October 06, 2005

The blasted flushing is back

I knew the lull was too good to be true. Yesterday I woke up to scarlet patches on both cheeks. The trigger is probably the extreme exhaustion I've faced at this end of the school term. I am so tired now that I stumble over words when giving lectures and often forget what I am talking about. When I come home I feed the pets and then collapse for a couple of hours. I've tried the usual creams but so far they have had minimal effect. Tonight I made a new infusion of chamomile and applied that twice. The redness has decreased about 50% from this treatment but I know that the only long term fix is several days of rest and I'm not due for a vacation day for about six more weeks. The stress at school has been tremendous lately with the usual hassles of teaching. Today I gave a midterm exam to one class. Suddenly I heard a dripping noise. One of my students had wet his pants and desk. He said that he didn't want to ask to go to the restroom during the test because he was afraid I would give him a zero on the exam. I told him that I would have happily sent him out if he had told me it was an emergency. I sent him to the restroom to clean up where he promptly threw up. After going to the nurse he returned for his books to check out. When questioned, he said that he had not felt well all day. Surprise! What a day. Sometimes I feel more like a nursemaid than a teacher.

We had a science department meeting this morning in which we discussed the possibility of moving the Biology classes to 10th grade and the physical science classes to 9th grade. I pointed out that with our 9th grade academy being in portables in the rear this would mean that a number of teachers would need to move out to the portables for one year and than back to the main building the following year when they taught 10th grade Biology. I then asked for the rationale behind this switch and was told that the 9th grade students were not mature enough to handle Biology. This gem came from a new teacher who is in one of the portables. My own view is that portables are a lousy environment to have any science class in. I stated this before the portables were put in and assigned to the 9th grade but my opinion was ignored. I'm not sure if this teacher said this because he is trying to get out of the portables or if he actually believes what he is saying. I do know that my 9th grade students have always done well in Biology. Of course I'm not in a portable! Another problem with the portable classrooms is that the administration did not stick to the 24 student limit we suggested during the design of the classrooms. These portables were built for a maximum of 24 students for labs and lectures but some of them are now crammed with 32-34 students. I've taught that number of students in a portable before and I can state with certainty that labs under those conditions are a safety hazzard and a nightmare to conduct. No wonder this teacher is having difficulty in teaching his students. Our department is so fragmented and demoralized this year that we can't present a united front to the administration and demand quality conditions for our science classes. This is exactly what they intended when they split up the department by giving us separate lunches and putting us in several isolated areas of the school. I don't even see most of the other science teachers during the day. We also have a couple of new teachers who seem to enjoying kissing up to the administration and shafting their fellow teachers at every opportunity. This has further fragmented the formerly close relationships we shared here. I have never seen the morale as low as it is now. I'm basically resigned to being screwed over in some way in the future. Probably this will be in the form of a move to the portables or a reassignment to some other position. We have been an "A" school with the Florida FCAT test for 6 years so we are obviously doing too good of a job. Changes have to be made so we will sink to the same level of mediocrity as the other schools. This will give the administration complete control over us. They can then proceed to beat us over the head with our declining student scores when they actually helped to cause this fiasco by supporting these few idiots who want a change but are really clueless why the change is necessary. I am disgusted by the stupidity and lack of foresight in planning that some educators have. Our administration loves to see this type of strife among the science department staff. They are afraid of us when we band together and ask for things the kids need in order to have a quality education. This fragmentation lets them have the control they crave and can't seem to acquire by competent and intelligent leadership. Do I sound just a little bitter? You bet your ass I am! I'm also mad as hell.

Posted by Ken Albin on October 6, 2005 08:40 PM

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