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Thursday, September 4, 2014

NYC Educator: In Which I Am Booted Out of a Very Low Venue

NYC Educator: In Which I Am Booted Out of a Very Low Venue:



In Which I Am Booted Out of a Very Low Venue


Yesterday, I went to the trailer to prepare. I went up to the second floor and found all my Stuff, which I then had someone help me bring down to the trailer. Afterward, we placed it all in the abandoned file cabinet and ran back to the building. I went to my AP to file the outside evidence about all the Important Things I'd accomplished and she unceremoniously informed me that she had assigned me to a real classroom in the building.

I then went back to the trailer, got my Stuff, and took it to the second floor. 

I was not pleased. As an ESL teacher, I sometimes get small classes. As a result, I've taught in every crappy corner of the building. I have been in rooms with fragrant dumpsters outside the window. I've been in rooms shaped like bowling alleys where kids were in 15 rows of two. I've been in rooms with no windows that my English-challenged kids quickly compared to jail. When I was in that room, there was a dance class that practiced, with dance music, outside our door. You could breath, you could listen, but it was rare you could do both at the same time.

I once taught English in the music wing. The teacher next-door to me favored Flight of the Valkyries, and played it every single day. I have no idea why. I politely asked him to shut the door a few times, but he was incapable of doing this of his own volition. After a few weeks, I walked to his classroom and slammed the door. He filed a complaint with his AP, who called me into her office and lectured me on my bad behavior. After I replied, she further lectured me on my bad language. (You have to NYC Educator: In Which I Am Booted Out of a Very Low Venue: