chatter from the Library Monkey

Brrrrr-below-zero-brrrrr

It’s minus four degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know what the win chill is, but let’s just say I didn’t go play hockey. I went and watched the basketball game. It is suppose to get down to around -15.

I heard an old comment from a new teacher — in his first year here, but he has been teaching for a while in other parts. He said he had been told not to worry about the seniors, that they can’t be changed and to build a base with the younger kids.

I never liked that comment and the more I hear it the more it shows me there is a big problem at my school. In many ways I think it is indicative that the senior teachers do now want to jeopardize their relationship with the kids by doing the right thing. There has been about a 14% turn over at my school for the past five or six years.

That means every year there are a couple new teachers. Some of the turn over is due to retirements or people leaving to pursue other careers. In other words not because they don’t like it where they are, but mostly it is people leaving to take teaching jobs at other places. The reason could be more money (I am in one of the lowest paying districts in the state), or to be closer to home or a family member. Unfortunately that also says there is nothing holding people at my school. 80 percent of the staff lives outside the district. Of those, half live two or three districts away.

So that means there is nothing in the district to make people want to move there. It is an isolated in the middle of nowhere place. There are a million reasons not to worry someone place that is isolated, doesn’t pay well, a lot of parents send their kids to school and blame teachers for their bad behavior.… But if you are welcomed and comfortable where you work, you might stay. I’ve gone on how a teacher or two has publically reduced me to factotum.

Education is tough, but any job is tough. Any job where there are them and us, there isn’t going to be the kind of harmony that induces people to stay around. I told the teacher that the first time a new teacher is treated rudely by a student or group of students, there should be a lock down.

Not a prison lock down kind of thing, but the rest of the day (or next day) each teacher talks to those students and lets them know that is not acceptable.

As it is now, there is kind of a space formed around new teachers. A let them fend for themselves. The English teacher is a mentor to a new teacher, I think she gives good advice and helps her men-tee, I wonder if when the kids are rude to the new teacher if she sets them straight. I haven’t been around very long and I know that there is NEVER conversation in the mentor meetings about how the students treat new teachers. If no one says antying to the students, are they to suppose that such behavior is wrong — I say, ‘no.’

Another example of this separation that new people suffer happened tonight. I noticed the new teacher was sitting alone so I went and had a conversation. The guy was there for a game and a half, a game before I went over and none of the other teachers or staff went over and talked to him.

There is no doubt I should be a better librarian. I should have better student control and classroom management. It is also clear I must rely on myself to make it happen. Of course it would be nice if students came to school respecting educators and wanting to learn. Sheep need wings to fly though.

More CVB on Archive.org tonight…I gotta find something to cheer about

The half moon was bright and wonderful tonight.