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Wednesday, October 23, 2013
What's on your mind?
9 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Why is it exciting news that we are getting voc techs leftover computers? Why is $$$$$$ &&&& on the 13 member committee regarding changes at NBHS and not more teachers? Why is the administrative structure at NBHS suddenly not working? That sounds like a excuse for the lack of leaders in that building. Why wouldn't a principal have been hired a year ago to shadow Faucher at Pacheco? That's a lot cheaper than having the school fall from its lofty perch. Last but not least why is there less and less common sense among the people we count on for leadership and decision making?
Today I was given the finger and told to F*** off when I asked a student to remove his hood. I also covered a homeroom because the teacher had an emergency and no one was available to help out (which I didn't mind because I was there and available). So, do I get reprimanded for not covering my duty or thanked for covering at the last minute?
My wife and I are both teachers in different districts and teach very different content areas. I am a member of our NBHS English Immersion Department and have turned in my resignation. My relationship with Dr. Carrigo has been used against me and I have been referred to by administration as a psychopath. With my housemaster present, I was told I could no longer have a rocking chair in my classroom and was interrogated as to why I would have it in the first place. It was also implied that it sends the wrong message to students. Rigorous teachers do not belong sitting down. They should be standing in front of the class modeling rigorous lessons. Idleness is forbidden, they say. This angered me, and my decision was made. Who gives these people the right to judge me and my teaching style? Why were my students questioned as to the type of instructional and professional atmosphere I provide? This is an unhealthy work environment, and Dr. Durkin and her team are succeeding in pushing teachers out the door. I'm done!
Two High Schools: One “Just”; The Other…Not so Much Teachers at NBHS have expressed a great deal of anxiety over the empty bucket of discipline policies, lack of technology, media staff, cafeteria supervision, community support, hostile administrators and the J. Edgar Hoover-like effort to compile dirty little dossiers on teachers. I hear my colleagues ask, are the policy makers trying to fire the teachers? Close the high school and create a charter high to attract state and federal funds? Maybe. I think a better question is: Why are the policy makers consciously indifferent to hosting two independent, tax-funded high schools ostensibly operating under the same city, county, state and federal laws? Why is one high school worthy of tax dollars to hire adequate staff, finance technology, showcased by local media for high MCAS scores and professional teachers while the “step” teachers are treated like second class citizens? Why is it legal for “one” high school to follow “one” step ID, attendance and discipline policies, while the “other” must follow the spiritual steps to the holy grail before a student can be suspended? Why are students in “one” high school expected to excel academically, socially and ethically, while it is common practice to verbally and physically abuse teachers in “the other?” Wasn’t the practice of “separate but equal” educational facilities struck down in 1954 by the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education? How can “one” high school be flattered by policy makers while “the other” is battered for tests scores of our “diverse” population? How can “one” tax-funded high school boast expansion while the other lacks liquid soap in the teacher’s room? How can “one” high school replace chalkboards with SMART boards, while the “other” launches “clipboard” committees on a daily crusade into classrooms where teachers must buy the chalk? Why is “one” group of teachers respected and supported by policy makers, while the “others” are pursued with the single-mindedness of Jean Valjean persecuting Javert? Why are there two separate policies governing two “separate but equal” high schools? To quote Martin Luther King: “…there are two kinds of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws…an unjust law is no law at all. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful.” (Letter from a Birmingham Jail) In New Bedford, the problem is NOT the teachers. The problem is NOT the test scores. The problem is the “unjust” distribution of resources and the willingness to accept an inequitable and skewed “separate but equal” policy. Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. P. 493.(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal. Pp. 493-494.(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education. P. 495.(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees. Pp. 495-496.(Brown V Board of Education, US Supreme Court, 1954)
^We MUST overcome....not someday, but NOW! Pia Durkin was the absolute WORST choice for New Bedford. Mayor Mitchell will be remembered as one of the WORST mayors in this city's history. A few pocket parks and the completion of other people's projects will not save his legacy. The city is not safer, the people are not smarter or wealthier, and the schools and the children in them will suffer for years all thanks to this man.
Its embarrassing to even tell anyone I'm a teacher in New Bedford. People are looking at this school department like its the most ridiculous side show they've ever seen: from the school department to the mayor to the total joke of a superintendent.
We need to organize, show up and demonstrate to these jokers that we're not going to take the abuse anymore!! Bullies are weak insecure people who need to be in control and when they aren't your left with a Pia Durkin.
I'm thinking its Sunday afternoon and I really really don't want to go to school tomorrow to subject myself to more abuse. It's sad to feel that way; especially since its only the end of October.
