Baltimore City Contract Negotiations and the Arts

If you are a Baltimore City teacher, or your child attends Baltimore City schools, you have been following the ongoing conflict between the teachers' union and the district's Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Andres Alonso. Despite a recent visit by Dr. Alonso to our school, and a short spurt of related messages over our PTA listserve, I'm still getting most of my information from local news sources. Recently, the Baltimore Sun posted this article with a good synopsis of events, so far: Schools, city union struggle for planning. Though it is a bit biased against the teacher's union, it does offer enough information to stimulate further curiosity.

In essence, our contracts have not yet been negotiated. The issue that keeps finding its way into the press is planning time. Alonso would like to give principals the ability to mandate shared planning time for teaching teams, once a week for 45 minutes. The union's arguments primarily target elementary school teachers, who are currently guaranteed only 3 planning periods per week. According to the article, the city's contract also allows for longer lunch periods and shorter days compared to other Maryland schools. This is not true at all schools. K-8 schools often have much shorter lunch periods (15-20 minutes) to allow all classes access to a single cafeteria. A colleague recently reminded others that the union does not necessarily represent the opinions of all teachers. It should also be noted that the contract does not represent the situation in all schools. If that were the case, all music teachers would have a tuned piano in their rooms, by now.

Art, music, and other "resource" teachers represent a small portion of teachers affected by the stall in negotiations, but we also have additional challenges. Even though I teach middle school, our department chair lobbied classroom teachers and administrators to make time for shared resource planning once a month. The request was denied. Depending on the team, middle school teachers have one or two planning periods per day, while resource teachers all have one. At the elementary level, resource teachers often only have planning time in 15-minute increments, 3 times per day. I've heard both teachers and parents suggest that schools should offer more resource classes to open up more planning time for classroom teachers...and not to benefit the overall education of their children.

At this point, I am still young and inexperienced in the political aspects of education, and it is difficult to "choose sides" on this important issue. I can't say whether increased team planning/reduced individual planning will help children or hurt them. (If it hurts teachers' ability to complete important paperwork, provide tutoring, etc, then arguably, it may hurt children, too.) What worries me is the implications for arts education. We just finished developing an arts curriculum last year. We don't all teach the same units, but we are expected to teach the same skills. We don't have a daily or weekly schedule to follow, like other subjects do. Would team planning within our own school be effective? There are so many variables; only experience and time would yield the answer. Resource teachers already struggle against the attitude that the arts are secondary in importance to tested subjects under No Child Left Behind. Yet, we are expected to produce artwork for the hallways or performing groups for concerts because they make the school more attractive to prospective parents. We do these things before and after school, and yes, during our precious planning time, too. (If I didn't think that I had to run an extra-curricular choir to keep my job, I'd find a better way to do it. Thankfully, the city pays a stipend to secondary teachers who have performing groups. They don't offer the same benefit to the elementary teachers.)

The purpose of any educational "product" should be learning, but in some cases the purpose is political. Which school can earn a positive story in the newspapers? Who can gain mayoral recognition? It's not about finding a cure for cancer, it's about winning a Nobel Prize. If resource teachers lose planning time to supplement shared planning for classroom teachers, no one wins.

Thoughts on being a messy/Messie teacher:

I wasn't always messy. I put away my books and my toys. Every morning my nest of stuffed animals went back to their home that was my closet. I could even be talked into making my bed, and I was out of it before the sun rose. What happened? Life happened, and my cleanliness didn't last beyond age seven, or so. I am one part perfectionist, one part idealist, and one part lazy bum. In other words, I try to do too much (i.e. everything) perfectly or not at all...and when I get discouraged, instead of working harder, I procrastinate through leisure. Again, this was not always so. I was once a ball of productive energy. I didn't need to eat, sleep, or study...or so I thought. I practiced, and I performed well...and beyond all else, it was FUN. That ended after my first year of college.

Faced with the task of grading hundreds of papers well below my own educational level, calling parents, and attending meetings that have little to do with learning and more to do with paperwork, it's easy to start sounding bitter...which is why I allowed myself a taste in the beginning of this paragraph. I feel like an academic stuck in a teacher's body. ...and even though I want to improve, like any unruly student, I also want to rebel. This is not FUN, this is WORK. Gosh, what a concept.

One thing that I have learned from teaching is this: the thing that we are most likely to resist is probably that which we desperately want to learn. My failed attempts at becoming the perfectly clean, perfectly organized teacher are not failures at all, but learning opportunities. What do I do well? What is challenging for me? How can I fix it? What steps can I take to be the person I want to be? Whether I organize at home or at school, having a clean, serene life is something I hope for, and something with which I have always struggled. When I was young, my busy schedule and my accomplishments prevented any self-directed ill feelings, because I had valid reasons for my disorganization. Rehearsal and performance and practice time trumped all else. Now, my goals have changed, but my habits have not.

