Fini

Nope, I couldn't do it.  I could not start this year and expect to finish it as a member of the ATR.  The idea of milking the system for a crummy paycheck just did not sit right for me and so on 9/3 I walked in to the TRS at 55 Water Street and handed in my retirement papers.  No big deal really as I am already half way through my sixth decade -I have plenty of time to start another career.  I do, however, feel for some of my colleagues who know nothing but teaching as a career and now unfortunately find themselves excessed and removed from their permanent teaching position through no fault of their own. Distressing and depressing would seem to be apt descriptions of this state of affairs for any teacher in the ATR whirlpool. However, there is a bright side to the exclusive membership and that is that you are not subject to the flawed evaluation system.

I don't regret leaving the profession if we can still call it that.  I will miss the students, some colleagues and the fight that has engaged and enraged me the past year.  As I have said before, if you don't have a stake in the battle, perhaps it's not your battle.  Since I am no longer a teacher, I won't write or make cartoons about teaching in the New York City school system.  I will say that I will continue to pay attention to the road this country is on - this still engages and enrages.

I would like to thank all three people who enjoyed my blog and with that I bid you adieu.

A Year of Living Aimlessly?

Well, despite my best efforts to actually retire this year, I am back in the ATR pool of  "living aimlessly".  I mean, I am of retirement age and my body parts are lining up for surgery but the economics of healthcare have forced my decision to forestall this momentous departure from my daily routine.  So now, in the waning days of August, I am girding myself for a year and two months of life as an ATR.  Having been excessed last year, I started this blog in response to my new designation and even though I was subsequently hired back at my old school, I decided to keep the blog going in order to address the larger issue of the educational/industrial complex.  And now that I am going back to school, albeit without a class, I have decided that to maintain sanity, I would keep this blog going and invite any members of the ATR to share their experiences, strategies or rants on these pages.

And, so how does one prepare for life as a wandering pedagogue?  First we have to look at the only good thing about the ATR status and that is that we are, for now at least, exempt from the new and improved, lemon-fresh evaluation system currently dumped on our "more employed" colleagues. No small matter these days;  the evaluation process called Advance will be creeping into your vocabulary very soon but if you are a member of the ATR you will still be evaluated.  However, it will be the old fashioned way with a U or an S after a perfunctory observation - all of it quite pointless as you can well imagine. Well, that's about it on the positive side unless of course, you feel that not having a class with all the attendant obligations, is a good thing; in which case, it might be proper to ask oneself, "why do you want to be a teacher"?  In the end, it is not all that easy living life in the absurd lane.  I am a teacher therefore I teach but now I am a teacher and I don't teach. It is a betrayal of the purpose of leading a meaningful life. Instead of daily engagement in one's life work, the ATR is left to wander like a ghost, aimlessly; a spectral presence in the machine.

 So how can one remedy the isolation and existential "otherness" that latches onto to you as you walk, coverage slip in hand, down the strange hall to an unfamiliar class to "teach" a subject you have never taught before. I can only recommend "engagement" in the political/social storm that is swirling around you whether you know it or not. You are in the mix and you really need to engage the political forces that determine your future and as a teacher you are, politically, not alone.  Not unless you choose to be.  I have spoken with other teachers in the ATR pool and there is hardly a consensus on how to survive in this Netherland.  Some teachers just let you  know that, "...hell, if they want to pay me to sit and twiddle my thumbs all day then I will twiddle and count the days", while another teacher just might try to actually be a teacher between 8:20 and 3:00.  In the end, it is every man for himself and god against all. However, there is a curve in the road and if you keep you head up you just might steer yourself in the right direction.  Don't make your condition a matter of survival in a hostile world but rather an opportunity for engagement in the political realm. By sharing the experience of being disenfranchised, by screaming that you have no voice in a union created to give you a voice, by exposing the reformers goal of your being expendable in the bigger war on public education, you just might find the intellectual tools you can use to stand up to the assault, to counter the demonization of your profession and to find the support of colleagues who also find themselves in the DOE gulag. I think this point must be made especially since we had such a relatively poor turnout of teachers voting in the past UFT elections.  It seems to indicate that many teachers are not really paying attention to the big picture. I guess they are assuming that their teaching positions are safe and unassailable. But who do you think is in the ATR? The very teachers, veteran teachers, who are failing to vote, failing to have their informed voices heard and to be counted.  Being in the ATR takes an emotional toll on the committed teacher.  Waking up everyday knowing you have no control whatsoever over the unfolding of the day can easily become the source of daily dread which, in the end, can actually kill ya.  So, living aimlessly? I don't know? We all need to make these kinds of decisions but if we can rise up even as we are ignored or discounted, we can at least attest that we were there and fought in this battle.

