectful, or enjoy learning. He/she just really likes hats. “Why you stressin’ it?” And I really, really don’t like my clothing to be tight, so they are looser than some might consider fashionable. That doesn’t mean that I can’t teach English.

Those questions aside, the reality of the thousands of displaced teachers like me begs the simple question of where are these people – we – supposed to go? Education reformers talk about experienced teachers like we are pariahs. All right, suppose we were all in need of re-tooling? If we were selling cell phones, we would be given training every year about each new batch. Suppose we all need new training. Isn’t it cheaper to do that than just fire all of us and start again with new teachers? A colleague once told me that a superintendent once responded to that very question with “it’s cheaper to buy a new car than fix an old one.”

Since that very superintendent was replaced a month later, I wonder if how he sees himself as a “lemon.” Where did he go? Another school district and another. When does he start building a learning curve? Or, is he just going to be passed from one unwitting owner after another, until they discover he doesn’t drive. Why not fix him? He isn’t a car, after all, which can be harvested for parts. Neither am I.

Undoubtedly, some of my readers might ask, “Why can’t you just learn to dress in a corporate manner and to be polite? Look in the mirror before you leave the house, at least.” Here’s my frightening response. I did. I tried. Before I continue, I want to ask you to think back to some of your best teachers. Wasn’t at least, one of them, slightly awkward, a miserable dresser, and, a bit brusque sometimes? I can’t believe that not one of them had all or some of these characteristics. Here’s an even harder one. Think back to some of the great teachers you had that you thought were “mostly normal” ? Like the fantastic geometry teacher who wore so much Bloomingdale’s Tea Rose perfume that the air was yellow and you felt surrounded by honey that was a little too sweet? She was so terrific that you got used to the smell, even cherished it. And you could tell that she couldn’t live with the air being one touch less fragrant. But, all right, she was a bit, eccentric in this regard. Why am I so touchy about this – couldn’t they, too, have been polished up? No. Because I’m guessing that the person who you remember was already doing his or her level best and that, like me, he/she had Asperger’s Syndrome. Teaching was one of the rare professions which offered to people with A.S., who are developmentally disabled in key areas of socialization but are often highly intelligent in many areas of academic/theoretical difficulty, the rare opportunity to utilize their minds without the intrusion of social norms they could not fulfill. I’m not talking about people who could hurt your children. I’m talking about people who, like Albert Einstein, couldn’t comb their hair to anyone’s satisfaction. People who didn’t notice the stain on their shirt until someone pointed it out. People who yelled at an adult for not helping a student enough. In general, Aspies don’t yell at kids. It doesn’t make any logical sense – it won’t help. And, Aspie’s are logical creatures to a fault. Part of what is mystifying about socialization is it’s lack of logic. (Does it really matter if I part my hair to the right?)

Where, especially, are these Aspies, who have a fairly high unemployment rate, supposed to go now? I’ll tell you where because it’s on my list: disability. Having a condition which makes it impossible for you to fulfill the requirements of almost any job is one criteria for qualification. And what are reinforced to me in all of the results of our most recent contract, are my inadequacies. It really could be possible that people like me, who once contributed meaningfully to the economy and society, could be rendered incapable by a culture which is unwilling to respect or pay for our experience and which attends more carefully to the loose cuffs on my shirt than to what I am saying. (Based on a true story: I had an interview with a principal who could not get his eyes off of the fact that my shirtsleeves were loose and a little to long for my jacket. Meanwhile, I was trying to engage him in a discussion about how to help the children at his school.

Never mind the reality that some of my colleagues look like movie stars, but if they have over ten years of experience, fat chance of anyone picking their fat salary up. Take a pay cut, you say. Sure – if you give me back my Seniority rights.

