I can't get no relief

Right now it is the middle of the night, and I don't know whether the stars are aligned badly or there is some sort of natural disaster coming this way, but the animals won't let me sleep. Purl, the big dog, who usually sleeps soundly has pestered me twice (2am and 2:30am) with paws and a wet nose and tongue - which usually means she has a bathroom emergency. But both times she basically stood in the yard, but ran back when I called after 5-10 minutes. Now our stable personality cat, and oldest, has come into the living room during the second emergency, followed by loud yowling and scratching outside the bedroom door. Again, unusual behavior for her. She is in my lap now.

I don't expect to get back to sleep for several reasons, one that descends from the others in a way. First, and probably least, I don't enjoy this time of year. While others prance around full of the holiday spirit, I am consumed with dread and premonitions of disappointment. Some of this might have to do with growing up "lower middle class" - which is a nice euphemism for "not exactly poor, but close enough." With emphasis on material goods, which has only gotten worse in the decades since, I felt like the season was all about how much you could spend and what you got. The other night I had to endure a tirade on this subject from my eldest. She hated getting "cheap" presents like $10 gift cards from relatives, and everybody got better things than she did. She wants this or that (very much out of the budget) but would settle for that, except she doesn't really want that - she just wants to complain. Her attitude improved a bit the following day, but it just highlighted my general disgust with the "Christmas" spirit.

A bigger, but related issue, is my job. This one is a little complicated, so stick with me. Recently, Memphis City Schools was awarded a mulit-year grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. $90million over six years, if memory serves. The district proposed revamping the entire structure of teacher compensation, creating three levels of teachers - apprentice, professional and master. Pay would be different at each level, with incentives to reward and retain beginning teachers, most of whom leave teaching within the first three years, and substantial compensation for "master" teachers, who would be involved in evaluating and mentoring teachers at lower levels. Put this way, it sounds great, doesn't it?

The subtext is a little bit more ominous. The state legislature has to approve a waiver for Memphis to treat its teachers differently than the rest of the state. The union has to sign off on this, since the current system bases compensation on how long you can stay in the system, regardless of your knowledge, skill or anything. Many teachers with seniority cannot use a computer competently enough to enter attendance, let alone the various other daily duties required in this day and age. So the proposal includes having teachers evaluate each other - the "best" doing the evaluating. But how do we define best? Test scores. A flawed measure to be sure, and also one that again doesn't recognize teachers who teach, only teachers who teach to the test. When your administration begins pressuring you in January to start prepping students for a test in April; when the district commissions periodic assessments to measure how students will perform on this test, beginning the second month of school, and requires teachers to focus instruction on the areas in which students scored poorly; when the district contracts with a computer based math tutoring program and assigns students to use it (a mandatory 90 minutes per week - in context, this is two full daily instructional periods) based on these predicative test scores - again choosing test preparation over teachers teaching - well, it doesn't show a lot of emphasis on classroom instruction and practice. For example, last year, 98% of my students passed their TCAP (Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program), and yet my TVASS (a measure of how much my instruction changed student performance) was a negative, and lower than the state, overall. In the past, this TVASS data was informational. Now it will be part of judging and grading teachers.

Now here comes the best part. Not only will teachers in the system evaluate teachers, but there will be a component from the "stakeholders." Who are these people? Parents and students will be surveyed about teacher performance. What an interesting idea - let's hold teachers and their salaries hostage to a popularity measure, regardless of qualifications. We already have serious problems with parent and student ethics (lying about addresses so get into a school they want, parents telling students to do the opposite of school rules - e.g. If somebody messes with you, defend yourself physically, as opposed to the non-violent solutions teachers are charged to promote), so let them be the judges and jury of performance, when their main concern is not whether the teacher teaches, but whether the teacher treats their child the way they want.

Which brings us to the this week's trigger. My administration requires teachers to support school rules. Most are simple, and routinely ignored by students and frequently neglected to be enforced by teachers. Other teachers, like me, do their best to do as they are asked, which means constantly, hour after hour, day after day, reminding students about walking on the right side of the hall, not talking in line, staying in line, not wearing jackets that are not approved colors, to remove jewelry that is not allowed (boys can wear a watch, girls can wear a watch and earrings that are gold or silver, with hoops that do not exceed the size of a half dollar). Sounds simple, but half a year later we are still repeating this dozens of times, writing students up for violations that won't amount to any sort of disciplinary action or consequences.

On Thursday, I asked a girl in one of my classes to remove her earrings, as the hoops were visibly too large. I could see from across the room, it wasn't the first time I had told her about these earrings, and early in the year I had often used a coin to check diameters. On this very special day this young lady informed me that if I had any issues with her uniform, I had to call her mother, and that the size of her earrings didn't have anything to do with her classroom performance. If it sounds scripted to you, it does to me as well. These were not the words of a pre-teen, but an adult coaching a child, possibly even encouraging this child to break the rules to provoke an incident. On the phone, mother informs me of the same thing, then implies I am a racist because I only pick on her child, and I don't say anything to the white and hispanic kids in the class who wear big earrings. This opinion is naturally based on what her daughter has told her - and comes out of the blue instead of being conducted in a parent/teacher conference where it can be addressed properly. Mom states repeatedly that I am a racist and she won't have her daughter in my class.