 It is time to join the  BadAssTeachers  http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/ just for a start and from there you can look up http://morecaucusnyc.org/join-the-movement-of-rank-and-file-educators/ and make up your own mind.

Goodbye, Hello, I Must Be Going

I have not made a written entry on my blog for some time now.  I have been using that XtraNormal program to make my cartoon videos as a vehicle for my opinions and observations.  I think that has worked well for the most part, after all, I am neither a policy wonk nor an investigative reporter.  I have gotten almost all my information about the NYC deform movement in education from the edu-bloggers like Norm, Chaz, and NYC Educator.  They are way smarter and more informed than I and, they have been on the case here for years, while I am a rookie with a one year old blog. I started this blog last year when I was first excessed.  Since then, I was re-hired by my school but now, for the upcoming year, I am again, in the ATR pool.
I can't say that I didn't expect to be released and to be honest I was planning to end my teaching career sooner than later.  I have already taken my final "retirement meeting" and I can see the hazy future.  It's not that drastic a change for me in that I have had a number of "career" changes and I am quite used to remaking myself to suit the circumstances.  The same cannot be said for a number of other people who have chosen teaching as a career.  I have come to the conclusion  that some people are born teachers or at least knew all along that teaching was their calling.  These are people who have been teaching since their college graduation, they have put decades into the classroom and now, many of them find themselves burdened by their experience in that their school can no longer afford them.  Their years of devotion and experience have been trans-valued from a positive to a negative and they find themselves without a school, without a classroom and without students.  They have been excessed, they are in the ATR pool and this is an outrage.  This past year I made an effort to speak to the ATR teachers who found themselves rotating into my school. The conversations were almost universal in content as the ATR's learn that nobody and that certainly includes the teachers union, nobody gives a shit about them.  In fact, you will note that all the teachers with assignments are being directed to attend summer seminars or discussions or whatever so they will be well informed about the new lemon-fresh evaluation system aka ADVANCE (see Game of the Name). Well, I didn't get an invitation to go anywhere and I suspect that other members of  "le club ATR" didn't get an invite either.  So what does that tell me? Not only am I supposed to search for an assignment, I am supposed to do this knowing full well that I will not get a permanent assignment - and their (DOE) knowing this in advance is a good reason not to invite the army of the ATR to these mandatory and, I am sure, illuminating seminars. WHY IS IT A GOOD REASON? BECAUSE THERE IS NO CHANCE IN HELL YOU ARE GOING TO GET HIRED. That said, it is my understanding that the ATR is exempt from the ADVANCE onslaught and instead will be evaluated as in the past with the S/U rating as pointless as it is for the ATR.  I guess there is some comfort in that exemption and, in a way, it will afford an astute observer from the ATR a pretty good overview of how this ADVANCE is being handled in various schools. But, I imagine that can only last so long.  The true purpose of the ATR is to force retirement on experienced teachers.  And this tactic is only a small part of the larger assault on public education.  This is no mystery and anyone who reads the real teacher generated blogs knows full well how this country is being steered to a two tiered education system and how big bucks is drooling over the money making potential of the educational/industrial complex.

