tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82522151724993702252024-03-12T21:47:52.102-07:00The Library is Not a FruitOne all-girls independent high school li-berry, so much to say.Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.comBlogger110125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-44306393168662518122011-11-01T14:53:00.000-07:002011-11-01T15:23:57.971-07:00Bad ReputationI have already managed to give myself a bad reputation. It took very little, really. All I had to do was grade a few papers and, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">BAM</span>, I'm ruined. <br /><br />It's not quite that bad really. There are lots of girls here who like me quite a bit. I think.<br /><br />Here's what went down:<br />A teacher asked me to teach a series of lessons. I said yes. I suggested we give a practice assignment that asked students to read an article related to class and respond to it, using paraphrased passages from the source material and including in-text (parenthetical) citations. I offered to grade the papers too. I created a rubric for the students so they would know exactly what we expected. We read the article and discussed it. I taught a lesson on paraphrasing. I went over the grading criteria. Then, we gave them about 4-5 days to write their 1-3 paragraph responses to our writing prompt.<br /><br />When I graded them, about 80% failed the assignment. Totally fell on their faces failed. Why? Perhaps they didn't ever (not one time!) refer to the article we read together. This meant, of course, that they didn't paraphrase a thing or practice using citations. That's a fail. <br />Perhaps they summarized the article and never wrote a single word responding to the prompt, that asked for <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">some</span> commentary/analysis. That's a fail. <br />Perhaps their writing was so bad, so riddled with errors, that it was clear they didn't even bother to spell check. That's a fail.<br /><br />So, the teacher and I decided to give them another chance. Perhaps they didn't understand what I had taught them (although several students did, in fact, ace this assignment, so I don't know). Perhaps the instructions weren't clear (but I really, really think they were). We let them do it again. For <em>full</em> credit. We gave them another <em>week</em>.<br /><br />This time around, almost all of the students who bothered to re-do the work got and A or a B. Why? Did I re-teach the content? Nope. Did I dumb it down? Nope. This time, the girls followed directions, took themselves seriously, and did the job they should have done in the first place.<br /><br />But now. Now the little darlings have spread the word. The librarian is a hard grader. She's mean. She's unfair. She's too tough. We don't want her involved.<br /><br />On Friday, the junior US History teacher and I are sitting down together to read 50-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">point</span> research proposals that his students have had a month to write. We've team-taught a series of lessons, presented resources, given examples, and gone over the rubric. Today, they told him they are scared of me. They don't want me to see their papers. They heard this from the sophomores who failed the assignment that was grade by me. The sophomores didn't mention that they got to re-do it, or that they didn't complete the assignment the first time around. They just mentioned how uncool it is that the librarian has anything to do with anything.<br /><br />Sigh.<br /><br />Some of the girls like me. I know they do. They've told me.<br />Lots of the girls respect their tough teachers. I hear them talk about it. The toughest ones are the favorites.<br />It just takes time, I suppose. I have to get used to the fact that I'm in a new place where there's a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">status</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">quo</span>. Who am I to barge in and expect people to cite their sources? Who am I to waltz in here and think that college-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">preparatory</span> students ought to be preparing for college level work?<br /><br />I would have thought the same thing at their age. And it's not that it hurts my feelings exactly (I learned many, many years ago not to let students anywhere near hurting my feelings). It's just....what? It's frustrating to think that somewhere down the line they've gotten the impression that a job done should get the same credit as a job <em>well</em> done. When did that happen?<br /><br />The US History in question just stopped in to tell me that he hopes I know how much he's looking forward to grading these proposals together. He says it's a good thing they're scared of me, because the girls are more motivated to do well on this paper than they have been on anything else he's assigned this year. He says that being afraid of me doesn't need to turn into disliking me. They'll get to know me and then they'll love me, like they love the other toughest graders.<br /><br />I suppose he's right, and I appreciate that he said so. In the mean time, I'll try to smile a lot.Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-74583590466859313622011-10-06T09:22:00.001-07:002011-10-06T09:34:40.603-07:00A Whole New Ball GameIn order to get a handle on this school, this library, and these girls, I put together a survey and asked 340 students to provide answers to questions about their reading habits, library habits, research habits, etc. The results were very enlightening. Stunning, really. Shocking, in fact. <br /><br />This is what I found:<br /><br /><ul><br /><li>64% of students do not check out books from the school library</li><br /><li>72% use the library's web page "rarely" or "almost never"</li><br /><li>the top 4 reasons for visiting the school library are: printing, photocopying, using a laptop, and working on homework</li><br /><li>the 2 least common reasons for visiting the library are to check out recreational reading material and to ask the Librarian for help</li><br /><li>only 38% of students say they use the library for their history classes, only 18% for science, only 6% for fine arts</li><br /><li>32% say there are no books in the library that they want to check out</li><br /><li>51% buy the books they want to read from a physical bookstore</li><br /><li>34% spend ZERO time each week reading for pleasure</li><br /><li>students prefer to read romance, mystery, and realistic fiction</li><br /><li>61% do not use a public library</li><br /><li>85% turn to Google first when conducting any kind of academic research</li></ul><br /><p>So, there you have it. A VERY different scenario from my previous library setting, where tons of kids read avidly, almost no kids could purchase their own books (there is not a single bookstore in that part of South Central), and the Librarian was the first source of information for research.</p><br /><p>I suppose I didn't really use my high school library for much either. It was pretty outdated, and I don't have any memory of the Librarian, so I don't think she was a very dynamic member of the school community. I got my books from my parents or the public library. Perhaps I don't need to lament the low circulation here. Perhaps I should focus my attentions on the research skills the girls are lacking and the need to get them college-ready in terms of seeking information. If course, I want to cry when I hear that so many of them spend no time at all reading for pleasure. That, to me, is sad. That I want to change.</p><br /><p>Next up, surveying the teachers. I am <em>very </em>curious about those results.</p>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-4263520572112352862011-10-04T13:36:00.000-07:002011-10-04T13:36:38.296-07:00Crime Scene Investigation<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaazKo9SOFmhUPehNDN5rOlzsetXlCKC0VjLKZEgGFUNT15ttFbXUxebu0LvkUIbtsJE8I-epUFUbr3jAuyyERomarFkLEpCYBOaPdzfbagIrQ6TDSmr8nNYHYieh_4myncehwCFBnhXyE/s1600/photo.JPG"><img border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaazKo9SOFmhUPehNDN5rOlzsetXlCKC0VjLKZEgGFUNT15ttFbXUxebu0LvkUIbtsJE8I-epUFUbr3jAuyyERomarFkLEpCYBOaPdzfbagIrQ6TDSmr8nNYHYieh_4myncehwCFBnhXyE/s400/photo.JPG" width="362" height="426" /></a> </div><br />My new school has a Forensic Science class. How cool is that? This morning when I got out of my car, I noticed that a hideous and brutal crime had taken place right outside the school's entrance. Luckily, our students are on the case. What do you think happened?<br /><br />It may be hard to see in this picture, but right above the chalk outline of the head is a long string of pearls, and to the right of that is a tiara. Clearly this murdered young woman was on her way somewhere special. The rose petals make me think she was possibly involved in the Rose Court for the Rose Parade, as are many young women in this part of the LA area. The one thing that really confuses me is how the car that ran over her made it out of the parking lot. If it was coming from the left of this picture, surely it would have crashed into the building after running her over. Unless the driver was so skilled that s/he was able to brake and reverse within inches of the stucco. And why is some of the rubber from the tire on the pavement? What can it mean?<br /><br />This is what school is all about. Every student in the school is encouraged to submit her theories about the crime. I can't wait to hear the results. I'm a happy librarian.<div style='clear:both; text-align:CENTER'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-90090971159202321012011-09-19T15:33:00.000-07:002011-09-19T16:12:08.976-07:00Hiatus OverIt's been a while, hasn't it? After my last post, I needed a good, long break from thinking too much about LAUSD. I went to New York with my darling husband. I finished the school year the best I could (which perhaps wasn't the best I <em>ever </em>could, but instead the best I could at that time). I looked forward to the first summer I'd had off in six years. I visited my parents in Illinois. Mostly, I relaxed and released the build-up of stress and bitterness that had been growing in me because of the hearings and all they represented.<br /><br />True, I still didn't know what my job would be.<br />True, my principal refused to allow me to transfer to another school where I might have had more job security.<br />True, when summer started my future was one big mystery.<br />True, the image of that weasel attorney swam through my thoughts more frequently than I would have liked.<br /><br />But I hung in there, with the help of my many supporters. And then I made a decision that changed my life dramatically. I decided that there was life outside of LAUSD. It was a radical thought, one that had occurred to me only vaguely before, as something abstract and unattainable. Life outside of LAUSD had never existed for me in Los Angeles. I worked for that school district from the moment I stepped foot in this here town, and I never stopped. Why, I now asked myself, didn't I ever just stop?<br /><br />So, I began to look elsewhere. In July, most public school districts aren't ready yet to publicly post their job listings for the fall. I would not apply at a charter on principle. So I looked at independent (or private) schools. I looked at non-profits related to education. I just looked elsewhere. And wouldn't you know it, I found a place. A great place. A professional, nurturing, rigorous place where I'm not only challenged, but valued. How 'bout them apples? Valued! Now, I know I was valued to a certain extent in my old position. There were teachers who adored me, and I adored them. It was not a thankless job. But <em>this </em>job. Well, let's just say that it's something of a relief. That's a large part of what I feel. Relieved. It's just a breath of fresh air.