So I log into Subcentral everyday and everynight, and I find maybe a job but when I try to click it, I get a notification that says “This job is currently being offered to  substitute.   Please try again later.”  It’s completely and utterly frustrating.”  My bills are beyond backed up.  They are just overdue.

I looked into this Newark Teaching residency and with it too seems futile.  Past the preliminary application, there’s an actual application fee, and if I make it to the next round, I’d have to take note just one but deux, yessiree TWO Praxis exams which are not cheap at all.  Then I’d also have to take the GRE again since my previous score is a little bit dated.  I counted close to near $400 dollars to possibly get accepted to this program, and I have come to my uncommon senses that maybe it’s not worth it.

I interviewed for a temp agency for some clerical/office work, and I did well on their simulated tests.  However, I guess if there’s no work, then all is fair and well that they have my info on file.  Would rather that they use it.

I’m wondering if it would be rude of me to some of the previous schools I’ve worked at just to say “Wassup.  I’m still a loser who likes being a guest teacher.”  Is it that too forward of a thing to do.  On one hand, I think it would be the most expedient way of getting my face back out there beyond luck of the phone system.  However, on the other hand, the thing about being a decent guest teacher (sub) is that you kind of want schools to list after you.  That way, when standing up for yourself and not being just bending over to the impending hazing by a student, you feel they may have your back because they think you might have somewhere else to be instead of there.

Either way, this sitting on my ass and reading every single news story or magazine article known to man about current education flaws is becoming both obsessive and repressive.  I want to be back in the classroom so bad.  So I’m not really sure what I should be off doing?

[Chester Kent]

GetintheRye

www.gitr.telldat.net

10.11.10

A Brooklyn high-school principal — on the rocks for allowing booze at a boat-cruise prom where a tipsy staffer was caught kissing a student — put in overtime pay for 15 teachers to attend the bash on the taxpayers’ tab, a probe found.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/teachers_party_pay_b0VnRDVvpI4h58OsGAnvkJ?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=#ixzz0wfEbNSSi

I honestly don’t even know what to say about this.  So I’m just going to mumble this which I’m not sure I don’t not mean. I dig it.  Suppose you had this dude as a principal, seems like it would just be free alcohol, entertainment, and teen-aged antics all with overtime pay.  I mean, would you really want to be the teacher that reported these “abuses” to the Board of Ed?  Might as well legally change your name to “Pariah.”

Check it out.

[Chester Kent.]

After listening to this, and reading the subsequent commentary, I found it was as how they describe the “Morning Edition.” I truly did find it a “perfect morning companion: gentle, but straightforward.”

Thinga in my life are changing.  Not necessarilly for the better but change is change I suppose.   In this regard, I plan on making this end of the blog (www.GetintheRye.com) more of an testomony without the emotiuonal gruff.  Just something of antedotoes about days subbing and lesson plans that worked or didn’t work.

In comparison, www.getintherye.wordpress.com will be my own personal blog in terms about me.  There you will be able to find the poems, and I suppose working notes, or real grit of what happened.  Whereas here, the only time I plan on using curse words or slang is when a kid hits me with such.

-Chester Kent

Ex. of How to Shoot Oneself in the Foot

Every single year we teachers in the upper grade levels do one thing that is the unofficial equivalent of throwing in the white towel.  Take a guess….Realizing that you did not leave enough time to finish that last novel, and realizing that you’re going to have to force feed all the appropriate themes, plots, and vocabulary for one final test that will let Eduardo R, or Tysha J. know whether they should even both showing up for the final exam?  Not what I’m looking for, but it happens to all of us.  Take another shot….What do all upper level teachers do that is the unofficial equivalent to a playing of the extended version of the Fat Lady’s swan song?  Hint…Science/Math  teachers, it’s not switching into full on test prep mode?  That usually signifies that any minute in the hallways, some down on their grade student is going to ask you to reteach the quadratic equation.

No, the unofficial end to the year is that day when we reward the good kids for being good kids all year.  They get to go to Six Flags, Canada’s Wonderland, or some other various accident waiting to happen trip as a sign of our gratitude that they did not shoot at, stab, or curse you out during the school year, all the while maintaining a decent grade point average, and normal human composure.  This trip also has the debatable intentional or unintentional effect of saying to the kids not going “Better Luck,  next year!  (Fuckwad)” as the bus to a great escape leaves them in stranded to a muggy day of educational instruction.