Meanwhile, there are many of us Aspies among the Absent Teacher Reserve. Meaning, they are floating around between schools, waiting for someone to take them on. Each week, we go to different schools. That wouldn’t be easy for anyone, but for someone who has difficulty adapting socially, it’s a nightmare. Forget what it feels like once we get to the school. The ANXIETY that knowing you will have to face different people every week can produce in a person with Asperger’s Syndrome would probably be unfathomable to most people. Imagine you were crippled by the realization that you had been misunderstood at a meeting – that you unintentionally insulted a colleague or friend. Think of what it would do to you to know that you will have the opportunity to make that mistake again and again and again. That you will feel like everyone is speaking on a slightly different radio wavelength from yours. And when you finally think you’ve just about got it, you have a whole new one to learn. That’s just the adults – what about all these new children.

This morning I go off to my weekly assignment. Each week I am moved to a different school in which I substitute for absent teachers, help new ones (ironically), team teach or all three. In any subject. Why? I’ve been given several reasons. None of them even pretends to ignore the reality of how difficult this practice is for the teachers, administrators and, of course, the children. You know how you might have bonded with someone and worked with them – especially if they were lucky enough to be in a room with another teacher so that they could give you more attention? Forget that. I’m leaving Friday. No risk of co-dependency. Or trust. Or of long-term intervention. Or being taken seriously. As one student said to me, candidly, “You don’t carry much weight.” I can cajole. If I’m lucky, I’ll be put in a room where I might actually get to teach something I know, English or a familiar part of another discipline. In the best of circumstances someone has left a lesson plan which is actually relevant to what the kids are doing. In the worst, there is nothing and no one. Twice, I have covered classes in other disciplines which are without teachers and have been since the first day of school. I’ve interviewed for English jobs at schools which still don’t have anyone. (Ok, they can’t afford me, but they can’t afford anyone? It is frigtening to think they might be waiting to see if someone cheap comes on the market, like a baseball team looking for an extra reliever who won’t cost too much if he doesn’t work out.) Let me tell you, the children are, understandably, not amused. For those of us 99 percenters who happen to be experienced teachers in the New York City public schools, we are not just prisoners of Wall Street, but prisoners of the children of Wall Street and its prisoners. And they are, in turn, prisoners of an educational system which is supposed to be preparing them for their right, as Americans, to have the opportunity to join the ranks of the 1 percent, should that be their dream. I think they know that there’s a punch line coming.

An old essay topic

For years, I used to give my students the question, "Does punishment work?" as an essay topic. Usually, I got about a 50/50 response, with it coming down to, "it depends on the kid." Most often, they gave examples of how punishments worked on their younger siblings. Whether they were being honest or not, my students usually felt that punishments had stopped working on them -- not because they didn't feel the pain they caused, but because their actions were decisions based on what they thought were rational ideas. Since I've spent the majority of my career working with the overage and under-credited, I'm biased in favor of the latter set of arguments. I've met students who didn't succeed in school because they were busy trying to survive on a much more fundamental level. Yes, I know, there have been homeless kids who get perfect SAT scores. I'd argue that those kids are very talented to begin with. Having gone to Stuyvesant High School, I can also tell you that a lot of very talented kids have trouble succeeding academically when their basic needs are not being met. Exceptions never prove rules.

I think the same formula can be used for adults.

Call me a child of the 70's, but I believe the only way people learn is through forgiveness. Yes, I think wrong behavior should be addressed. But, no teacher or student wants to do harm or to fail. People make mistakes out of frustration, whether they are very young or not so young.

I put this note out there for everyone to consider. You don't need to write five paragraphs in response. Just let me know what you think.

Being Positive

I was on the phone with a former student, now a mother of two in her thirties. She kept telling me to "be positive." I explained that being positive scares me. To me, it implies that there's no concrete evidence of the possibility of success.

...When my mother was in college, her Intro to Psychology professor told his class to "Feel free to ask any questions." My mother raised her hand and said that she no longer felt free because his invitation had made her feel self-conscious. If she were really free, why would anyone need to mention it.

So often, palliative phrases reveal the problems beneath the surface.

Re-invention

Practically every night, before I finally make the climb up to my cave in Bensonhurst (in Brooklyn, caves have staircases), I stop at the local supermarket to pick up groceries. Once upon a time, I was organized and bought a month's worth of groceries on a Sunday and had everything delivered. Now, I plan my meals in a pay-as-you-go fashion.