<br /><br />The day I submitted my resignation to LAUSD was both terrifying and exhilarating. To detach from such a formidable employer is not easy. I was advised by fellow educators that leaving LAUSD was foolish, that there are so many advantages to staying that it's worth the mild level of daily torture. But you know, I think they were wrong. I would trade some crazy seniority level for a day of happiness any time. I am perfectly capable of planning for my retirement without CalSTRS. I mean, c'mon. Millions and millions of other people out there <em>don't </em>work of LAUSD either. I know! It's crazy! I didn't realize that either! I began to feel even more at ease with my departure when I went to visit a dear friend and teacher who has <em>not </em>worked for LAUSD for about three years. What I discovered was this. She's fine! In fact, she's better than fine. She doesn't regret leaving one bit.<br /><br />All of this is just to say that it was a really, very, terribly difficult decision for me to leave. But it was the right one. I love my students, all of them, old and new. I love my old school (and my other old school). I love the wonderful people I've met in LAUSD. And now I love my new school. So this blog will change a little, since now I am in an independent high school for girls. What will I say about them, about this? It remains to be seen.<br /><br />I will leave you today with a humorous little anecdote about LAUSD, one of the last I hope to tell on this blog (although the scathing expose in book form is still somewhere in me).<br /><br />Even though I resigned from LAUSD in plenty of time, the necessary documents were not signed and processed by the right people and the right time, and I was paid on August 5th for work I had not yet done (and would not do) for the 2011-2012 school year. Since then, I have spoken to Payroll Services FOUR TIMES, trying to determine how and when and where to give this money back so that I'm free and clear.<br />One woman told me simply to put a check in the mail, but didn't tell me where to send it (Um, this is a bureaucracy people. I am not doing that!). I explained to her that a portion of the money was mine to keep (hours worked in June) and that I needed payroll to calculate the exact amount owed. She said I should just do it myself and it would probably be fine. She also asked me if I had spent the money already, and then advised me against doing so. Thanks. I hadn't thought of that.<br />Another person "opened a ticket" for me so that the issue would get addresses promptly. That was two weeks ago.<br />A third woman told me that the ticket was opened incorrectly and so hadn't even been assigned to anyone yet. That was last week.<br />Today I was told that I could receive a letter about the overpayment "at any time" and that overpayment issues take "a loooong time" (emphasis attributed to speaker).<br /><br />Don't they want their money back? I want to give it back!!!! Why don't they want it back?<br /><br />Now, here, in this new wonderland, if there's a problem with my paycheck, all I have to do is walk out of the library, down a little hill, into another building, and talk to so-and-so (whose first and last names I know, and with whom I have shared a potluck meal). She will probably take care of it by the end of the day. Sweet relief. That's all I'm sayin'.Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-79629651189237137182011-05-21T20:18:00.000-07:002011-05-21T20:32:28.970-07:00Message Received<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">In a recent blog post, I wrote that my employer had become my enemy.<span style=""> </span>That was re-posted on The Washington Post's educational blog, The Answer Sheet, and I suppose my employer really took it to heart.<span style=""> </span>At my RIF hearing yesterday, the LAUSD lawyers were armed and ready to take me down.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">After an hour of testimony and an hour lunch break, I returned to the stand feeling pretty good.<span style=""> </span>I had answered well and was confident that I would continue to do so.<span style=""> </span>That was until my entire personal blog, 90 pages of posts dating back to 2007, was brought out in printed form and submitted to the court.<span style=""> </span>The lawyers had scoured my musings for ammo, and they found some key posts that did, in fact, make me look like a bit of an idiot for a moment or two.<span style=""> </span>Taken so far out of the context of a school, and particularly my school, some of these posts made it seem as if I was full of it when I testified that I am a competent and active teacher.<span style=""> </span>I wrote about days when I didn't feel much like teaching, or days when I didn't feel that I had taught very much.<span style=""> </span>I wrote about the nature of my job in the library and its clerical demands, and how on some days I felt like I did nothing but shelve books.<span style=""> </span>I wrote about allowing students to watch a movie trailer for Twilight.<span style=""> </span>I wrote about having a slow day in the library.<span style=""> </span>I wrote about times when my teaching practice seemed to be eroding slowly because of the cuts in clerical staff, meetings, etc.<span style=""> </span>I wrote about times when kids worked collaboratively as I stood back and observed, therefore not directly 'teaching'. I wrote about feeling frustrated over the struggle to teach certain content.<span style=""> </span>I wrote honestly and emotionally, reflectively, as one does on one's personal blog.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">So, yes, I wrote about times when I wasn't delivering direct instruction, and they claimed this evidence impeached my testimony that I 'constantly' teach.<span style=""> </span>Well, obviously I used the word 'constantly' in the widely accepted usage meaning very frequently (I constantly go to the gym.<span style=""> </span>I constantly go to the movies.)<span style=""> </span>No teacher, not one, constantly teaches in the literal sense of the word.<span style=""> </span>We use the bathroom, we eat lunch, we chat with other teachers, we file papers, we clean the classroom, and yes, we do make personal phone calls sometimes or even, god forbid, answer a personal email between classes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I failed to mention at the hearing, and I'm still kicking myself for it, that as the librarian, I am at school about 2.5-3 months more per year than the classroom teachers due to our year-round schedule. So even if I did nothing but shelve books or even read the paper for the equivalent of 2.5 months of the year (which I most certainly do not!), I would STILL be meeting the district's requirement of teaching at least 75% of the time in order to return to classroom teaching. Like I said, I didn't think of that zinger until later, so it's now a moot point. So it goes.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">On the stand, the fact that the vast majority of what I do is really teaching wasn't apparant to anyone but me, so I looked the fool.<span style=""> </span>Luckily, my lawyer objected to the admission of my personal, emotional, reflective blog into evidence and the judge sustained his objection, admitting only the pages discussed prior to the objection (possibly quite damaging already), and leaving the other eighty-plus pages out. Other than this blog, it didn't feel like they really had much to go on.<span style=""> </span>Well, except for the fact that they suggested I forged a dozen or so letters of recommendation, but the judge didn't buy it. (Can you believe?) I don't know what the judge will rule, and after Friday, I'm not sure it will make a difference to me anymore. <br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">The thing about this that stings is how I feel now, after the fact.<span style=""> </span>I may feel worse than I have ever felt about anything that didn't involve death.<span style=""> </span>They were clearly ticked off at me.<span style=""> </span>I spoke out, wrote an editorial, called the lawyer a weasel in my blog (oops, and I am sorry.<span style=""> </span>That wasn't nice. It really wasn't.), and they brought in the big guns.<span style=""> </span>A top dog from the district (at least, he looked like it) was even there to watch.<span style=""> </span>And maybe they won here, because the way I feel, I just want to get away from them as fast as possible and never look back.<span style=""> </span>I spoke out and I got crucified for it.<span style=""> </span>I'm not sorry I wrote what I wrote, but I am sorry I insisted on having a hearing for a job with a district that is so dead set against having me work for them.<span style=""> </span>I'm sorry I put myself through that particular wringer for the sake of completing a process. I am scared, somehow, about retribution and payback, because that's what that hearing felt like.<span style=""> </span>Like they were going to crush me into a pulp.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">So, even though I think I answered the best anyone could under those circumstances, I keep going over it in my head again and again, and I keep experiencing waves of terror that maybe they were right, that I am no good, that I am not fit to work for one of the worst school districts in the land.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Then I remember that I am a great teacher, a really great one, and that they are the ones who are losing here.<span style=""> </span>The children love me and I love them.<span style=""> </span>Teachers love me and I love them.<span style=""> </span>I belong in a school.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Then I have another wave of terror and I just don't know.<span style=""> </span>That they did this to me, made me feel like this, is the worst part of all.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">I have less than twenty days left at my school, in my library, with LAUSD.<span style=""> </span>This morning, I don't even want to go back for a single one of those days.<span style=""> </span>Of course, at the same time, I want to go back and work in that school forever.<span style=""> </span>Nine years of my life have been spent there.<span style=""> </span>I've taught whole families of kids there.<span style=""> </span>In my days remaining, I hope to enjoy my students and my library and to prepare that spacious, well-stocked room for whatever comes next, be it clerks or kiosks.<span style=""> </span>And then I will bid LAUSD a fond farewell.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">LAUSD, your message was received loud and clear.<span style=""> </span>You are through with me, and you have no interest in working with someone who speaks the truth, and those who speak against you will pay the consequences.<span style=""> However, I would like to take a moment here to sincerely thank you. </span>Thank you for teaching me how to be a teacher.<span style=""> </span>Thank you for coaching me, training me, and guiding me through the world of middle school.