Handsome Reward.

So you see-  This is how we stab ourselves in the foot.  We tell our “good kids”  have fun but “not too much fun.”  No matter what, hijinx (Hijinx, I exclaim) will ensue.  For example, there’s always going to be a few kids who manifest their inner bad ass for a few hours out in public.  Or the girl who loses her wallet, and her ID. There might even be a hint of a stolen cellphone, or lunch.  While the trip is fun for the kids, it’s  definitely more of a Great Adventure for the adults.

Conversely, imagine coming into work wearing your professional dress and passing by your colleagues in shorts and t-shirts, all with grins just as wide on their faces as the day to come is long on yours.  When taking attendance you realize that all of the children you mildly enjoy, the ones that you look out into the classroom, and make eye contact with to remind yourself that there is at least one kid listening, and possibly even sympathetic to your plight.  The kids who come to school come in expecting it to be a blow off day, and it’s true.  In theory, you could forge on with important review work, but really, all that does is make you want to hit your head against your desk because all of your Aces in the holes are gone. The day in so many ways is bullshit, pure and unfiltered.

Ye Olde New York City Publick Schoole

To this I say (and mostly because I am no longer of school age….) let’s schedule these trips after exams. Or maybe on a weekend day so that a day of instruction and/or review isn’t lost.  In such a way, we can all then share the unfortunate blaring discomfort of a poorly planned school without ventilation.

Thanks to Miss Eyre [NYCeducator] for that word and the writing prompt for this entry.  She says, I quote

I have to admit that I’m still a little confused about what’s going to happen when and if the layoffs actually transpire. Will the ATRs land back in classrooms? Will my summer vacation stretch out into one long span of funemployment, since I have no idea what I would do if I wasn’t teaching? I’d come up with something, I suppose, but, perhaps without even realizing it, I came to believe that I’d be teaching forever.

This sentiment really does touch my heart.  Since I lose my first job teaching, I admit life has been a period of “funemployment.”  I haven’t necessarily been able to figure out what else I could do as a replacement for teaching.   While teaching teaches the person instructing something, I don’t really know how to re-classify or fix it onto a resume.  Is there a way to say that on a daily basis you (and your coworkers) worked to insure that the next generation of human beings can speak to each other.  How do you translate into or summarize in a short sentence or two that not only did you have to prepare and maintain order over 27 or more students at a time, but that you had to make sure that that time spent under your car was purposeful, and that if any of your “employees” have parents that have no issue with getting in your face, well, it’s more than appropriate that they do.

“Funemployment” is the equivalent of being relegated to Dante’s Purgatory.  It’s like not even being recognized as a part of this work force.  So many programs (the Teaching Fellows comes to mind instantly) recruit career changers into utilizing their skills into teaching.  However, how vice-versa, where’s the detox for people who smile inside when a former student surprises them walking down the street?  Where’s the rehab for the former English Teachers who can’t walk by a pile of discarded books without thinking “Maybe I can teach this to standards.”  What becomes of a person who has realized and defined themselves by chalkboards when there aren’t any chalkboards left anymore?

Who knows?

The way the economy feels about teachers....

[Chester Kent]

www.GetintheRye.com

(With special thanks to NYCeducator

So Mrs. Englishx2  was going to take a Greyhound to Boston but since she had never actually taken Greyhound before thus she asked a few questions of the other teachers in the lounge.  Being that it was a 3 day weekend, she wasn’t exactly how to go about buying her ticket, how early to get there, and other like logistics.  She had been planning to take a 3 PM bus to Boston, but being that she needed to arrive at least a half hour before her departure,  she would be cutting into the school day and the last few periods she would be teaching…..

Cut to the end of the school,  Mrs. Englishx2 was paged over the speaker several times.  When moving time cards, and punching out, several other teachers reminded the office staff (Payroll, Attendance, et al.) that Mrs. Englishx2 had left early to catch her bus. However, this was the first time the office and administration had heard of her leaving early.  Thus began an investigation into who covered her classes, trying to ascertain when she left, and finding the missing cellphone she had confiscated from a student earlier in the day.

