Game Season

I need a new teaching job. You'd think living in an urban setting, surrounded by hundreds of high schools, that wouldn't be such a challenge. You'd think having a master's degree, professional experience, a teaching certificate and a second teaching certificate on its way would at least get me into the door of a decent school, and that they'd be begging for me at the "underprivileged" schools. Well...maybe if I taught math.

But, I teach English, and the number of over-educated English teachers swarming around this city is massive. Everybody and their dogs want to teach English. The competition is cutthroat for the chance to be underpaid and overworked in an oppressive school system. It makes no sense why we put ourselves through this. For the prestige? Ha!

It's hiring time for schools. It starts around March and can go until the minute before school begins in late August. It's obviously preferable to secure a position early, which is why teachers drag themselves out in droves to attend the public school job fairs, commonly known among educators as "cattle drives." The fairs attract hundreds (thousands?), necessitating the use of large sports stadiums and enormous conference centers. Teachers line up neatly outside before the fairs start, each clutching an innocent stack of resumes and often a hard-earned portfolio. The line stretches, oh, a quarter of a mile or so outside the facility.

Once inside, teachers quickly form new lines at each of the tables, shorter lines, 10 or 12 deep at the less popular schools, 20 or so at top-notch ones. The teachers are all ages and all races, newly certified and highly experienced. Newbies bubble with excitement and motivation. Old-timers joke cynically about the whole surreal process. When teachers finally gets a chance to talk to a school rep, they step up to the plate (appropriate analogy considering the location), sell themselves in two minutes or less, drop off their resumes, and then move on to the next 30-minute line. If they get tired, no problem. The stadium location allows for lots of seating. Or teachers can take advantage of the convenient resume drop boxes located at each school's station. You know, just in case none of the people who waited in line are viable candidates and someone actually takes a minute to sort through a hundred resumes.

We're real troopers in this field.

Oh Yeah - This is Why I'm Here

Years ago, while sitting in a cubicle staring at a spreadsheet, I would daydream about working in a creative environment. I'd envision opening great books and digging up their seeds, getting my hands dirty as I stimulated my mind, and other minds while I was at it. I'd hear voices in my head asking me questions such as, "how would you teach high school students to write three-dimensional characters?" And I would answer (in my head), conjuring up a thousand possible lesson plans on how I could teach any single aspect of literature and writing.

So recently, I was considering ideas for my new creative writing class. The topic of the month is "combining writing with other forms of art," starting with visual. The chances of getting my class to an art museum are slim, and I don't know that I want to fight bureaucracy to get it done, but they need to work with art. Of course, if the classroom could serve as its own museum or gallery, that would be great.

Oh wait...I can actually do that! It amazes me that I can actually come up with an idea like that, and then just do it - for my job!

Last Thursday, I hung up pictures and posters of famous and not-so-famous works of art. The students brought in some of their own, including photos. We taped them all around the classroom, and then we entered our very own gallery, notebooks in hand, and started writing.

This is why I wanted to teach. It's so easy to forget, with all the staff development, progress reports, lesson plans to department head two weeks ahead of time, participation points, attendance, signing out to go to the bathroom, picking up food wrappers from the floor, gossipy teachers' lounge, blah blah blah. All that stuff I don't caaaaaare about.

But then I have these moments. I had one a few months ago when we were reading 12 Angry Men, and I realized that my students needed to emulate a jury trial. Thus was born "The Murder Trial of Cornelius Augustus," my totally made-up story of a jealous trust-funder who may or may not have lost his mind when his oldest enemy was accepted into Harvard Law (the jury was hung on that one).

I had one of these moments last year when my students couldn't come to a conclusive decision about whether the Greeks and Trojans had a right to blame Helen of Troy for starting the Trojan War. So....they had a debate! Okay, it turned into a bit of a screaming match, but it started out well, and as a student teacher at the time, I rarely experienced my students excited about a piece of literature.

I'm constantly hearing teachers discuss the love/hate relationships they have with their chosen profession. Your student throws a chair -hate it. Your student grasps a poem - love it. I love the creativity. I love watching them grow. I love discussion and excitement. I love it when they want to share their insights. I want those loves to overpower all the hates so that I can do this indefinitely.