To Hell and Back

So the past three or four weeks I've been teaching without air conditioning. That's right. It's May. No air conditioning. A little background: as some of you may be aware, JPS passed a bond referendum this past schoolyear. The vast majority (maybe all?) of the money my school is receiving is going to renovations, which I think is a pretty good move. One of the first things we're doing is fixing the air conditioning. Our current air conditioner blows. Not literally. Pretty much all the knobs are torn off, so you have to use either pliers or a key to turn the air conditioner on and off. The school cannot control the air either. We have to make a call downtown, get it approved, and they have to change it at central office, which usually takes at least two days. I don't know if they don't pay attention to our requests, or we don't make the requests, but half the time the air conditioner is doing the wrong thing. It was turned onto heat when it was still burning up in October. It was turned onto air in early March. So we're finally going to be getting control over our own air with this new system, but it takes 60 days to redo the old system. So we had a choice: no air in May, or no air in August. We chose May. This means that for about 3 weeks, starting at about 10 am, it was probably at least 85 degrees in my room. And I had to teach. To kids who had already taken SATP tests. And who already fall asleep when we read. It was fun. I mean, the kids already thought school was finished. And, apparently, they were finished with work in their other classes. So if I tried to teach a lesson, I got several variations of the same basic response: "Man, I ain't doin' no work when it hot." Sometimes it came with more vulgarities to preface it ("GawdDAMN, when you gowna leave me 'lone?"). Sometimes it came with just a roll of an eye or a swing of an arm in the general direction of my voice. But invariably, it came. I think I started to push my luck, and would walk around to poke sleeping students in the face with paper or pencils. Much to the amusement of myself, I don't think the joviality was reciprocated.
Nevertheless, at one point during one of the worst hot spells (and expectedly, during my last and hottest class of the day), the administration came over the intercom to make an announcement that went something like this:
"Good afternoon faculty and staff, and please excuse this interruption. There has been a water pipe in the building that has just broken. We are in the process of shutting off all the water in the building. Please do not allow any students to leave your class to use the restroom or go to the waterfountain. Thank you."
This was at about 2:15, which means we still had another hour and twenty minutes left in class. And we had just come back from lunch. And I had four pregnant girls in my classroom. Ah, the joys of teaching.

Prom

After picturing in my mind what this event was going to be like for the past few weeks, getting my tux cleaned, inviting my brother (who was visiting me for the weekend), and talking smack to the kids about my dance moves, the event finally arrived last night. On the invitation, it said prom lasted from 8-11 pm. So my brother, another teacher, and I pulled up decked out in our best formal wear about 8:20. We were the only people there, with the exception of one poor couple, who, like us, apparently didn't realize that you weren't really supposed to show up until an hour after it starts. So we sat there out of place -- as if three white guys at an all black prom weren't already out of place enough -- and waited.... for forty minutes. Kids didn't show up until 9. And the majority of them didn't show up until 9:15-9:30. We had already ordered the De La Hoya - Mayweather, Jr. fight on Pay Per View, so we had to head out at 9:45. I got to watch 15 minutes of dancing. I got to talk to a handful of my students. I was disappointed. I'd been building this event up for so long and it fell so far short of my expectations, mainly because I should've known better than expect them to show up when I expected them to.
On the positive side though, it was a great opportunity to watch the kids in their element. I'm still amazed at how different the kids act towards you when you're not trying to teach them something. Kids that in class hate me came up to me and gave me hugs or handshakes or cracked jokes. I really wanted to get out there with them and make a fool of myself, but I was so conscious of an administrator thinking it was inapporpriate or unprofessional, that I stayed in my seat the entire time I was there. I still in a sense resent some of the higher-ups at my school that assume in order to be an effective teacher, you can't be friendly with a student. That's not my style at all. I think the more a kid sees you as a real person who is understanding and genuinely wants to help, the more likely they are to respect you and act accordingly in your class.
Anyways, we left by 9:45. I'm sure I'll catch hell from the kids on Monday. I guess I'll just know better next year. I'm going to have to attempt to start back teaching this week after basically having two weeks where I never saw the kids, so that's going to be fun. I've got the days marked until I'm done and I'm really looking forward to the summer. I guess it's not completely the end thought. There's still one more major event that can possibly live up to the pre-hype of prom: graduation. I really hope that one doesn't disappoint.

To Teach or Not to Teach?

So I guess I should really be thankful that SATP tests are over. The overall intense atmosphere of the school is starting to subside, but it's quickly being replaced by a carefree attitude. I had done all my planning and preparing, and after SATP week, I only had 2 weeks of teaching left with seniors and then one week of exams. But so much stuff is being crammed in, that I'm wondering if it's even worth teaching anything these last few days. This week, for example, half of the seniors were out of class for Advanced Seminar projects. The other half were out for field trips with random organizations. Those that were there fought me tooth and nail when I tried to make them do work. And those that missed aren't coming back to get their makeup work. Next week, seniors have two breakfasts, a picnic, two practices for Class Day, and the program for class day -- all of which they will miss my class for. This isn't even taking into consideration the AP exams next week. Do I go ahead and teach to the 30-40% of class that's there and hope the rest make it up (but realistically know they're probably going to bomb the test on the new material)? It's starting to extend to the juniors too. Today was the day before prom. Prom takes place tomorrow night at 8 pm. Apparently, it takes two full days to get your hair "did," your nails "did," your dress ready, and all the other things that go into making a perfect night, because I had 9 students out of 29 in my 4A class today (they either didn't come or got a dismissal). I knew anything I covered with those nine would have to be recovered next time I saw the full class, so we sat around and talked about racism for an hour and half today. I have to admit, it was nice. Really nice. We had an intellectual conversation that was organized and the kids actually listened to what I said. But I couldn't help feeling guilty because I wasn't actually teaching the content -- I was giving into the culture of the school that pressures you not to teach and not to give the kids work. I was speaking with a veteran teacher the other day who somehow has maintained her standards, integrity, and sanity throughout the years by unflappably teaching as long as students were in her class. Now granted, she was failing the valadictorian at one time, but I can't help to respect and aspire to her style. It's just that at this point in the year it's so hard not to give into what everyone else is doing (nothing) than do what I know is the right thing.