I’m not really sure of the entire resolution, as the missing person report/apb went out on her at the close of the school day, but this is a primary example of adults doing stupid things.  Not only has she put a half days pay at risk, but most likely she will be a trending topic tomorrow the entire day.  I have a feeling she kind of won’t be into school tomorrow, a victim of the end of year ghost.

Again, it goes to show you,  high school teacher should be far more aware of  the examples they set forward to the kiddies when they. the teachers themselves, skip school.

[Chester Kent]

www.GetintheRye.com

I had originally plotted out to make this posting about  the young charge whom I had dubbed “The Obvious Asshole” because he doesn’t even try to hide his animosity about being educated.  Of this child, his mother has said “Well, he has a problem with authority figures.”  Which means that her action plan for dealing with her son doesn’t actually involve anyone else, or trying to reprogram him to being, amendable with taking orders, especially considering he is only something like 16 or 17.

I realize that “The Obvious Asshole” is such a horrible term to use for a child, but it’s so universal and it fits.  At some point in their career, every educator has met that one kid that is possessed of  impermeable propensity/inclination to being a nuisance.  In Pre-K, this kid probably peed on the carpet, or had issues with taking naps.  In K-3, this child made scenes just because well it could.  This child is loved, and loves attention, and at this point, it even understands the difference between positive and negative attention.  Yet, somewhere in their brain a pitched-forked devil is keeping common sense captive.  This kid becomes the one that teachers worry about taking out in even the most minute public arena, like walking down the hallway.  This type of student is a real life Bart Simpson, albeit the commercial breaks, 30 minute resolution or ability to just turn off the TV.

The funny thing about the “OA” that I dealt with in that particular senior English Class I was covering isn’t even that anything that super infuriating happened in that class; I derive my ultimate chuckle from the conversation with the regular teacher when we next met.  It seems that despite the outreach- calls home, referrals to guidance, meetings with other teachers, “OA” has successfully managed to maintain what can only appear to be his desired English Avg grade of 19.  Apparently, his also was guest starring in that class as I was, since he had not been in attendance when the regular teacher was there for oh say, four months?  And has not been back in there, since I left apparently.  He works hard for his grade.

Just scratch college out and add 11th grade.  I really had to hold back writing this one because I just discovered the “OA’s” equivalent in the faculty and I’m not sure what to call ‘em yet.

Thanks for the comments, and take care of yourselves.  Please do check out the original post at

www.GetintheRye.com

[Chester Kent]

“Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving”
-Norman PaperNick

Art Teacher. South Bronx. 25 Minute Commute Time. PS/IS/MS. (K-Gr.*)

Purely basing my opinion on just the facade of the building, I had no idea what to expect. My assignment location was in an area of the South Bronx that I had never been into. The few kids walking towards school seemed merry and weren’t shooting each other.  The people inside the bodega were nice. Even the weather was kind of nice for a January morning and as anyone would expect, any of the teachers that I saw walking in the direction of the 2 or 3 schools all clustered in a span of a black, well…they all shared the look in their eyes…Melancholy and lack of caffeine…the last flames of a 3 day weekend.

The scenery inside of the school was that of the typical elementary school. Of course, there was the customary line dividing the hallway in half.  Of course, said hallway was painted with the cold, sky blue paint against lime green frames.  And of course,there was the familiar sight of the police officers assigned to the building – there to greet everyone with a lack of interest in the actual visitor entering the building accompanied by ghettoness and weave (which would not be kosher policing the streets). Skipping forward past the search for the Main Office (which was on the third floor) I received my schedule and the first of my coverage assignments (which were surprisingly very close the ones I had prepared myself) and headed to my first assignment. Kindergarten.  The classroom, and lead teacher were quite bright, and bubbly.   After introductions, we went to go and pick the children up from the cafeteria to begin the day.  The “line leaders” made all the stops, and it was kind of cute watching the little people hold hands in the one straight shot queue back to the classroom.   After normal housekeeping things, Ms Teacher put out the leveled readers for the different kids, and then the kids quite calmly swapped their books out of their backpacks for new books for the week.  Honestly, it was a sight to behold as this was done without incident.