My supermarket is staffed by a steady crew of male and female teenagers and middle-aged women, all of whom are thoughtful and smarter than their jobs. I wish I were better at easy conversation and that my life weren't constantly paper-clipped with explanations. It's too difficult to keep explaining, so I don't anymore. We still say, "Hello," but there's not much eye contact.

Tonight, I took a deep breath and mentioned I was tired. The very polite young woman who is one of the few left who still tries to tease a smile from my jowls, answered, rather darkly, "at least you're working."

This is technically my 18th year of teaching. And I'm very tired. I'm in a situation to which I am totally unaccustomed and which keeps adding new variables. Yesterday, during a faculty meeting, we watched the short video, "Shift Happens," which makes projections about computers who will be able to outsmart all humans by 2049 and my students needing to work 14 different jobs in their lifetimes. It also talks about the need for students to problem solve. Of late, I've found students unwilling to take on that challenge. Whereas they once seemed interested in being involved in their community, they've grown apathetic. Some of that has to do with being 10-12 and not really knowing how to begin. They still ask how they should begin their essays, sometimes.

When I was their age, I already took ownership of my writing and you COULDN'T tell me how to begin an essay. Yet, I can be as dumbfounded as they are when it comes to problem solving in my own life. At 42, our economy, American greed and Puritanism be damned, is asking me to re-think how to think about myself. I'm not the kind of person to respond well to books about the subject and I intuitively loathe the genre of self-help. I've always found it amusing that Tony Roberts discovered his calling as a guru in that field after failing in others. What I'd rather do is imagine bringing a case to the Supreme Court proving that we are denying our children equal protection of the law by not equalizing the funding of education throughout the country. Do I go to law school? My track record for winning battles is very poor. I can create the argument, but I can't speak it. More often than not, I can't speak, these days.

My own trepidation and my exhaustion necessitates a process of re-invention that is careful and which can be done with some solitude. Of course, my biggest enemy is time.

Gritting it out

I'm going to hold on until I either

1) Get a permanent position I want

or

2) Am placed somewhere

I am NOT GOING TO PANIC.

The ATR job market...same time, this year

So far, incentives and hiring freezes aside, all the experienced teachers I know over 40 seem to be getting the same cold shoulders they did last year. Teachers with 25 years of experience who are bilingual and can teach music and other things out of license are being asked, "Why should I hire you?"

I know one person with experience who was hired and he is 34.

I am "Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's" hopeful about one school which I adore and to which I hope I can be of use. Two more interviews loom at two other schools in which I'd gladly work and I plan to make big, cheerful presentations, full of aspirations, some student work, and concretely designed ideas. If my heart will not be sunk by the usual fear and sense of doom which comes from some of the continued grim realities of things, I should be able to do what I aim to do. It's amazing -- I can feel an influx of warm oil over the nerves and my brain sinks like a sponge full of jello. That's what it feels like when I think too much about the odds or the horrors my colleagues and I have experienced in downright disrespectful situations. None yet for me this year, and I hope (and I blow a full balloon inside my chest when I say that word) none too soon.

But, I know the removal of music and arts programs at certain schools is part of an effort to de-stabilize them so they can be closed. This ATR pattern is not going away.

If, in the end, 85 percent of the ATR's are not hired by finding their own jobs, but are sent by the DOE to be interviewed and eventually find work that way, why not start now? Klein initially called ATR's "undesireables" -- not many of the new principals have enough experience with older teachers to lose that first impression no matter how many times Klein now calls us worthy. Why not just place us now? Does Bloomberg think that in an election year he can negotiate a contract in which the UFT gives up job security? What would the UFT do, then, effectively? The 3020a process would dissipate as people could be excessed and then let go. Could they really justify their salaries just for a medical and dental plan (the latter of which I have spent my life avoiding using thanks to my uncle being a dentist. Since he retired, my teeth have been living in fear.) Would they just negotiate another raise? Would it just be about money? Then we would definitely be abandoning the children. No amount of money can replace acceptable working conditions. By acceptable, I mean ones in which the students and you feel secure enough to invest in the school in which you can be adventurous, challenging and creative.