<span style=""> </span>Thank you for giving me great evaluations, a few awards, and hiring me for three different, wonderful positions in your schools.<span style=""> </span>Thank you for the eleven challenging, difficult, heartbreaking, mind-altering, life-changing, rewarding, and exhilarating years that make up my professional life thus far.<span style=""> </span>Thank you for all the great teachers you employ who I have had the honor of knowing, and all the great kids who walk the halls of your schools and have changed me forever, for the better.<span style=""> </span>And finally, I suppose, though it's difficult to be sure at this moment, thank you for the opportunity to change my life and grow even more as an educator as I leave your district and find my way in others, or in private institutions, or in non-profits, or pre-schools, or who knows where.<span style=""> </span>I am sure it will be a demanding change, and if there is one thing I have learned as an LAUSD teacher, it's the ability to accept change, to roll with it, to grow with it, and to be better for it.<span style=""> </span>I will not wallow in your rejection LAUSD, and I will not even hate you for your cruelty (for I was unkind to you as well).<span style=""> </span>Instead I will be happy for our time together and think of you (certainly your students and schools) fondly in the future.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-49177505676761964172011-05-19T21:58:00.000-07:002011-05-19T22:20:40.877-07:00Going in for the killI have my hearing, finally, tomorrow. It feels surreal, out of place, and after the fact.<div>Every other Teacher Librarian had a hearing a week ago, before this media blitz, in which I took part. Will that impact my hearing? Who knows?</div><div><br /></div><div>Since the end of the TL hearings there have been op-eds, radio programs, and nationally publicized pieces about our fight. Will my hearing be changed?</div><div>Will the questioning be more forthright, or more cryptic?</div><div>Will the judge be more convinced, or less?</div><div>Will my editorial and blog be in play?</div><div>Will Superintendent <a href="http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/05/19/deasy/">Deasy's radio proclamation </a>to keep libraries intact be taken seriously?</div><div>Will I be grilled, or will my testimony be par for the course?</div><div>Did the district notice that I wrote a number of pieces that did not favor their choices?</div><div><br /></div><div>I have no idea what will happen tomorrow.</div><div>Here's what I know:</div><div><ul><li>over 15, 000 people have read my blog on this matter, so people care</li><li>there are 2, 200 students at my school who care</li><li>I am extremely qualified to teach, so says the State of California</li><li>Libraries are essential to the propagation of educated societies</li><li>Information, and the freedom, access, and understanding of that information, are at the heart of our democratic principles as a society</li><li>Librarians are the guardians of that information</li></ul></div><div>So, wish me luck, as I will be attempting to say all of this in a highly stressful situation tomorrow. I hope I don't choke!!!</div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-91928516114010573082011-05-18T07:59:00.001-07:002011-05-18T08:05:59.384-07:00Draft, Revise, EditToday, an op-ed appeared in the LA Times, written by yours truly. This was the first time I'd done anything of the sort, and the back-and-forth writing process with the editor was really new to me. Over a period of about a week, she and I emailed again and again, paraphrasing, restructuring, cutting, and changing my original draft into what appeared in the paper. Below is the second draft I wrote for this piece. I'm posting it here because some of what I wrote didn't make it into the paper, but I still think it's worthwhile. Since I don't have a length requirement here, I thought I'd just put it out there. Thanks for reading.<div><br /></div><div style="text-align: -webkit-auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">In the spring of 2001, I found myself at a crossroads after finishing my first year as a teacher in a South LA middle school.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Brought in on an emergency credential, I had been placed in my position with little experience and no formal training.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As I struggled with whether I was truly meant to teach, I sought the advice of a mentor, who plainly told me in a fatherly way, “If you can do this, and not very many people can, you must.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And you can.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">Over the next several years, as I gained confidence and competence as a teacher, I found myself inspired by Teacher Librarians (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">TLs</span>), whose libraries were the centers of student and teacher learning. More than once, these librarians guided me towards better, more effective teaching practices that profoundly improved my students’ abilities to achieve.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">When I taught 7<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">th</span> grade English, I knew without a doubt it was critical that my students read.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A lot.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I knew they needed to check out library books and read them at home, that we should read and discuss books in class.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">didn</span>’t fully understand, until a Teacher Librarian taught me, was that I could also discover why students <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">didn</span>’t like reading and then change that.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I could read what my students read, and show them how to find challenging, mind-boggling material on related topics.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I could do more than plod through classics; I could create lovers of literature.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a Teacher Librarian who showed me a way to analyze a student’s reading history, to question him on his reading habits, and to pair him with the perfect book that would send him on a quest for more.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">I once taught a class of highly gifted students whose curiosity and abilities stretched my limits as an educator.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My Teacher Librarian suggested reading with them a memoir, <i>Finding Fish</i>, the story of a boy who overcomes insurmountable obstacles to create a life he has chosen for himself.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As we read this powerful book, each student found his or her own inspiration, and we worked with the Teacher Librarian to transform this experience into an exploration of social issues, ethics, and family, until finally the students crafted their own<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>profoundly personal memoirs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These children learned to read beyond the stories presented by authors and saw their own stories within.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I could not have done this without my librarian.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">It occurred to me then that the librarian is a person who works closely with every single person on campus. This person can improve a teacher’s craft and help students tackle difficult, academic questions. Upon reflection, I found that I wanted to be that person too, so back to school I went, earning a Library Media Services credential and Masters degree.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">At that point, my classroom changed from a small, cramped space where 150 kids tramped in and out each day, to a spacious library where I got to interact with up to 500 people every single day, students, teachers, and parents alike.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My conversations with students began to include shipwrecks and electric eels, World War II, origami, post-apocalyptic fiction and Captain Underpants. I spend time helping students read difficult passages for their research, helping them select reading material, and teaching them to navigate complicated technology and intellectual property issues.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They come individually, in small groups, and as whole classes where I team-teach alongside content-area teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I became the queen of all content.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As my predecessor often said, “Librarians don’t know everything, but they know how to <i>find </i>everything.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I had the best job on campus, but by no means the easiest.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">TLs</span> sprint all day long trying to meet the needs of an entire school community.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is wonderfully exhausting.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">Soon after I began my work in the library, a teacher came to me about Mario, an 8<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">th</span> grader who said he had never read an entire book in his life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mario was a struggling reader, an English Learner, and he needed my help.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I recommended a title that I had learned about from one of my mentors, a short, funny, mysterious book that appeals to reluctant boy readers of that age.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mario took it home, read it in a week, and came back with a horde of his friends to check out the remaining titles in the series.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When he was ready to tackle more challenging content, I started him on a program of listening to audio books while following along in the text, a strategy helpful for building fluency and comprehension.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Mario would come to library while on breaks from school (we are a year-round school) and sit for hours, headphones on, reading.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was able to work closely with him to develop techniques for tackling difficult passages and muddling through the strange vocabulary, later transitioning him back into reading the books on his own, no help from the audio.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By the end of that one school year, Mario had read 42 books, meeting the Million Word goal set by the state of California for all 8<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">th</span> graders.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>From zero to forty-two in one short year; Mario was ready for high school.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is the power of the school library.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">Since then, I have had students share with me astounding truths about the crucial nature of the library program.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Recently one 8<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">th</span> grade girl told me that she would never have learned to love reading if it <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">hadn</span>’t been for a book I recommended to her in 6<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">th</span> grade.