Back when I was in Kindergarten, the reading campaign launched by the government was ‘Read to Me’; a sort of way to encourage parents and children to spend quality time together….And when that nice but flawed idea unavoidably failed due to its overwhelming triteness (Single parents?  Economic recession? Reganomics?  Creation of the term “latch-key child?”) and obvious issues (i.e. suppose a students parents couldn’t read..thus who reads to who?) ‘Read to Me’ exists as a program these days still, however, it is now tailored far more for parents to read to their INFANTS, thus avoiding some of the deficiencies of its previous incarnation.

Anyway, it was around 2nd grade, when my teachers/literacy instructors resorted to the “Book-It” program (a collaboration with Pizza Hut) which basically bribed students to read by dangling a personal pan pizza once they received credit for reading a book.  In my opinion, it theoretically worked well for my own independant reading studies – I had been exposed to tons of words at once, and felt like I was actively in charge of my reading.  Other students and I even challenged each other with reading  but I can’t help but imagine that I (and other students) probably learned a lot of words (pronunciation and/or definitions) wrong.

The Emblem of "Book It"

No offense meant to Ms. Teacher at all (or for she whom I was filling in for) but I think that Literacy time probably needs to be broken into large groups, rather than the students reading seperately.  As I let the kids do the ELA/Literacy point-each-finger-slowly-at-the-word-while-you-read thing, I noticed that a lot of the students kept getting stuck at words, which are repeated several times.  It’s frustrating not knowing the way that the class is fully structured on a daily basis.  Yet even without specific knowledge of ongoing processes and also being aware that I have such a small sampling of what that group has learned….well, it bothers me that several kids were stuck on the words “home” and “name.”   Consider the fact that there was a word wall which included far more difficult words than the ones the kids were discovering independently.  On a positive note though, the kids didn’t stop with frustration, and even repeated the words after I corrected them- often times they would attempt to re-read the entire (two sentence) page correctly.

However, this was a great pace-setter for the day.  The children worked hard.  The teacher smiled.  Learning was had.  Respect, rules, and energy was highly present.  Despite my inner concerns about the reading skills, and levels of the class in whole, Ms. Teacher seemed quite involved in helping them improve.  She most certainly will be a teacher that they remember when they grow up. And with the end of this period, I went forward to teaching 7th graders a fun art lesson.

Or so I thought…….(To Be Continued)

[CHESTER KENT]

[Note: This posting is probably the most serious of the experience at this school.  The next few postings will include what I can only describe as something that I will tag as under the "These Evil Thoughts" catergories.]

The Nyc hiring freeze pretty much had already ruined all my dreams for some sort of stability in the education field for the next year; I guess I can take solace in the fact that I am not alone there.  There are also hundreds of others who went to school for such a career and yet are now also dumb-founded as to what to do.  Even though we have invested a lot of money into this journey – testing fees(CST’s, LAST, ATS-W, CLEP,) application fees, fingerprinting and background checks fees, substitute licensing fees, and on car services when said subbing jobs have me in the middle of nowhere and hopstop or mapquest didn’t really estimate walking correctly – it’s all coming down to seemingly for naught. To make those of us in this position feel even less hopeful, Joel Klien (the Commissioner of Schools) sent out this email this morning:

Dear Colleagues,

I wanted to give you an update on the hiring restrictions and how they impact our overall budget situation for the upcoming school year.

When we implemented the hiring restrictions in May, we did so to ensure that the size and cost of the excessed staff pool did not grow to the point where even more cuts would be required. I am aware that these restrictions limit your choices, but this policy is the only way to preserve your ability to select your own staff, a hard fought change in school hiring that we sought and achieved based on your feedback.