I have always felt that the opinions of people who have a stake in the matter are somewhat more relevant than those who just chime in from the outside.  As a teacher I felt I had some stake in the way children are educated and though I do not expect to be in front of a Smartboard in September, I still have an invested interest in education in this country. As Dicken's wrote, " It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...", and any teacher entering the profession will have serious issues to contend with and the repercussions of their decision will determine much of the future for our country.  For me, well, XtraNormal is going off-line at the end of July.  If they come back, then maybe so will I.

The Big Meet

Late Night with Barack 3.5

So, after the commercial break we return to our normally scheduled programs.

Late Night with Barack 3.0

From the on going series...

Getting Schooled

Ok Ok, so let's start from the beginning...
We are in an emergency mode.  Contracts issues are here...bogus evaluations are on the table and why are so many teachers unaware of what is going on?

Part 2 - after the commercial break.

Message to ATR/ACR Members

I suspect I will be excessed next year or my school will close down - either way
I will need a new vocation. I guess it will not be animation. Anyway, this is a message for all members of the ATR. The accounts I have been reading make me quite thankful about getting rehired this year. There is a contract to be negotiated and hopefully the attention of the rank and file can be drawn to the issues that will soon be at our doorsteps.

Evaluate this!

If you are following the ATR blogs and such you know about the recent suggestion that the evaluation of the ATR's be based on the field observer's assessment of how well you manage a classroom.  How, really, HOW can anyone who has any teaching experience think that an appropriate measure of an ATR value as a teacher, their profession,  is to be in the arena of substitute classroom management.  The reasons one can come up with against this ridiculous suggestion are too numerous to mention.  However, it would have taken some creativity and coordination to actually come up with a true overall evaluation system; one that includes how well the entire ATR system has been implemented; what good has it done any school, excessed teacher or over crowded classroom.  Until we do that I don't see why we don't just use the evaluation system I just put together.

How to Evaluate a Member of the ATR

Said member of ATR still desires to work as a teacher in the NYC system despite being disrespected, devalued and demeaned...............................................................................10 Points

Said member of ATR arrives every school day prepared to step into a classroom that they know
nothing about and do the best they can..........................................................10 Points

Said member of the ATR has adapted their gastro-intestinal clock to a daily schedule that may have lunch at 10:30am or 11:15 am or 12:00 pm............................................................... 10 points

Said member of ATR has managed to survive the assault on their career and continue to believe that they have made the right career choice when they decided to teach........ ..............10 points

Said member of the ATR has cultivated a Zen like stillness that comes in handy as one sits on a pointless chair in a pointless room staring, always staring...............................................20 points

Said member of the ATR has developed the dexterity, reflexes and increased peripheral vision to combat the daily assault of UFO's during lunchroom duty...........................................10 points

Said member of the ATR has remained real and vocal despite the growing efforts to make them ghostly apparitions that  have no substance................................................................10 points

Said member of the ATR  has decided not to tutor, teach at a charter, work as a tour guide, nor start a career as a stand-up comedian instead of being a member of the ATR............10 points

Said member of the ATR insists that the UFT stand up for their rights and that representation not be denied the dues paying members...............................................................................10 points

The ATR is a good thing in that we are not in Washington DC.  The ATR is also a public relations nightmare and the sooner the DOE and the UFT come to realize that they can benefit the schools and children of NYC by utilizing the teaching resources we already have and that are being paid for the better off everyone will be. This "evaluation" is a poor effort to justify an unjust system by making believe that it has a solid educational framework as its base when it is nothing but a scythe to cut down tenured teachers. We are, after all, educators are we not?

Miss Crabtree? Really!

Even Miss Crabtree would be vilified, yes, Miss Crabtree!