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She is now on her way to a prestigious college preparatory high school with a nearly full scholarship.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Others tell me the library is their favorite place on campus, a place where they feel at home and safe to explore their own, blossoming interests.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some alumni of the school, now attending charter high schools without libraries, come back regularly to ask for recommendations and to beg me to loan them books.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">During the 2008-09 school year, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">LAUSD</span> started a massive layoff process that has finally weaseled its way down to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">TLs</span>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Thousands of educators have received <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">RIFs</span> (Reduction-in-Force notices).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some leave <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">LAUSD</span> for the purportedly greener pastures of charter schools and others become subs; some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">RIFs</span> get rescinded at the last minute.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This year, Teacher Librarians with seniority stretching far into the past (in one case, to the 1970s) also got <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">RIFs</span>.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">Not only that, it seems that we are barred from returning to a traditional classroom setting as well, even if we ultimately fail to protect our libraries. A new <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">recency</span> rule (or a newly enforced one) states that educators who’<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">ve</span> been out of the traditional classroom for five years or more can no longer return to their original posts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is in reaction to the utter failure of last year’s attempt to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">acclimatize</span> teachers who’d been in an cubicle setting for a decade.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Returning to the classroom after that long<i> is </i>difficult and <i>should </i>be considered very carefully.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But Teacher Librarians have not been in cubicles, but in schools, working with students day in and day out.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">I received a RIF last year, only to have it rescinded at the last minute.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This year, I was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">RIFed</span> again, and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">recency</span> rule is threatening to take me down for good.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even if my RIF is rescinded and I am able to return to the classroom, there is no indication that the library at my school, or any school, will stay open for the students next year.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">I have spent three full days at the hearings in the last two weeks (and my library has been closed, the weeks just before state testing begins).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Finally, today, I was meant to give my testimony, but a paperwork snafu caused the court to delay my hearing, if I am to be given one at all.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">So, in the basement of the California Mart building downtown, hearings for <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">RIFed</span> educators have been taking place every day since April 25<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_22">th</span>, undetected by the bustling world above ground. Teachers come to these hearings to defend their qualifications in front of a judge, hoping that someone in the legal system will understand what the students of this city need. Union lawyers attempt to show that we (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">TLs</span>) teach on a daily basis, that we are defined by our contracts with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_24">LAUSD</span> as (implied by the title) Teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In these hearings, the burden of proof seems to be on the librarians, although our credentials are valid in every way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_25">LAUSD</span>’s lawyers, our e<i><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_26">mployer</span>’s </i>lawyers, do everything they can to prove otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They say that using the Dewey Decimal System requires so much math that we are no longer practiced in the teaching of English.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They ask us to recite PE standards for 2<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_27">nd</span> graders, implying that if we cannot, we should not be allowed near elementary schools.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One teacher is asked to duplicate a history lecture in order to prove he knows the content.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This, in spite of the fact that his teaching credential from the State of California indicates definitively that he has met competency requirements for the subject matter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">LAUSD</span> challenging the validity of the State of California’s measures for qualifying teachers?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If so, it seems that a different conversation needs to be had, and without us on the stand.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">If the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_29">RIFs</span> stand and the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_30">recency</span> rule stands, 87 Teacher Librarians will be forced to leave <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_31">LAUSD</span> entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>87 school libraries will close completely, or schools will be forced to knowingly violate state Education Code to keep them open with only clerical staff , no credentialed Teacher Librarian<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>in sight.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My school’s library is home to nearly forty thousand items, from books to DVDs to art prints.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A million dollar value serving over two thousand students, this space may go unattended for years. Or worse, it may be slowly destroyed as well-intentioned teachers and students use it without the help of a TL to oversee, curate, and organize the collection.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">There is not only the risk of a financial loss here, but an ideological one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Librarians are the keepers of knowledge and defenders of the right to access that knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Without libraries, our students’ access to accurate, quality information, as well as current, compelling reading material, practically disappears.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Without Teacher Librarians, our schools are left further behind the curve and behind the times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We should give our children what we <i>know</i> that they need, not just what we can afford, or what we feel like giving them at the time. In a state that ranks in the bottom half nationwide when it comes to student achievement, can <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_32">LAUSD</span> really afford to ignore what research has proven to be effective time and again?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px; "> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family: "Cambria","serif";mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria;mso-bidi-font-family:Cambria">During this process, I cannot help but reflect on the words of my earliest mentor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can do this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I must do this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am being told that I am no longer allowed to do this.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><o:p> </o:p></p></span></div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-7903621997522940142011-05-17T15:48:00.000-07:002011-05-17T16:30:34.021-07:00At What Cost?Well, the judge ruled today that in order to return to the classroom, a librarian would have had to teach in said classroom as recently as the '06-07 school year. So all that running around I did because we thought the word <i>preceding</i> might actually <i>mean</i> preceding was for nothin'. Dang.<div>So now my only hope is to get a hearing and testify. The rumor is that the judge will probably make decisions on individual cases, not on librarians as a group. No hearing, no decision, no job.</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, then there's the other side of the coin. Let's say I get a hearing and my RIF is rescinded. That would mean I could continue to work for LAUSD as a Teacher Librarian, right? What happens when there are only fifty schools funding librarian positions, but more than a hundred librarians seeking those positions? What happens is, I'm out of a job. There are a good 70 librarians in the district with more seniority, so I wouldn't have a chance. And because of the recency rule, I couldn't go back to a classroom either, so....</div><div><br /></div><div>Things look bad.</div><div><br /></div><div>Still, I shall try to get a hearing and I will try to get my RIF rescinded. Perhaps Governor Brown will make good on that $3 billion dollar IOU and we'll <i>all</i> get rescinded. Then these hearings will have been beside the point, which makes me wonder how much they are costing the district in the first place, cause it must be a lot. Is this another one of those expenditures that isn't truly necessary in the end? Wouldn't that just be the kicker?