The Summer Knows

I'm not sure of the season or the year because I've mostly blocked out everything that happened before graduate school. Out of an obsession with the movie, Summer of '42 which I still probably don't completely understand, but which haunts me, I'll choose it's eponymous season. The block in my memory is an almost conscious division of "Before my mother" and "After my mother." No, she didn't die, but the person who came back from graduate school wasn't as easily influenced by her. The person who came home from graduate school was remarkably self-confident and shrewd and took a friend's mention of a theater company that she had put in the back of her mind and worked it into a really interesting theatrical piece.

Summer of 1991 was before graduate school. Like I feel this morning, I traveled continually with an ashy, clammy fullness in my stomach. Worse than fear, it's a kind of death of spirit. I'd been addicted to a lot of bad habits and drawn a lot of people into them with me. The way some kids grew up playing "Cops and Robbers" I grew up playing "It's you and me against the world," with my mother and when she wasn't there, friends filled her place. It was a bad game, and some of my friends hated it so much they turned it simply into them vs. me -- which is also what my mother disintegrated to. When you can't pull off miracles, the singular army against the fates begins to curse its one footsoldier and soothsayer. There is no hope, not even pyrrhic victories in this kind of war. It's just about despair that luck continues to elude you and, again, as the messenger/diviner, I usually got a physical or emotional beating in the process. In other words: I desperately needed to get away. And I did.

Later on some of the people whom I got away from also got away. And that was good.

But, we're none of us are any different when we combine even now. And I am, at this period of my life, less confident than ever. It's silly, really. There's the shock of loss and being alone and not having a secure position for the first time since I was 22. And then there's the inability to wrap my mind around any of what happened on Sept 2, 2005. When all the facts have been re-assessed, it still makes no sense. It made no sense at that moment in Karen's or my life. And for once, I felt like not only she didn't, but I didn't deserve it. I finally had been and was doing what I was supposed to do. Always. And I got screwed anyway. (I know, me and a million other people, but like all of them, I say to my mirror, "I was supposed to be different. I was THE RESPONSIBLE one.") It would be hard for people who knew me back in 1991 to know just how RESPONSIBLE I had become. I was for a long, long time, not late, not without my research, not without the protoccols, not without the concerns, the questions, the answers and even the manners and I was able to leap small puddles with single bounds. I was no hero, but I had applied to the "Mensch" club and was awaiting membership. I had all the sponsors. Then a plane crashed with Karen B. Hunter in it and I kind of lost track of time. When I ran out of tasks -- closing up the office, etc., is when it got worse and when I really started to spin. There was something about having things to do for Karen that kept me okay. I still have photographs to print. I'm afraid to let that go.

In the three years which have past, I've lost all the drive that made me a "Mensch" and I never got my membership, as a result.

Back in 1991, there were no drugs involved and no alcohol and there aren't any now. Just that dangerous human frailty called judgement. Shortly after she died, someone once told me I was the perfect friend for Karen because I didn't judge her. I didn't like to judge people then and I still don't. It's not heroism and it's not cowardice. It's an awareness that everything that people do IS the best that they could do in those moments, and if you want to help them, the best thing to do is help them change the moments or how they see them. The only things I can't abide are acts of malice. But those are few and far between.

I used to be one of those young teachers -- back in the Summer of 1991, certainly, who thought that some people cared, some didn't, some people tried and some didn't. I've since learned that everybody cares and everybody tries. I've seen teachers beg kids to stay with them an extra minute to get it right -- teachers who kids say all sorts of mean-spirited things about. The truth is we are all so angry with each other because we all care very much. Colleagues who might retire in ten days are absolutely livid. I've been taught more about concern and diligence from people who are fiercely tough than those who seem more amiable.

The scary thing about being an ATR is you are rootless and you feel just like you did -- or I did-- when you started teaching. There's no sense of where you will go, although you've spent the better part of a lifetime working with at-risk youth, etc. It's like, for a moment, my past was washed away, and with it, the part of me that knows how to be cautious -- the part of me that left that summer never to call some people again, and to be hours away from others. The part of me that was quite sure of who I was and wanted to be. It wasn't to have an acronym that, on funny moments, reminds me of the Russian Tea Room (RTR). That was never a great restaurant, by the way. All atmosphere and some great waiters. Nick, you out there? My mother was the blonde with the attitude who was either too stingy or too generous. If that doesn't jar your memory, this will: she sent back drinks. Who does that? I am so sorry.