Last year at this time I was engaged in the usual teacher's routine of early September and my thoughts were pretty much swirling around the perimeter of my classroom.  But today, aside the personal moment of silence for 9/11, I can't get away from the billboard-sized event of the strike in Chicago. Well, the union issues finally made the front pages of the NY Times and another column by Joe Nocera. In this situation we need to be in front of how the teachers are portrayed because there is an army of media people in the deep pockets of the privatization movement who are out to demonize us with broad strokes. Is it that they think teachers are coddled education slackers who get compensated enormous sums from the strangled tax payer for sitting behind a desk... and with the summer off?  Or perhaps they think we have a different agenda, perhaps a grand conspiracy to create a generation of illiterate welfare recipients?  I really don't know what happened to the image of Miss Crabtree?  Maybe they think we just don't care? Or then maybe it is just a union thing, you know, collective bargaining and all that.  We know schools are failing, hell, we are in them, but we as teachers also know the students and why they are failing.  Look in your old yearbook and see if you have any extracurricular activities at your school.  I can name about six kids I knew in my 8th grade class who would not have been in school were it not for JV Football. Look at my school's 2012 yearbook: we have band (during school) and track (no more) and rock band (also, no more with the teacher excessed). That is it and that is pathetic. This is not news for teachers. I think even most teachers would agree with the precept that we have to make the kids care, to care about something that matters: if not about educating themselves for the love of learning, then at least about getting prepared for a career, or at least a job, or maybe about getting a HS diploma, or of getting to school, of getting up out of bed, of getting up at all.
What on earth do these education deformers know about teaching? The very first thing is a near insurmountable task of making many of these children care about anything. But we try and try and though it is sometimes thankless and often without any real results, you do get to see those standardized test scores at the end of the year and reminisce "Yeah, hey what ever happened to what's his number? 789478 ?  Did he ever graduate?"
And what happens when the kid and their parents do care? They are invited to a charter school.  I watched it today in the hallway at school.  A parent was in with his bright and smiling, young daughter and they were coming to tell her teacher that she was leaving.  Teacher, "...oh back to Puerto Rico?" "No, to the charter school," she said.
Hmmm.

Out of the ATR

Last Thursday, as I was writing a post about the recent changes in the discipline code, I received a phone call.  It was the AP from my old school and I was being asked if I was interested in returning.  It appears that the final head count brought forth additional funds for teachers and that I was one moving up in line. I accepted the offer to return from the dead and was assured of my old computer lab as my room.  Thus, no longer am I "Excess'd -- A Teacher Without a Room". And I was just getting comfortable being an ATR. What with a blog that at least a few people seem to read, an animation character; Mr. Letgo who, it seems, has taken on a life of his own now that he has a Facebook page and a new attitude on my own part about my work as a teacher and of the current skirmishes on the educational battlefield. If nothing else, being a member of the Absent Teacher Reserve has evolved to being a member of the Angry Teacher Revolution. There is a fight against the privatization of education and the dismantling of the teachers union and it is being waged on every level and across the country.
You never know what might set you off in a particular direction.  When I was a jock at seventeen and laid up in a hospital bed from a football injury, I read my first book on my own: "Last Exit to Brooklyn"  by Hugh Selby Jr. and it changed my life. For me, being sent to the ATR pool has made me more engaged with the political realities surrounding me and my profession and made me want to add my own take in my own way.  I am clearly, not a policy wonk, but I am in a world where enacted policy has a direct effect and I intend to communicate that reality in my own personal way.  Now that my "situation" has changed my perspective has shifted.  My feet are no longer in the ATR;  I am in my classroom where I have my first obligation. 
We return to school on Tuesday and I know what an empty feeling that gives those who are still in the Reserve.  Their welfare and future must be an issue that stays alive despite the union's efforts to keep them silent and fragmented.  I am going to keep this blog going and advocating for our shared principles and goals under the current moniker.  I just will not be able to give first hand accounts of life of an ATR (and I had just signed a contract with Mr. Letgo for three more episodes) but I will continue to post as a teacher in the NYC system.  As far as Mr. Letgo's Facebook presence and his page for the ATR's - well, I will keep it going as a platform for ATR people but if no one is going for it then I am not going to keep it open, there is enough work to do already.  Well, I think I have a handle on all this...and now, I need to get ready for school.