</div><div><br /></div><div>Some things the district is paying for in order to prosecute its employees include (note: multiply each of these daily expenses by 27 days as you mentally calculate):</div><div><div><br /><div><ul><li>rental of the <a href="http://www.californiamarketcenter.com/pdfs/EF_ExhibitHall.pdf">Exhibit Hall</a> at the California Market Center </li><li>furniture rental: chairs, tables, table skirts</li><li>court reporter's fee</li><li>court reporter's fee to work after hours to write summary reports for LAUSD officials</li><li>five armed security guards, 2 in the courtroom and 3 at the entrance, to screen teachers as they walk through a metal detector, to search their bags, and to protect the judge</li><li>rent for the other spaces (other floors? some say two whole floors!) of the California Market Center that are being used by LAUSD staff to draw up personnel files on all of the employees taking the stand</li><li>wages for those LAUSD staffers to actually do that work on the personnel files</li><li>lawyers' fees</li><li>judge's fees</li></ul></div><div>Wowsa. That's a lotta clams. </div><div>Listen, I'm glad we live in a world where people can't always just get fired flat out with no explanation and no recourse. I'm glad we get to have the chance to make our cases and show that were are qualified. I'm glad these hearings might just save lots and lots of great teachers from leaving the profession altogether. Yet when I look around that massive, empty exhibit hall and think about all the waste, I just get steamed. Are there no school auditoriums that could have been used? Are there no empty offices at the Beaudry building? Do we need to have FIVE security guards at the hearings, three of them manning an entrance that maybe two dozen people come through each day? Did the tables <i>really</i> need skirts?</div><div><br /></div><div>I wonder how many kids in the district could have been given book to take home for keeps for the cost of renting that Exhibit Hall. Or how many of our school's Million Word Readers could have been given a gift card to a real bookstore (I had an 8th grade boy tell me today that he's never been to a bookstore in his life). I'll bet the cost of that room rental is nearly enough to pay one teacher's salary and benefits for another school year, but whatever, that teacher probably wasn't any good anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-76649436959288755822011-05-16T12:17:00.000-07:002011-05-16T14:28:18.661-07:00Stranger than Fiction<!--[if !mso]> <style> v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> 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href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjznrl_WaOIUJmwV6ENKDI5jq-eBGgJPNkrUc3AKVe_klpQLnt37ypMa-JLO5l6ZrUz4uwWC2hxTVUbzBGxEdBHRyq6B-Xdylh1t0ggbNSt_B9pNrQQEW_lVX_uGIj4CnnWIGektXh_arQt/s1600/food269.jpg"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; color: blue; text-decoration: none;"><span style=""></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; color: black;">Since my last post, a great number of things have happened but nothing has been resolved. Hector Tobar of the LA Times wrote an <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0513-tobar-20110513,0,3002882.column"><span style="color: blue;">article </span></a>touching on many of the topics I wrote about (Thank you, Hector!). I submitted an op-ed for publication in the paper, dozens of people read my blog for the first time, a massive rally took place in Pershing Square, and I was finally called to the witness stand, only to be denied my hearing once again. I am beginning to feel like this would make a better novel or short story than anything else, since the twists the story continues to take are rather hard to believe.<br /><br />Last Wednesday evening, my name appeared on the witness list for the following day, according to the UTLA web page. I geared up, made sure my thoughts were in order, and dug a pair of little-worn black slacks out of the closet. Back to the California Mart I went, sitting through only two other hearings that morning before it was to be my turn (one highlight was when the LAUSD lawyers questioned a librarian about whether he had a couch in his library).<br /><br />The UTLA attorney who reviewed my case felt I had a good one. Not only do I have three current teaching credentials, but there had been a new development in their argument since I was there last. As it turns out, the recency rule that was threatening to banish me from the classroom forever says that one must have taught in a particular subject area within the <b><i>preceding </i></b>five years in order to return to that position. The word <i>preceding</i>, it dawned on the lawyers, could not include this year, the current year, because this year doesn't precede anything, except maybe next year, but since the rule was announced this year, the preceding five years stretch back to 2005-2006. An AH-HA moment, some would say. And oh, how I wanted to shout, "Ah HA!" at the LAUSD attorneys in that moment, because I <i>had </i>been in a traditional classroom in '05-06, so I would be, I presumed, saved.<br /><br />When the judge called for the next witness and my name rang through the warehouse-like room, I began my walk to the stand with confidence. That is, until I heard the LAUSD attorneys say, "Your honor, this person is not a witness in these proceedings." Uh-oh. (And also, this <i>person</i>? I’m pretty sure that’s what they said. This <i>person</i>, like I am without an identity but just one of a massive herd, like cattle tagged for slaughter. <i>This particular cow is not fit for consumption, your honor</i>.<i> We suspect unacceptable levels of contamination.</i>)<br /><br />As it turned out, neither the judge nor the prosecutors had me on their lists. This issue had supposedly been 'flagged' twice in the last week with no response from UTLA. A critical form had not been drawn up, signed by me, and submitted to the judge by a certain date, and so, no hearing for me. The judge accused someone of incompetency (poor guy) and then asked for the next witness.<br /><br />So, what happened to cause all of this? I was furloughed and out of town when the legal papers arrived at my home and were due back to the district. I appealed to the union to declare me as a late-filer deserving of a hearing. I sent the union all the necessary paperwork. The paperwork was not processed. This took at least an hour for everyone to understand, and by that time the judge had called the lunch break. The UTLA lawyers informed me of two options. First, try to get LAUSD to agree to stipulate that I have recency and therefore can return to a classroom. Second, try to appeal to the judge to give me a hearing, even though the paperwork was not in order.<br /><br />Before I explain what has happened since then, a few comments on these two options:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; color: black;">Option One: If the lawyers can just <i>decide </i>that I can go back to the classroom without bothering with a hearing, then why is anyone who was in a classroom in '05-06 even having a hearing (or am I the only one?)? If, in fact, the word <i>preceding </i>carries such weight, then shouldn't the court simply state that all librarians who were in a class that year are safe and be done with it?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; color: black;">Option Two: If I were the judge, I wouldn't give me a hearing at this point. After two weeks, they've only gotten through maybe 75 cases. The proceedings are supposed to be finished by June 2nd, for goodness sakes. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, more cases to hear. Why in the world should they add another? I mean, yes, I'd like the opportunity, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense for them to add me back in. And yes, I'm a little ticked off that I did what I was meant to do and a paperwork snafu was my downfall, but I also understand that when thousands of people are filing paperwork through one office that is handling all of the organizational matters for a process like this, the law of averages dictates that somebody's papers get lost in the shuffle. It had to be someone, and it was just me.<br /><br />At that point I was told that the best thing I could possibly do is show that I taught 7th grade English in 2005-2006 so that perhaps my recency could be officially established. I needed to prove this with some sort of documentation because, for some reason, LAUSD itself is unable to do so. My employer does not have a ready record of my employment. Figures. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; color: black;">The strange and absurd struggle I went through to do this is as follows: </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"></span></p> <ol start="1" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">The easiest way would be to show my evaluation for that year. Too bad! I wasn't evaluated that year (tenured teachers are evaluated every other year).</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Or, I could have the principal from that school write a statement of my assignment. Sorry! She's retired.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Hey, maybe I could call the school district to see if they have some sort of record that I actually taught English in one of their schools. Nope! IF they do, and they don't promise they do, it would be in storage and take weeks to find and, by the way, no one is going to go looking.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Next idea, go to the school where I taught the elusive 7th grade English classes and track down someone who can help me contact the retired principal. A near success, but she's on vacation and won't be back in town for days.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Perhaps my attendance and grade records are still on file at the school. That would work. But no, they are also in deep storage, or perhaps they've been purged, so try again.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">In a random stroke of luck, I discover that my husband actually works with the husband of the current principal of that school who is home on maternity leave. So my husband finds her husband at the food truck outside their building and explains the situation. Her husband calls her at home, disrupting some important mother-child bonding I am sure, and she agrees to call her office manager to see if they can dig a little deeper on my behalf. (Really, I am not making this up.)</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">The next day, it dawns on me that I still know a counselor from that school, so I call her to see if she can access old records showing students' course assignments, and sure enough she can. She faxes me some student schedules showing I was their English teacher.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">The principal on maternity leave verifies my assignment and faxes me a statement.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">I take all of this back down to the basement of the California Mart on Friday afternoon where they have adjourned for the day. It takes all my strength to hand over these precious documents to the very people who failed to process the last set I gave them, but since I kept the originals and several sets of copies I made before arriving, I go ahead and do it.</span></li></ol> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">And that, as they say, is that. I am no closer to knowing what will happen to my employment status with LAUSD. No overall ruling has been made about librarians as a group. No statement has been made about whether recency will extend to ’05-06 after all. No one has called or emailed me to let me know if the judge is going to rule in my favor, let me have a hearing, or kick me to the curb.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Now, our best chance as Teacher Librarians may be the media. A truly marvelous number of people read my last blog post and re-Tweeted, Facebooked, or blogged it. Hector Tobar’s article in the LA Times received more than 300 comments (some completely inane, but some truly heartfelt) and has been re-posted on countless other sites. Perhaps I will have an op-ed in place this week, perhaps a Librarian will be interviewed on NPR, and perhaps more and more attention will be paid to the problem.