Redskins and New Teachers
2006-08-26 7:30 p.m.

I've spent quite a bit of time at school this week, although we don't officially have to go back until Monday.

One day was spent putting up the blinding Redskins bulletin board in our room. Cher is ecstatic. I made little half-curtains for our long, skinny windows, too, to keep the kids from staring out at the PE fields. We can raise the blinds and see the sky, but block the lower third with charming white Redskin-motif curtains.

Part of that day was also spent making CDs of all of last year's lesson plans and the 8th grade curriculum guides for the new 8th grade special ed teacher, who is supposed to be planning with Cher and me. More on HER in a sec.

Another whole day was spent learning our cool new gradebook program, which I have to teach to a bunch of teachers on Monday. For some of them, it will be easy, but for others...I will feel like a ballet instructor teaching hippos wearing clown shoes. Can we say "Steep learning curve ahead"?

On Friday, Cher and I finished up our room, including scrubbing all the profane, nasty graffiti off the walls. The summer school kids even drew us a hairy penis, but I was relieved to see that the artist had not yet seen a bare mature male,since they put the hair in the wrong place. A very, um, tickish place. Pretty funny. Hated to scrub THAT one off the wall.

Then I got to meet the new teacher, who is to work with us closely. Cher had warned me that she was somewhat dissatisfied with how we run things at our school, but I was unprepared for the full scope of Mrs. DePoint's idiocy. She whined about sharing a room first--she teaches ONE class a day on her own, then two inclusion classes in other teachers' rooms. I explained to her that it really would't be a wise use of resouces to allow her room to sit empty for five blocks a day, and that our building was designed with room-sharing in mind. This is why we have a large, pleasant, well-appointed (almost palatial) teacher workroom, just steps away from any classroom in the academic wing.

She wanted to know where we got "those things," meaning the posters I was putting on the wall. "Bought 'em," I replied, thereby launching her into a tirade about how she didn't know where to get posters (a block away, at the teacher store) or how she was expected to pay for them (SpEd gives her $200 a year for such stuff, which regular ed teachers DON'T get), and how she didn't even have a room to put them in. "Oh,"I chirped brightly,"then you don't have the hassle of decorating! Less work for you, lucky girl!" Cher was, by now, sensing danger, as I am rarely THAT chirpy.

Next was the rant about how no one had given her ANY help, not even a curriculum guide. She said this while waving a CD around in the air. "Um," I muttered,indicating the CD,"that's it."

"What? This? This is probably useless crap."

I explained to her that she was holding the full curriculum guide and all of our lession plans from last year in her hand. I even showed her how to log into the computer and open it.

"But I need hard copies!" she fussed.

"Print it out," I growled.

Then she switched to fussing about how she hadn't met the teachers she'd be doing inclusion with. I told her I was sure she'd meet them on Monday. She snapped that she wouldn't know who they were.

"They'll be wearing name tags," I explained."You can read, can't you?"

Cher wisely decided that Mrs. DePoint needed to see something in the workroom then, and hustled her away. The look she gave me over her shoulder was eloquent; I had frightened my partner. I was so aggravated I didn't even have the grace to feel ashamed.

Mrs. DePoint represents all I despise in BAD teachers: inflexibility, self-absorption, incompetence, whining, and basic lack of knowledge. (She'd never heard of a graphic organizer--not even a Venn diagram--when I've been using them since fifth grade. Do I need to remind you that I was in fifth grade a very long time ago?) She's not going to get much help, if she keeps bitching and moaning. I'm allergic to her already.

It's going to be a very long year.

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