Observations From Under the Bus

I have to say, in the heat of this summer, it has been pretty cool under the bus.  We do get a little breeze near the rear axle which is a small but gratifying relief during high noon.  I have been thinking and it seems that the thought of being tossed under the bus is more disturbing than actually being under the bus.  I guess you never realize how vulnerable you actually are when you assume that certain elements of your life are in place.  I thought I would be a teacher until I retired because I had a degree of job protection afforded me by my union.  We in the ATR now know that such is not the case.  I guess that is what made the abrupt and unceremonious tossing of tenured teachers so dispiriting.  But there is more; let's give credence to the budget restrictions, just for argument sake, because the budget is the excuse for releasing tenured teachers -- right?  The school could no longer afford that teacher. So, here we are with the creation of a made-up group of senior teachers labeled ATR who have spent the summer basking under the gas tank of a school bus.  Does the union assist those of us who need the union now more than ever?  Is there even an e-mail address to specifically answer our concerns?  Why doesn't the union create a Facebook page for ATR's and send a notification out to all concerned that they have created a line of communication?  One of the difficulties of being in the 800 or so ATR's is the isolation and forced fragmentation of its members. If not for the blogs addressing these issues we would be left entirely in the dark. We have issue with evaluation, with representation and with support.  It's not that I'm expecting the union to gather activist members to load 100 buses to head to Chicago in support our brothers and sisters in CORE.  I mean, that would be too..what, progressive?

How much time is devoted to make the best use of the teachers in the Reserve? Apparently, very little, if the best that they can come up with is to send each of us, willy-nilly, to a different school each week to be given a generally pointless, keep busy assignment by the AP. I wonder how that is done?  Maybe with a dart board, or spinning wheel that matches the Teacher with the School. We know that the UFT and DOE are designing an onerous work environment that pushes its constituents out the door.  This is not news.  What would be news is if the union announced a new initiative for its long time members. So, instead of sending us out to the annoyance of principals citywide, let us gather at various job training sites to learn our new skills.  Just a quick perusal through Craigslist "education jobs" we find the ever present charter schools offerings, ESL teacher requests, tutoring, selling or shilling education software that will reduce the number of teachers in the new classroom. Real opportunity abounds!   Let's see?  A teacher can easily be retrained-- to do what?  I know! A standup comic.  There is a real tradition of teachers becoming stand-up comics -- Robert Klein for one. Hey, we know how to address an unruly crowd, we are already quick on our feet, we have stories that will lay you out laughing and finally, really, this whole thing is a JOKE!

Tenure Schmenure

Tenure.  What a joke...though it does kinda rhyme with manure. I have tenure but no class to go to in September.  I have been observed and given an S rating each and every year yet I, like so many others, do not have a teaching assignment.  Tenure does not guarantee a classroom assignment; hell, tenure doesn't even guarantee your contractual rights.  See the most recent post in the Assailed Teacher blog. This point has been brought home to me during my most recent induction in the  renowned Absent Teacher Reserve.  In truth, I'm still kind of scratching my head and wondering how in the world did this so called "excessing" happen. I always thought of teaching as a worthwhile career and even though I did not enter the profession until much later in life, I considered the safeguards and benefits afforded by the UFT as essential to a profession that did not pay all that well. I believed that once I found my "home", the trajectory would be upward...ever learning, ever improving.  If you did your job well, your position was secure.  After all, we understood that experience is good for a teacher's growth and development and as you increased your value as an educator, there would be all the more reason to keep you at your job.  But apparently this is not the case. Oh sure, textbooks and teacher education classes and academic journals will all extol the irrefutable evidence of the value of experienced teachers in the classroom but when it comes down to making a hiring decision, well, that is another matter .  All of a sudden, the value of experience falls off the table and the only consideration is the mandate to stay within the school budget.  Tenure means you have put in years of hard work and learned from your mistakes  and once you have achieved tenure your teaching has really begun.You can begin to look ahead instead of looking over your shoulder.  In a way, tenure meant that you have arrived as a professional in a demanding yet personally rewarding career. But wait!  Something has happened, a magician came and made tenure disappear.  Well, it's not really fed to us like that, I mean the value that tenure connotes has been stripped of any consequence.  This ATR is the magician's trick whereby rights are made to disappear with smokey mirrors.  We just saw the drastic reduction in the number of teachers given tenure this term which would be an alarming issue if the designation meant anything.  To those who received their tenured status: beware, your position is not secured; in fact, by gaining experience in your field and increasing your value you are seriously jeopardizing your job.  Tenure? Tenure Schmenure.