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">As this story unravels (and as I unravel along with it), one comment posted on the LA Times article haunts me. The reader wondered why we Librarians think it would be ok for the district to allow us to stay at the expense of 87 other ‘regular’ teachers who would be laid off in our place. It’s a point that many people may feel compelled to make, and I will say this to those who find it to be a reasonable argument: </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Teachers and teacher-librarians don’t want to bump one another out of a job. Restoring the TLs to their libraries, or even allowing them to return to traditional classrooms, does not have to cost another teacher his/her job. Of course there are budget shortfalls and of course changes must be made to how we use money in schools. The real question that needs to be asked here is how can the school district prioritize spending that leads to student achievement and eliminate spending that doesn't? </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">There are so many areas where the district could reduce spending in order to put students, teachers, and libraries closer to the top if its list. Like the $4.5 million dollars that was spent this year to develop a district version of the ‘value-added’ approach to looking at test scores (you may remember ‘value-added’ from the series of LA Times articles last year that caused quite a ruckus). There are already a million existing ways to look at and interpret data; we are swimming in data. That $4.5 million did not <i>have </i>to be spent that way, but it was. What we need to ask is <i>why</i> it was, at this moment in time, when true instructional programming is being slashed and burned?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">As we are forced into increasingly tight financial corners, really awful decisions have to be made. So let's ask the questions that may lead to some answers, some actions, that we can be proud of in the end. What do we really care about when it comes to the education of our children, learning in general, and the uses of information? If we don’t care about libraries, if we don’t acknowledge their necessary function in any free, educated society, what will happen as a result?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">I know, I know, this is quickly changing from an account of my personal experiences at the RIF trials into a deeper, philosophical rant that I may not even be qualified to facilitate. That is not my intention, but it's awfully hard to avoid.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">Have you ever eaten a steamed artichoke? I just had one last night. It takes <i>forever. </i>You spend all this time pealing off leaf after leaf, sort of burning your fingers as you go (if you're like me and are too impatient to wait for it to cool). Then you finally get done with all of the outer leaves, and by that time you're pretty sick of artichoke, but you know that you're almost at the heart. Except then you have to get past all those finicky little hairlike things covering the heart, and they get all over the place, sort of like dandelion fluff, and when you finally get to eat the heart, some of the hairlike things get caught in your teeth and you decide that it's a whole lot easier just to buy a jar of marinated hearts than to do this, even though you know this is so much more natural and good for you. You know what I mean?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";">I think I'm only about halfway through the leaves of this massive artichoke of a problem and my fingers are scorched. I'm about to give it up and order a pizza.</span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> </span><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> </span><br /><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif";"> </span>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-18538178601177131632011-05-09T16:10:00.000-07:002011-05-09T16:13:52.534-07:00Settle in. It's a long one.<p class="MsoNormal">In the basement of the California Mart building in downtown Los Angeles, one can find a series of bright, cavernous rooms buzzing with the sound of the fluorescent panels that hang from a ceiling of exposed ducts and wiring.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In the back of one of these rooms sits three long tables decorated with black table skirts along with perhaps a dozen rows of hard, plastic chairs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The room is exceptionally cold. Footsteps can be heard echoing each time someone makes his way to the restroom or to take a phone call.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is the setting for the Los Angeles Unified School District’s hearings for educators who have received a Reduction in Force notice. In other words, this is where teachers come to defend their qualifications in front of a judge in the hopes that someone in the legal system will understand what the students of this city really need.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>From what I’ve seen in the last two days, that just doesn’t seem likely.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A bit of a disclaimer, before I dig in.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am not a reporter.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I am a teacher, a librarian, and a writer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This account is crafted from my personal perspective, biased as it may be, and combines events from two days observing the hearings.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As there were no reporters present, my point of view may be the only one available to the general public at this moment.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I do not contend that the events detailed here are exact or verbatim.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I do contend that this is the gist of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">From my cold, plastic chair facing the court, I can observe on my right hand side the attorneys for United Teachers Los Angeles, who are the men that will make my case when the time comes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Their table is laden with binders nearly eight inches thick that are filled with the thousands of documents we teachers have entered into evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These are teaching credentials, lesson plans, and letters of recommendation, among other things.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most of this will not be admitted into evidence, or if it is, will be labeled hearsay.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What a waste of paper.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The UTLA attorneys seem flustered and distracted at their worst, but can be pointed and on top of things at times.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They are slightly more knowledgeable about their clients and schools than LAUSD’s lawyers, I would say, but that is not saying much.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On my left is the school district’s table of attorneys.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They have a plastic cart filled with evidence binders and their own files of information collected on each of us in what I can only assume was a rather hurried manner. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have come to think of them as evil incarnate.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One appears to be content in his role, the other a reluctant but acquiescent pawn who may have trouble looking himself in the mirror at bedtime.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They are there to squash the credibility of teachers and librarians without mercy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My employer has become my enemy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps the most important thing to note, the most important point of all, is that these legal eagles seem to know very little about education.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Pedagogy, current research, and national trends escape them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Their line of questioning is often nonsensical and even absurd, eliciting ripples of laughter among the forty or so educators watching the proceedings.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These are the people making the decisions about what will happen, day after day, in our schools.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The hearings crawl along at a snail’s pace, each attorney and the judge rifling through mountains of documents and then discussing which belongs in evidence and which does not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The respondents wait on the stand, suddenly unsure of their own skills as teachers after long and tiresome rounds of questions that mean nothing to a person who spends her days inside a classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The students are almost never mentioned by the attorneys, except to ask whether we take attendance for them or enter their into grades into a computer system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes a hearing becomes riveting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I find myself perched on the edge of my seat, waiting to hear what shocking question will spill out of the LAUSD attorney’s mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The first of these concerns a teacher named Mrs. Cook, a lovely, well-dressed woman in her early forties perhaps.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As far as I understand, Mrs. Cook has taught Advanced Placement Government, Economics, and World History at So-and-So High School for a number of years, but not<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> that</i> many.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She was laid off by the district because her seniority date did not reach back far enough into the past for them to consider her truly qualified.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mrs. Cook was there to contest her RIF on the following grounds:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One, she was the only of the three History teachers at her school both willing and able to teach Advanced Placement coursework.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Two, in the years she has been teaching the AP classes, the passing rate on the AP tests has gone up nearly forty percent, helping many of her students gain credit, admittance, and scholarships for college.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Three, depriving the school of their only AP History teacher simply because of a seniority issue creates an inequity of services for the students in that community and her RIF should therefore be rescinded.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, duh.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The attorneys from LAUSD asked Mrs. Cook a number of questions, but the really juicy stuff came near the end of her testimony. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Mrs. Cook, didn’t you testify that there are two other credentialed history teachers at your school with more seniority than you?