Nick I hope is somewhere in Florida. But, I'm in limbo. Karen is dead. And, no, I'm STILL not taking it well.

To find my boundaries again, is the goal of summer 2009.

To print or not to print

It's 3:26am, and the last thing I want to do is print material for a class I'm covering. I don't know why I now wait until the last two free hours of my morning. There's something about not wanting the intrusion, combined with a never-ending resentment over using my ink for school. Ink. It drives me crazy. I have to go to Staples to get it because I have a portable printer and it's also expensive.

I should bring the printer with me to school and I did once but I had nothing to print that day. I begged a colleague to let me print something she was handwriting just to feel like I hadn't carried the little toy in vain.

There isn't any hope of good faith anymore. Used to be, you did a job and you felt good about it and, at least, you'd earned your right to it under your union contract. Since my status is defined as indefinite, it's hard for me to want to do anything until I have to do so -- just in case I'm replaced in a few hours.

When the war is over, someone buy me new toys

There is no doubt Bloomberg and Klein are fighting a war against teachers. You need look no further than the insanity of my weekly experience. Perhaps the most hilarious moment yet was our professional development on Monday. We were introduced to "Mimio" technology, which is all well in good if we weren't working in a school with a shrinking budget about to be closed. And, the curriculum we are mandated to use in English and Social Studies specfically forbids the use of streaming video and the internet which makes the use of Mimio no more than a blackboard trick, certainly not one worth over 500 dollars to start.

Why keep teachers in a professional development in which you teach them about a technology they can't use and you can't afford to buy anyway? To frustrate them and make them feel obsolete, that's why.

How much did it cost for the demonstration? One of the teachers who attended a workshop for this product was given a t-shirt by the saleslady. Couldn't we, at least, have all had t-shirts? How about backpacks for the students with the logo? No?

Curriculum Guide

Since I've become an ATR, I've become even less politically astute than before. Didn't think it was possible.

We had a meeting regarding the new curriculum we are using this term. Well, technically it's not really knew as it was used on these same kids when they were in 9th grade. But, new curriculum guides were purchased and even new copies of the same banal book the kids read years ago. There ARE some books worth re-reading at different points in your educational life. Usually, books designed specifically to meet the needs of a particular grade level -- in this case, middle school -- are not one of them. The students don't read at HS level, by and large, but assigning them a book geared to JHS kids was not a good idea. The themes are beneath them and don't merit revisiting. What they needed was something geared to HS kids written at a lower reading level. Or, they needed a book worth reading twice, which is not this book.

During our meeting about this curriculum, I found myself talking. That alone was a mistake. I know that I should keep my mouth shut, but for whatever reason, I needed to pretend to be empowered. When you are an ATR, I think, you want to do as much as possible and to try to connect with the center of the school. What you don't realize is how rotten things are at core and what influences whom because you're new to an already tainted environment and you're not given enough stake in it to get into the kinds of political battles which help you to learn what's worth fighting for. The lessons which go with this book are very amorphous and I've held back from completely suggeting a new structure with accompanying handouts. I said enough, however, to get the administration to use me to create items to make themselves look good -- rubrics for grading. As if there was really material here from which to differentiate.... However, my skills in education b.s. exceed theirs because I am good at creating meaning in activities and evaluations in and of themselves. Part of this comes from watching a colleague design rubrics for grading English essays which were harder than the English Regents, but used the same basic formula. Part of this comes from living in a world in which what the students do in the lesson is the meat of the lesson. It's been years since I've ever seen teachers asked to actually SAY what they are working on without an accompanying action. The phrase, "speak it into existence" has never been so wrongly used. It's not the teachers' fault and its probably not the administrators' fault either. We are all forced to make use of a product.