You've Wasted My Time.

Usually, the last couple of weeks in August are spent casually getting ready for a new year in the classroom.  As a computer teacher my curriculum and projects were pretty much up to me as long as I was in alignment with the goals of the core subjects.  Granted, this afforded me a degree of freedom currently not offered in most other subject areas and as such, I have been "allowed" to follow the progressive development of my skills as a teacher.  I have taken advantage of the professional development (P) courses mandated (but now totally irrelevant) and have implemented what I considered the best practices into my classroom. I know I have grown as an educator and even some of my third-round 7th graders would agree.  I am not blowing my own horn, every teacher worthy of that title, has to grow by being critical of their own skills and practices.  We, as teachers, do learn from our mistakes and by doing so increase the value of our pedagogy.  One would think that such a statement was a reasonable assessment but...not. Classify this under the heading of DEVALUATION OF EXPERIENCE  because the majority of excessed teachers are experienced, and somehow and for some reason beyond our understanding, experience has become a liability in the DOE.
And so, here we are, and I am sure the pool will be filled with hundreds of teachers with five plus years of hard work, loyalty and purpose, wading and waiting for the pointless ending of their career.  It is not going to be easy to switch from your classroom (I was going to say assignment but that's their speak), ...the one you have been preparing for as long as you've been teaching, to a series of unconnected classrooms none of them at all familiar. Forget what you have learned and the hands-on projects you've developed for students that show how simple machines work as you'll very likely not even step into a science lab nor would you even know what is being taught in that class. It is a sad time for teachers in the ATR.  However, we need to keep in mind that this is indeed a fight and though the current is dragging us out to sea, we need to stand tall and tough it out even though the sand is shifting beneath our feet..  Perhaps we will also need to change ATR to Angry Teachers Revolt.
Well, anyway it seems that being a teacher in NYC is kind of like being in the Twilight Zone...the more you  learn and work and are bold enough to think you are increasing your value as a teacher, the less you are  valued in your endeavor because you have become more expensive and now, despite all good efforts and sacrifice, you find yourself, quite frankly, expendable. 

Alternative Teacher Redeployment

So, I imagined something different.  Instead of having me covering the lunchroom or the "excessed" student room, the Alternative Teacher Redeployment program has managed to have me in rotation at four schools in my district, each without a computer teacher.  I met with the principals, looked over the school and its computer lab and have discussed the overall needs of the school with all involved.  A planned schedule was drawn up and everyone agreed to the particulars.  In the end, each of the four schools now had a computer teacher (albeit one week a month) and I knew where I was going and what I would be doing each week. Best of all...there was purpose.

But this won't be happening even though it probably could.  All it requires is a clearheaded yet creative effort to solve a problem. I would think that a scenario like the one described can be applied to a number of different teachers at a number of different schools.  If, in fact, the teachers can not be paid from the particular school's budget, there is no inherent reason why that teacher's services must be eliminated from the particular school.  Pay that teacher's salary from Central which is being done anyway; the check stubs look the same ya know, and let the school and students benefit, at least somewhat, from the purposeful ATR assignments.  It makes a whole lot of difference for the teachers in the trenches to know where they are going and what they will be doing each week   

A Situation Simply Stated

On one side of this situation is the pool of teachers in the ATR.  We are experienced teachers who cover the range of core subject areas, as well as the enrichment classes like art, music and technology. We come from all parts of the city and have a variety of skills and strengths. Our salaries are funded.  We are a valued resource for the public school system and we are ready to go.