Last year was a rough year for me, for personal reasons, but I have noticed a slight improvement in my perspective and my work habits. How good is good enough? How good is good enough to keep my job? How good is good enough to get another one? These questions still follow me in the aftermath of last year, and I am at pains to impress and at once overdo my patient progress. It is difficult to regain someone's faith once you have lost it. More than that, it is difficult to expect from my students what I have trouble achieving for myself. If anything, I hope that it makes me sympathetic.

Responsibility, or Things I Never Learned In College

(Note: I wrote this last night, but I dropped into my bed before I was able to hit "Publish Post.")

At the beginning of my third full year of teaching, I'm barely beginning to uncover its seedy underbelly. I did much better today, in terms of grading and organizing, despite my unruly sinuses. That said, I know that I still have a long way to go to reach some small goals. Due to my cold, I'm going to make this as short and bittersweet as I can.

1. You will never "catch up on" your paperwork. There is always more.
2. Learning how to say, "no," politely is just as important as learning how to say, "yes."
3. Knowledge does not necessarily come with experience. It also requires effort.
4. Expectation is overrated...and that includes expecting a budget, a reasonable schedule, and a classroom door that locks.

Ah, the NyQuil is kicking in, so my brain is checking out for the evening.

As an update from yesterday, I had a chance meeting with A.K.'s parents and his house principal today. It went quite well. After I left the office, I suddenly remembered the circumstances that landed him in my class in the first place. At the beginning of the year, he chose three other SPAR classes before mine. Actually, he was my student last year, before he was transferred into gym without warning...a disciplinary tactic. None of the other teachers would take him. I did. I'm still an idealist. I also took all of the other students that no teacher would touch, either due to full sections or personal distaste. It was terribly sad to see all these children getting passed over for personal reasons. No Child Left Behind, indeed. Yes, I'm aware that I completely manipulated that reference to suit my own needs. We self-serve all the time. Our tendency toward self preservation can be an advantage, because it provides a safeguard against burnout and doormat-syndrome. Then again, the same tendency can make people mean, suspicious, and even conspiratorial. Yes, all of the students I accepted are problematic. It has made my working life extremely challenging. It's a good thing that I like a challenge, but admittedly, I'm frustrated, right now.

This was the highlight of my day:

My first two classes today were rough. I sent A.K. to the office with his second referral in as many days. He has received four call-in letters already, and we haven't even gotten through the first month of school. One of my eighth grade classes is almost three days behind my gigantic sixth grade class, because the older students have such a difficult time following directions. They don't want to be bothered with actual "work." I really hope that I can do something for all of them, this year. Still, my preliminary chorus list is almost double the size of what it was at this time last year, and some of my classes are incredibly fun to teach. At the end of the day, one of the aforementioned sixth-graders handed me this note:

"Hey Ms. M,

I wanted to draw you a picture with a girl hugging a monkey, but since I didn't have enough time, I might do it tonight after my homework and mabey give it to you on Wednsday.

<3 E. S."

I can't wait to see how that picture is going to turn out, and you know that it's going on my wall.

I never thought that I'd be writing an ed blog.

First post. Two jobs. Third year. Honestly, this is the last place I thought I would be. I tire of hearing story after story about union battles, unruly children, and uncooperative administrators. I loathe telling them, but I catch myself mid-complaint far too often. Among the small crop of new-ish teachers in Baltimore City, such whining is commonplace. We are uninformed, misled, and far too young to claim that we really know how this system works. Luckily, most of us are also far from being bitter and formulaic in our methods. That said, I lack a sense of renewal in my profession, and I hope to regain it, here. Think of this as an experiment in introspection, rather than a place to dump useless bickering. I want to be more dedicated to my craft, my art, my profession...because calling it anything less is a disgraceful mistake. If I pay more attention, maybe I can actually form some real opinions.

I chose the name because this is also a welcome distraction from a busy schedule. (Edutainment?) I'm working two jobs in the hopes of relocating to another city--more to follow--and paying off some debt. I average about 75 hours a week. I'm intentionally distracting myself to procure a surprising outcome. In other words, don't expect everything here to be revelatory or deeply philosophical. I like to make odd connections between completely different topics; it may sound as if I border on irrelevance. That's the beauty of the thing: you decide what is relevant. I'll just write.