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mrs. Cook: Yes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD: <span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>So, if you were no longer a teacher at that school, there would be two other teachers who could teach the AP classes?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mrs. Cook: Technically yes, but as I said before, each of them has stated that he will not accept a position teaching AP coursework.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In addition, they have not received the training required to write an AP syllabus that would be acceptable to the College Board.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>But they could, isn’t that correct?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mrs. Cook: Well, I suppose, but they’ve said that they will not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD :<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Please, Mrs. Cook, just answer the question I’m asking.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These two teachers who have more seniority than you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">could</i> teach the AP classes in your place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Is that correct?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Poor Mrs. Cook:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Yes, that is correct.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unbelievable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Here is how this translates in my mind:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Los Angeles Unified School District does not give a rip that the students at So-and-So High will no longer have a qualified AP history teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They do not care who the most effective educator might be.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They do not care if the students go to college. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They. Do. Not. Care.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They have instructed their attorneys to go for the jugular, and to do so, they are ignoring years of mandates that have required teachers to jump through hoop after hoop to become highly qualified.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No longer does one need to be trained to teach Advanced Placement.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>One just needs to be old enough and to be present. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">These thoughts are occurring to me for the very first time, even though we are in the third year of massive teacher layoffs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Before sitting in on this hearing, I was under the impression that my large, mismanaged school district was more a bumbling idiot than a conniving schemer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now though, I have been given a glimpse of the truth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Some background is necessary here, I think.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Two school years ago, LAUSD initiated year one of the Reduction-in-Force (RIF) movement, pleading budget shortfalls.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We accepted this as an inevitability of the global economic crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was unfortunate; we protested, we passed out leaflets, but we did not strike.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My school lost many wonderful, bright, talented educators to charter and private schools, as well as careers outside of education.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Many decided to return to law or medicine, the careers they had dreamed of as children before discovering the nuanced beauty of pedagogy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We persisted with substitute teachers in classes where no one would accept a position.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We worried about what would happen next.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And then it did.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One school year ago, we experienced another round of layoffs, again reducing our pool of energetic, innovative teachers and replacing them with people who were shuffled around from school to school, or office to school, who didn’t really want to be where the district was placing them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Many stayed only a month or two before fleeing for greener pastures, and the students suffered.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The ACLU took action against the district for the inequitable layoffs in schools in impoverished areas.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Forty-two schools were declared exempt from year three’s layoffs (in the event they would happen, which of course they did), but mine was not among them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Even though we had nearly thirty teachers who <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>received RIFs <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">each</i> year (many more than in schools in areas with higher socio-economic indicators), even though our school is in an impoverished part of Los Angeles, we were not put on the exemption list because, and here’s the kicker, our test scores were too high.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We were, essentially, punished for succeeding.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This year, once again, thousands of teachers went home to find the dreaded notification of a certified letter at the end of a long, taxing day in the classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Many didn’t bother to pick up the certified letter, knowing what it would say (side note: how much money was spent sending thousands of certified letters?). Nearly five thousand people, most of them tenured this time around, received the notice and started the wait.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The wait consists of three months (at least) of psychological terror during which one does not know what will happen to one’s passion and commitment, income, mortgage payments, and general livelihood the following school year. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Last year, members of the union voted to accept seven furlough days in exchange for hundreds of jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This year, LAUSD wants twelve with no solid indication of what will be saved with that sacrifice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have yet to strike, and this battle is being fought relatively quietly and within our own ranks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is, unfathomably, not yet part of the general public’s consciousness.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So here I am, in the basement, the light panels zapping my brain as it dawns on me that these hearings are no innocent byproduct of a global economic collapse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Something sinister is happening, but I can’t yet put my finger on it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On and on it goes, teacher after teacher getting pummeled by bullies who are dumber than dirt when it comes to education.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Law, they seem to know ok.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or maybe it’s not law, but something else, like badgering and stalling.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s how it feels as I watch.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m not here just as an observer.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Soon I will be under that gun, so I want to see what I’m in for while I can still prepare.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The real show for me begins when the Teacher Librarians (TLs) begin to take the stand.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>TLs are being eliminated by the district, or so it seems.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I do not approve of this, nor do I think it will result in any real monetary savings in the long run, since the amount of money that will be needed for intervention later in order to make up for the lack of reading skills this causes will be phenomenal.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>However, the squabble the TLs are having with the district at these hearings is not even about the closure of dozens of libraries across the city.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What we object to now (after having reluctantly and not fully conceding the point about libraries in general, since it has proven nearly unwinnable) is the recency rule that says were are no longer qualified to teach in a classroom setting in our other teaching credential(s), which means we are flat out fired no matter what our seniority dates might be.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Twenty-five years as a teacher?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If you made the mistake of transitioning into a Librarian position, too bad!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You are no longer qualified.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The logic behind the recency rule seems to be based on poor decision making from last year.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>LAUSD sent scores of people into classrooms who had been sitting in cubicles for ages.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These were people with dusty old teaching credentials, waiting for retirement in the cool, air-conditioned Beaudry building in downtown LA.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(To be fair, many of these people did real, important work in their office settings. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I personally know people who may have been in cubicles, but remained good teachers in spite of not spending their days in schools.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>A generalization is made here only to drive home a point. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You will recall that I am not a journalist presenting the cold hard facts, but a teacher attempting to provide a synopsis of a cold, hard process. ) When layoffs began, these educators were saved because of their time served, but their office positions were cut and they went back to school for the first time in who knows how long.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This did not go well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Everything had changed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The research, the curriculum, the technology, the furniture, the processes, the policies, the basic and fundamental understanding of how students learn.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">An epic failure, test scores took a dive as unruly and bored children rebelled and administrators struggled to reacclimatize these cubicle-dwellers with slow, low success rates.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So this year, LAUSD got wise.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Make a rule that says that if you haven’t been in a classroom for five years, you can’t be in one ever again.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No more problem, right?