Fun times ensue. I put another teacher in charge of my class and head to the office, to inform my principal of the coming storm, but she is in a meeting. 20 minutes later, the office rings me to say this girl's dad is in the office and wants to meet with me. Again, I ask for an administrator to be present, but they are both in a meeting. The receptionist assures me that she will keep the dad in the office, and witness things for my protection. Dad is not in the office, though. Dad is waiting outside the office in the lobby (and naturally hasn't checked in with the school - not wearing a Visitor's badge) while his daughter strolls around the lobby on her cell phone (something the district does not allow in schools - noticing a trend here at all?). Dad proceeds to tell me how the earring issue is petty, that it doesn't affect his honor roll student's performance, and that I am picking on her. Calmly I show him the coin I use to remain fair, and tell him the rules are established by the administration, and I just enforce them, along with many others, regardless of gender, color, etc. He doesn't want to hear this, nor does he want to hear a simple solution - if you feel your daughter is being picked on because her earrings violate school policy, maybe she shouldn't wear them. He goes on to inform me he works two jobs "which you don't" and how his son, who also attended Ridgeway Middle, is bigger than I am (this father stands about 6' 6"), and best of all, how my racism has been going on since the first day of school and he has organized many other parents who feel the same way to go to the Board (of Education) about me. And the icing on the cake is the thinly veiled threat of violence, as if the threat of taking my job wasn't sufficient. I lived in New York City for 20 years, and I can recognize a threat, and this one wasn't terribly subtle.

Finally, I extricate myself from this, letting the dad know I don't care for threats. His parting words are "Your word against mine." And to emphasize this, he asks for confirmation from a nearby teacher he knows. As I am walking away, suddenly the Assistant Principal is there - what timing. Dad rants at him a bit and leaves. I ask the Asst. about his threats to take things to the Board, etc. and am told it won't get that far, and I reply "I hope so."

Cut to the end of my planning period. I had just spoken to the records secretary to ask if this girl had been transferred from my class yet. Nothing so far. Ten minutes later, though, she confirms it, and tells me the office is looking for me. I get to sit with the Principal and Assistant Principal behind closed doors and defend my statement of "I hope so" - which has been seen as a lack of faith in the administration. There is no show of support for me at all. Nobody says "We know you aren't racist" or "Don't let this worry you, that parent was out of line, but in order to keep them placated we will be moving this girl to another class." Just "what did you mean by that comment" and at the end a suggestion/command to "watch how you do things."

The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth, made worse by the fact this is at least the second time this has happened to me - a month or so ago a different parent (who volunteered in the office to be nearby when her unruly and disrespectful child would get into trouble) accused me and another teacher of singling him out. It is true, he was singled out, in the same way police single out frequent lawbreakers - he kept doing the same things over and over again despite being gently reminded and reprimanded. The common factors here are parents who allow their children to disobey school rules (that we are bound to enforce) rather than support us, then claim the problem is with the teacher. In that incident, the student was removed from both of our classes, but still sneers at us when we ask him to follow school rules.

Faced with lack of support from my immediate supervisors, soon to be at the financial mercy of parents and students like these (the crazy ones are usually the ones who attract others who can be swayed into a mob to make demands), I am feeling quite a bit stressed. Which brings us to the final item of my new and less than improved mood.

Last June (yes, about 18 months ago) I had a crick in my neck that just wouldn't go away. My neck hurt, mainly on the right side, and sometimes I had some arm pain. In the past few months this has come back, in spades. My shoulder and neck are constantly aching, sometimes much more painful, and I have numbness from my thumb to the inside of my elbow. A year ago I went through all the tests and such, and the specialist told me I had a disk pressing on a nerve. The solution, according to him, was surgery. Six weeks recovery. I told him no thanks and he told me to come back when it started to affect my quality of life. I don't relish the thought of six weeks recovery, nor six weeks out of work (I have sick days that could/would cover it, but at the same time it is hard to come back after that long).

Now, though, as stress has increased, causing muscular tension, that shoulder and arm sing Ave Maria pretty much all the time. Sleeping is tough, since there isn't really a position that eases the pain - only positions that make it worse. I am seriously thinking about going back to get a second opinion - there is a great surgeon who did my mother-in-law's back reconstruction, and who sees my youngest for her potential scoliosis. But, there is a catch. Isn't there always? Earlier this year, to save money, the district decided, with no input from anybody, to change our insurance plan - from a choice between Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Aetna, to only Cigna. Effective in January. People were up in arms, as the biggest hospital group in the area is not covered by Cigna. Chaos in possibly changing doctors or paying through the nose to go out of plan. But the district saved $8million (earlier a spokesman was questioned about ongoing contracts for pagers (!) and cell phones that continue to be rolled over to the tune of $600,000 per year - he referred to that amount as "chump change"). Bottom line for me - no sense in starting a process now when insurance carries will change in the middle of the process. I get to endure this for at least another month, then get to discover whether this doctor is advocating surgery, or if the first guy is just knife-happy. Fun times for me, and no end in sight of the stress.

So, if anybody hears of a teaching job (in Memphis, as I don't see a move in our future) that doesn't suck (as if), pays decently (which eliminates most private schools, where good teaching is more likely to be recognized and appreciated) - let me know.

Now, at 4am, I guess I wll try to snag an hour or two of sleep before I go back to school to teach a monthly advanced math class. At least these kids are excited by the prospect of intellectual discovery.