EdObserver

Teachers and administrator love to use the expression “Let’s think-out-of-the-box.” The solution is usually not very far from the box. As in, we don’t have enough money to fund the astronomy club’s field trip, why don’t we have a bake sale? Or eight of my 23 students are failing, why not come up with an extra credit project? When there are some serious changes to be made, it is usually back in-the-box, business as usual.

We are completely renovating our high school. It is a $40 million project. The science department goes first. Our science rooms are pretty disgraceful, but it is much more an equipment problem than a physical plant problem. In the chemistry labs the cabinets are never cleaned, damaged equipment is not replaced, and there is not sufficient equipment for each lab station. And even though we have 90-minute block classes, there never seems to be enough time for the students to clean the equipment, so beakers and test tubes are always left a little funky. It does make for some fun comments when the students record their observations and lab station #3 has a test tube with a solution that turns bright pink, not milky white.

There is one problem with the physical plant: there are more science teachers than science classrooms. The newest teachers, in our case three of them, have no classrooms of their own. They are given a desk in a common working area, usually the space that has the department’s copier/printer, refrigerator and microwave. They are also given a cart to wheel their laptop, plans, and handouts from room to room. When they use another teacher’s room, they often have to use the desk, move papers, check for missing keys etc. And they can’t set up a lab in advance, so they have to take class time to do the set-ups.

And our chemistry labs are located in the back of a regular classroom. There are 28 desks jammed into the open space, almost touching the first lab stations. You can barely walk through the room. It lacks a professionalism that might encourage a respect for the subject.

But we only have four block periods a day. Each teacher has one block for prep and planning. So every block, one quarter of the science classrooms are empty, free of students. Is there any way we could put this empty space to use? Certainly at our school no one thought out-of-the-box to alleviate the pains.

Let’s think this through.

How about a full classroom space assigned for every six teachers, with desks, and bookshelves, a real phone, a work table and a place to hang their coats, or whatever? How about shared, dedicated lab rooms (They are never used more than twice a week.), with room for equipment, room to move around, and room to put the eyewash station in the same room as the students not in the supply room through a door which is not easily reached because there are 28 desks between it and the lab stations? Maybe the existing space could be completely renovated, made modern, well-equipped.

We’re building a new wing. Thinking-out-of-the-box in today’s schools more often than not, involves building a new box!

In these times, someone had better think-out-of-the-box when it comes time to pay for it.

I am assigned to a low level geometry class with a first year teacher who is first rate. I was in one of her Algebra II classes last semester. She knows her subject and maybe because her mother is an elementary school teacher, she handles her classes “old school.”  She gives the kids the respect of teaching a “real” lesson, and then assigns class work that she monitors, and helps them with, teaching the material the entire time. Homework is done at home, is collected and recorded. And she expects the students to treat her classroom as a place of business, with work accomplished and behavior respectful.

With today’s students, she sometimes doesn’t succeed. She may be the best young teacher I have ever seen. She is not tenured and at the end of this year, though she will  be offered a contract in this district, she will not have a position in our high school. That is our loss.

Our loss, too, is a tenured math teacher we will never be rid of. In a chemistry class, a student was studying for a math quiz. When asked who she “had”, the student answered Ms. B. Every eye in the room, rolled – rolled to the back of each student’s head. To a person, everyone agreed, “She is the worst.” Apparently she: doesn’t teach a lesson, can’t answer questions, lets the class get out of control, and cries at her desk when things really sour. She should not be teaching. She is not good at it. She is tenured. She has worked at this school for more than five years. She will never be fired unless she abuses a child or parent physically, sexually or perhaps, emotionally. She cannot be fired for being an incompetent teacher, even if the whole world agrees.