On the other side we have a struggling school with limited resources for a variety of reasons.  Because of a reduced budget there are fewer teachers; consequently, each class in each grade is at maximum size. The students can't get the attention or special help they need because their teacher is too busy with too many students.  There is one music and one art teacher for 500 students.  The more the school struggles the more it continues to slide. The deeper it sinks, the more the budget shrinks each year.

So what happens?  The school is assigned a different teacher from the ATR each week to cover a class, or lunchroom or to monitor the hallway.

The value : Nil

The lost opportunity: Priceless.

A View From Under the Bus

Well, first of all, it is very dark under the bus, hardly any light on the matter at all.  I guess, after a while, your eyes get used to the darkness.  I can barely make out shapes but I see the Universal Shaft clearly and I know from personal experience and from what I have heard, most ATR's can feel the shaft before they actually see it.  The tire tracks impressed on the back of my white shirt can, in my opinion, become a fashion statement if given to the right marketing professional.  They do standout, especially if I wear my old school colors of black and white.  But wait,  I can't even say that now since I am no longer affiliated with that school and in fact, the school has stopped enforcing school colors years ago.

 
I also know there are others under this bus.  I can hear them, faintly calling out in the dark stillness of the DOE Purgatory Parking Lot.  It's funny how the words called out have evolved.  In June, one could hear "..what happened?, what did I do? or I had an S rating so why am I here?"   Now, I hear a lot of angry grumbling and curses.  We have become almost almost unintelligible in our exasperation, resentment and feeling of disrespect. I can hear, "This is bull and if the DOE and UFT  want it this way then so be it.  You want to devalue my experience, skill and work as an educator and have me monitor lunch rooms for the SAME PRICE as having me teach the class I have done successfully for many years? Fine, but what what kind of attitude do you think that treatment will engender anyway?"  Instead of planning lessons, marking student work, meeting with parents etc., the ATR agenda is reduced to getting a parking spot and finding a nearby Dunkin' Donuts.

But I Want To Be a Teacher !

It has only been this past week or so that I have been looking at ATR blogs and have read the various comments submitted by other excessed teachers, and I must admit, the picture looks awful.  Time after time, excessed teachers write that they (myself included) have been religiously checking the open market for available positions, sending out emails, letters, and phone calls.  Each and every time the response has been negative:  usually, not even a call back or an email acknowledgment of communication.  It is no wonder that the word "disheartening" is heard over and over again. However, a typical comment in response to this situation is: "...but what, after all, are you upset about -- you have a job, right". Yes, we continue to have a paycheck,  but that is really not a job and certainly not part of what I would consider a career.  Teaching is not a vocation you happen to fall into; it is usually a calling that fulfills a true desire to inculcate a love of learning.  To think that the person who spent years of study and training in order to be a quality instructor would be just as happy and fulfilled pulling a check by simply sitting in a classroom without purpose calls for a depth of cynicism that I am not willing to entertain.  Now, that is not to say that some teachers in the ATR pool do not take up that mantle.  I have read comments that reflect the attitude of "...hey, they put me here, without purpose, if they want to give me a paycheck to have me sit and do squat, then so be it...I can outlast them".  Everyone knows that it is really, really difficult to do nothing.  I would certainly rather deal with a double period of my worst class from last year than be in a situation where I sit and watch the clock tick away in a room full of empty desks, as I wait for my only assignment of the day -- lunchroom duty.  Really, how much more satisfying it is when you even try to engage your students in a worthwhile project or assignment.  At least it is a challenge and certainly a more worthy challenge than trying to beat the clock.
So, this leads to to what I need to do for the remainder of the summer.  Instead of searching for more websites like "surgery squad" ( virtual surgery - attn: science teachers), I can spend the time fruitlessly milling about the "open hiring system", perusing Craigslist for entries under Education Jobs, Part-Time or Etc., or just fretting and anxiously waiting for my ATR assignment.  Disheartening?  Yeah, I would agree.