Indeed, at one point, one person referred to the "decisions" of "America's Choice," the for-profit organization who designed our curriculum. I thought, "that's the name of a company. They're not Harvard, for god's sake. What gives them academic credibility? Next you'll be selling me a curriculum by Fisher Price and speaking of them as if they were run by descendants of Moses."

My biggest mistake, however, was offering to create the enabling materials to make this business look less half-baked than it is. I don't want to seem like I am betraying my colleagues in doing this and I won't do it again, I think. The problem is that we are going to have bigger and bigger problems trying to engage students with this material as it only gets more amorphous and unbound to form as it continues. There's no build of skills upon the other -- there's a reference to a collection of habits students are supposed to develop. I've found that good habits need to be taught thoroughly and sometimes in stages. You can't just say you're teaching them even if you model them. Students need to know, "How." I'll give you an example of the kind of absurdist practice my colleagues and I are forced to perform.

One element of this curriculum is the use of "Sticky Notes," to mark important passages in a book. As a fan of the pen, highlighter and bookmark, I've never actually employed a Post-It to this end. When the students were told to do just that next to an image which they could envision, they were baffled.
First, where to put it: above, below, adjacent? Next: Do I really see what the author says or do I just kind of? If the latter, well does it get a note? Third: Should I put the page number on the note in case it falls out? Wouldn't it just be easier to mark it in my notes?

Since most students don't get the same book again to work with, they might never see this Sticky Note again. Even if they do, they were so busy trying to figure out the logistics that they fell behind in the text which was being read aloud by the teacher. So, they became even more frustrated.

I suggested that the students put their notes on a separate sheet of paper with spaces for each note, page number and, is turns out as I draft it, circling whether it's a description of a place, character or feeling. I didn't get into whether the student can fully visualize the image or not. When I read, I don't necessarily see things immediately, but the overall feeling of the language reaches me. Then, in discussion or re-reading, I see it more fully. Let's not forget that a lot of writing lends itself to synasthaesia. Too bad we're not reading Rememberance of Things Past.

So I found myself defining a real skill and method to cover for an unfinished idea. Students should take note of extensive descriptions as usually they are in place for a reason. I'm not sure that they don't do this already, but they don't generally take notes. The problem is, that in order to distinguish between what's worth noting or not, you have to understand its connection to the plot and themes as a whole. Probably, I'll have to put that in the worksheet. Now, I don't want students not to see things outside of the larger themes -- or necessarily think these are the only themes. Ideally, people would underscore what moves them. However, you usually aren't moved by abstraction that is not connected to something you seek. Since the book isn't really the sort that touches upon universal yearnings, it's good to get them to define what ideas it does have....inasmuch as it does.

Now, the final rub is it will take a long time to do this exercise if I create it right --- and we have been criticized for going over the appointed time for the curriculum. This was explained in this meeting as not meant to limit how much time we take, but that we should make sure that "teaching and learning is taking place" if we do go over. There's concrete for you. Not.

Next time, best to bring and eat cookies.

The Jupiter Symphony

An astrologer friend told me that the past few days have been my "Jupiter Time" -- which is supposed to indicate good fortune, at the very least in friendships, I think. I was skeptical and things came late, but for the first time in years, I have finally got a collegial bond with members of the department in which I work. Some of it is shared perspectives on the new curriculum we teach, but a lot of it is very sweet, mutual respect. I'm especially lucky because I wouldn't have earned this by a long shot, but by accident of fate I ended up working with a small group of really good veteran teachers. BCNHS was a collective of such folks, but it's been a while since we were a unified group and, once it was announced that we were closing, people were sent to different schools on very short notice and our department dwindled to just one or two. Of course, my colleagues are experiencing THAT feeling -- the feeling of tremendous loss of a host of old friends. I'm in the unique position in which making a new friend makes some sense, although I still feel like a refugee from BCNHS. I don't feel like I work at Tilden, still, but I do work with these colleagues and I do understand a little more of the politics which they face. You see, we Aspies can be empathetic, we just are so through our brains and then our central nervous systems.

Anyway, it's just faintly glorious to have people whom I respect and am friendly with at work again.