9 comments:
Why is it exciting news that we are getting voc techs leftover computers? Why is $$$$$$ &&&& on the 13 member committee regarding changes at NBHS and not more teachers? Why is the administrative structure at NBHS suddenly not working? That sounds like a excuse for the lack of leaders in that building. Why wouldn't a principal have been hired a year ago to shadow Faucher at Pacheco? That's a lot cheaper than having the school fall from its lofty perch. Last but not least why is there less and less common sense among the people we count on for leadership and decision making?
Today I was given the finger and told to F*** off when I asked a student to remove his hood. I also covered a homeroom because the teacher had an emergency and no one was available to help out (which I didn't mind because I was there and available). So, do I get reprimanded for not covering my duty or thanked for covering at the last minute?
My wife and I are both teachers in different districts and teach very different content areas. I am a member of our NBHS English Immersion Department and have turned in my resignation. My relationship with Dr. Carrigo has been used against me and I have been referred to by administration as a psychopath. With my housemaster present, I was told I could no longer have a rocking chair in my classroom and was interrogated as to why I would have it in the first place. It was also implied that it sends the wrong message to students. Rigorous teachers do not belong sitting down. They should be standing in front of the class modeling rigorous lessons. Idleness is forbidden, they say. This angered me, and my decision was made. Who gives these people the right to judge me and my teaching style? Why were my students questioned as to the type of instructional and professional atmosphere I provide?
This is an unhealthy work environment, and Dr. Durkin and her team are succeeding in pushing teachers out the door. I'm done!
If the class had a chair under the headmaster, then why didn't the headmaster defend the teacher?
Two High Schools: One “Just”; The Other…Not so Much
Teachers at NBHS have expressed a great deal of anxiety over the empty bucket of discipline policies, lack of technology, media staff, cafeteria supervision, community support, hostile administrators and the J. Edgar Hoover-like effort to compile dirty little dossiers on teachers. I hear my colleagues ask, are the policy makers trying to fire the teachers? Close the high school and create a charter high to attract state and federal funds? Maybe. I think a better question is: Why are the policy makers consciously indifferent to hosting two independent, tax-funded high schools ostensibly operating under the same city, county, state and federal laws? Why is one high school worthy of tax dollars to hire adequate staff, finance technology, showcased by local media for high MCAS scores and professional teachers while the “step” teachers are treated like second class citizens? Why is it legal for “one” high school to follow “one” step ID, attendance and discipline policies, while the “other” must follow the spiritual steps to the holy grail before a student can be suspended? Why are students in “one” high school expected to excel academically, socially and ethically, while it is common practice to verbally and physically abuse teachers in “the other?” Wasn’t the practice of “separate but equal” educational facilities struck down in 1954 by the Supreme Court in Brown v Board of Education?
How can “one” high school be flattered by policy makers while “the other” is battered for tests scores of our “diverse” population? How can “one” tax-funded high school boast expansion while the other lacks liquid soap in the teacher’s room? How can “one” high school replace chalkboards with SMART boards, while the “other” launches “clipboard” committees on a daily crusade into classrooms where teachers must buy the chalk? Why is “one” group of teachers respected and supported by policy makers, while the “others” are pursued with the single-mindedness of Jean Valjean persecuting Javert? Why are there two separate policies governing two “separate but equal” high schools? To quote Martin Luther King: “…there are two kinds of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws…an unjust law is no law at all. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful.” (Letter from a Birmingham Jail) In New Bedford, the problem is NOT the teachers. The problem is NOT the test scores. The problem is the “unjust” distribution of resources and the willingness to accept an inequitable and skewed “separate but equal” policy.
Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. P. 493.(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors may be equal. Pp. 493-494.(e) The "separate but equal" doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education. P. 495.(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees. Pp. 495-496.(Brown V Board of Education, US Supreme Court, 1954)
^We MUST overcome....not someday, but NOW! Pia Durkin was the absolute WORST choice for New Bedford. Mayor Mitchell will be remembered as one of the WORST mayors in this city's history. A few pocket parks and the completion of other people's projects will not save his legacy. The city is not safer, the people are not smarter or wealthier, and the schools and the children in them will suffer for years all thanks to this man.
Its embarrassing to even tell anyone I'm a teacher in New Bedford. People are looking at this school department like its the most ridiculous side show they've ever seen: from the school department to the mayor to the total joke of a superintendent.
We need to organize, show up and demonstrate to these jokers that we're not going to take the abuse anymore!! Bullies are weak insecure people who need to be in control and when they aren't your left with a Pia Durkin.
I'm thinking its Sunday afternoon and I really really don't want to go to school tomorrow to subject myself to more abuse. It's sad to feel that way; especially since its only the end of October.
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