Humor anyone?

Anyway, even with the misery and dread attendant to being ATR, there is some consolation in that I suspect that the ATR need not worry about the above type of experience. But hey, I might be wrong. I suspect that we will need to be rated by the end of the year. I wonder how that is determined.  The more I think about this situation, the bleaker and really more absurd it becomes.  What advantage is there, or rather what is being served by having the ATR move from school to school? It is wrong headed in so many ways. The teacher never gets to establish a relationship with fellow teachers, students, or administration, yet these are basic field rules that need to be there before one can expect any fruitful results from having a teacher stand in another teacher's classroom. I know that all the schools are "teaching the same thing at the same time" Gee, doesn't that make it easy?  Anyway, what I need to know is if there is a generic bathroom key that fits all the teacher bathroom locks. This is what I need to worry about instead of checking my student's Glogs on the Harlem Renaissance.  That is when I had a class and a classroom, instead of a coverage slip.

I would like to know from other experienced ATR people if you are also sent to do a Poncho to Cisco in other teachers’ classrooms.  In other words, if you are not covering an absence, are you sent to work with another teacher as a sidekick, or are you sent to "the pool you came from" -- the cafeteria/facility lounge?

You: You want the truth!

Me: I deserve the truth!

You: You can't handle the truth!

Me: Try me!

You: You will be sent to be an unwelcome stranger intruding upon the Other who will regard you with suspicion and the "there but for the grace of Athena go I", type of pity. .  You will need to do this on a near daily basis if you are not sent to oversee the class that thinks sub means sandwich - something to eat... You will be required to search for the only secretary that has the one bathroom key - and yes, she is very busy, you may be eating lunch at 10:30am or 2:15 - you never know. You will have to track down the payroll secretary to make sure you have a card this week, you will need to have identification - perhaps a badge will do since you are indeed a stranger. Shall I go on...there will be no where to park and no where to eat ..

Me: Aha, so much the wiser.

I will say that just by starting this blog I have begun to educate myself about the  "excessed" and ATR,  and the more I read, the more I can appreciate a colleague like Patricia Tambakis.  You can check this out!

When she lists the teaching positions that are missing from this school, think about all the teachers in the "pool" who are left wandering the boroughs, looking for the school that they are assigned to that week.

It seems that there are some very basic blunders here. If you are paying us salaries to "sub", why can't we just simply be hired where there is an obvious need. I just don't see why 2+2 does not=4?  Overcrowded classrooms with empty rooms next door, qualified teachers sent to sit in the empty rooms:  how does all this make sense other than the thought that some other master is being served.



For the past six years I have been the computer teacher at my middle school; two other teachers ( math and history) were also running a computer lab. Now that I have been excessed, I can only assume that my 7th grade students will not have a lab.  In fact, during the last week of school, one of my colleagues (6th grade ELA) was moving his stuff into my lab.  Now, my lab was just created this past year.  I had 34 new computers with cameras loaded, a Smart Board, and plenty of room, (It took from September to December to get the equipment installed; before that we had "air" computers).  Now that computer lab will not be used, which is a complete waste of money unless, of course, Green Dot extends its hold on the building and that computer lab is given up to them as well.  In any case, it is my view that teaching essential computer skills is being sacrificed. For what-- because the school cannot afford a computer teacher (me)? The system can afford to keep paying me for not teaching computers, and would  rather I sit in the cafeteria, coverage slip in hand, waiting for 6th period so I can stand in a room of unfamiliar students with really no purpose other than to maintain order.