We continue to monitor the excess situation on a daily basis. A number of you have already selected internal candidates, including excessed staff, to fill your vacancies. But even with these hires, we still have many teachers in excess. As a result, we need to work together before the start of the school year to avoid any year-to-year increase in the number of teachers in excess and avoid unacceptable financial consequences. I am sure some of you are waiting to either declare or fill vacancies with the hope that hiring restrictions will be lifted soon. While I understand your desire to staff your schools with the candidates you feel will be the best fit, you should be aware that excessing conditions make it unlikely that we will lift hiring restrictions across the board in any other subject areas. To date, we lifted the hiring restrictions for almost all districts in special education and for all schools in other shortage areas, such as bilingual special education, speech, and most sciences.  Prospectively, there may be some targeted lifting of restrictions – in specific districts and subjects – but I anticipate even those targeted exceptions will be very limited. As we continue to monitor the situation, we may even need to re-impose some hiring restrictions in areas where we have lifted them.

Given these circumstances, you should not hold back on creating and filling vacancies. The best internal candidates – both teachers in excess and other teachers seeking transfers – are available now and the widest possible pool exists during the Open Market Transfer period, which by contract closes on August 7. It is crucial that you are staffed appropriately for the opening of school and therefore should create and fill vacancies as quickly as possible from the current pool of available internal candidates. Your HR Partner and the Office of Teacher Recruitment & Quality can assist you in identifying internal candidates. Many of the teachers in excess are relatively new teachers who you and your colleagues hired one, two or three years ago; many others are also dedicated teachers who could be a good fit for your school. Some excessed teachers can be hired with a subsidy, whereby central will bear a significant part of the cost even after you hire them.

I am aware that some schools will have staffing needs for short and long term absences. Please remember that you cannot use per diems and F-status staff to cover vacancies; this is something we will be monitoring. Per our agreement with the UFT, if you need to fill a vacancy caused by a leave or a sabbatical, you can hire excessed staff on a provisional basis. A provisional hire means that you are hiring the individual for only this coming year. At the end of the school year, that teacher will return to the excess pool unless you both agree he or she should remain on your staff. Questions about this process, subsidies or other matters pertaining to excesses should be directed to your HR liaison in the ISC or CFN.

Only by working together can we successfully navigate this challenging situation. I realize that you have already had to make difficult and painful decisions as a result of current budget conditions. In the case of staffing, however, critical steps remain. To the extent that vacancies are not scheduled or that the process of filling them is being delayed, the actions of individual schools have the potential to negatively impact all of our schools. I am deeply grateful for all that you are already doing to make the best choices for your school under difficult circumstances, but I ask that you please move expeditiously to schedule and fill your vacancies.

Sincerely,

Joel Klein

See.  That’s the kind of dream dashing email I find in my inbox in the morning.  I also love how he also specifically pointed out how “per diem/subs” are not to be used to fill in any holes for breaks such as a maternity leave or not.  I honestly have no clue.  I already had submitted my name to the Archdiosece pool for Catholic Schools again, but I have about as much hope for that as I did the year before.  I’ve also put my feelers out with people that I know, and as I’m coming to learn, in the field of education, teachers and secretaries are only just slightly better than the principals unless they are getting some sort of personal game out of it.  (I think it’s the humanitarian aspect of teaching that drains the humanity and decency out of some people to other adults.)   I’m frantically searching and trying to plan my next move as my own personal life, and my own self esteem issues are desperately starting to kick in.

What I do know is that I promise a humorous blog next.  It’s too sunny out for doom and gloom.

[Chester Kent]

(Sorry for the time off guys..)

After so much work subbing and making various professional contacts within New York City, the DOE (Department of Education) dealt what was a decive blow to my quest to finding a Full Time Position English during the 2009-2010 year at the proffesional level.   They managed to do this by imposing a hiring freeze that limits the hiring of new teachers who aren’t from programs like the NYC Teaching Fellows and those that don’t come from the ATR/Excessed pool.

Logically it makes sense.  The ATR pool was costing the city tons of money, and well messing up deals established programs like the Fellows could have definitely caused serious problems down the road.  Emotionally tho…Imagine spending years in school, accumulating debt and then being told….”Well maybe next year.  Please wait for us?”

My issue being that some of the teachers in the ATR pool aren’t up to snuff.  I’ve heard stories of people excessing an entire subject to get ride of a bad teacher who had attained tenure.  I’ve even seen first hand how when an excessed teacher returns to a school after a year or two off, well their teaching skills are far less than spectacular.

Next: Why is it a stalemate then?

[Chester Kent]