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here’s the rub. The library <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">is a classroom</i>, not a cubicle.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Teacher Librarians perform all of the functions that classroom teachers perform on a daily basis.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>TLs know the content well.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>TLs attend faculty and department meetings, have conferences with parents, plan lessons, deliver instruction, evaluate student work, and, by the way, are defined by their contracts with LAUSD as……Teachers.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So here I am in this courtroom day after day, waiting for my chance to prove that I am a teacher, and that this recency rule that was applied like a wet blanket over all of us should not stand.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When the TLs got on the stand, thing got tense.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And so tedious I cannot even describe how badly I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The best way I can think of explaining the vicious humiliation doled out by the LAUSD attorneys is to describe four scenarios that illustrate their flawed but deliberate reasoning for taking us out of the schools forever.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Scenario One – What Dewey Teach, Anyway?<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A TL whose original teaching credential is in High School English takes the stand.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Let’s say he’s been working for the district for, oh, fifteen years, the last six or seven in the library.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He is attempting to show that he is familiar with the English Language Arts content and curriculum.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>LAUSD wants to prove he is not.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Sir, are you familiar with the Dewey Decimal System?</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Laughter from the peanut gallery as the TLs in the room reflect on the idiocy of these proceedings.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Uh, well, yes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course I am.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Could you please describe to the court what the Dewey Decimal System is?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: It’s an organizational system used in the library to catalog and locate the books.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> And is the Dewey Decimal System an alphabetical system?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Heh.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well, no sir, it’s a numerical system.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>So, the Dewey Decimal System uses numbers, is that correct?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: That is correct.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let me just add that in this moment, we are all on the edge of our seats.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where could this be going?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Is the LAUSD attorney just stalling?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There is no reason we can possibly imagine that he would be asking about dear old Melville Dewey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Would you say that in the course of your day you use numbers?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Gasps from the audience.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What does this even<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> mean</i>?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">UTLA:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Objection.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Vague.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Judge:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Sustained.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Sir, would you say that using numbers is an important part of working in the library on a daily basis?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">UTLA:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Objection! Vague, your honor.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Numbers?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where is this going?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Your honor, I am simply trying to establish that Mr. So-and-So does NOT spend at least 75% of his time working on the English content that he claims he is competent to teach.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">UTLA:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Your honor, the Dewey Decimal System is an organizational system, not a mathematical concept.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This line of questioning is irrelevant.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Judge:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Sustained.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Move on.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So, here is my interpretation of this scenario.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>LAUSD wants to claim that the Dewey Decimal System is a numerical system and therefore we TLs use <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">so</i> much math in our daily practice that we can’t possibly be teaching much else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Well then, why don’t they put us all in math classes?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Riddle me that, why don’t you?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is, of course, absurd on many, many levels.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Our lawyers, the UTLA lawyers, really should have been coached on these matters.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The answer to this line of questioning ought to have made clear that all content area teachers are familiar with and use the Dewey Decimal System, as all content area teachers utilize the library’s resources in the course of their teaching, and therefore the Dewey Decimal System is as ubiquitous on a school campus as is any other regular function that teachers perform and is not related to any specific content area.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is akin to using a table of contents, index, or glossary in a classroom textbook to locate needed information.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I would have also liked to point out that the use of said system is embedded into what we do in such a seamless way that there is not a chance in hell that we spend 25% of our time on it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If that were the case, it would take an hour to find a book on the shelf that it takes only seconds to do in reality.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Scenario Two – Left Hand, Right Hand: Which is Which?<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In this case, LAUSD made an argument opposite to the one above, in terms of the use and practice of content area instruction.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This TL holds a Multiple Subject teaching credential, qualifying her to teach elementary school and some middle school.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She has been teaching as a middle school Teacher Librarian for a decade.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She was an elementary school teacher for a decade before that.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Are you familiar with the California mandates for Physical Education in the first grade classroom?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Do you mean the standards?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Yes, the mandates as set forth by the state of California.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As an aside, no one calls them mandates in the world of education.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He meant standards, but he didn’t know it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If he meant mandates, he might be asking how many minutes of PE are required per week, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These are not things teachers need to know, but are the realm of school administration.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Of course, even though he works for LAUSD, no one told him the difference.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Well, no, not off the top of my head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> So, you don’t know the Physical Education requirements for first grade?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: No, not off the top of my head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Don’t you hold a credential to teach elementary school?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Yes, I do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>If you were to be placed in a first grade classroom position, who would be responsible for making sure the students received the state mandated PE instruction?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: I would.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> But you don’t know what those mandates are?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: You mean the standards? No, not off the top of my head.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here, the LAUSD attorney wants to require us to have memorized all content area standards for grades in which we have not worked for a number of years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They want to say that we are unqualified if this question stumps us, if we have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">not</i> honed in on one content area for 75% of our time (the opposite of the argument from scenario one).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here is what I would say to this: LAUSD, the very district trying to prove we are not capable of adapting, has required each of us to adhere to an ever-changing professional development program for as long as we have been in the district.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We meet at our schools, at the district level, and are sometimes even sent to state or national conferences in order to incorporate new concepts, content, and strategies into our daily instructional practice.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have been taught <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">by the district</i> to adapt to new curricula and assessments that are thrown at us every couple of years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have been taught to learn, and it is LAUSD who has taught us to do so.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If I am truly incapable of reading the first grade PE standards and using my many pedagogical skills to create lessons to teach them, then yes, I am an unqualified teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Knowing the standards off the top of my head has nothing to do with it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here are some examples of the first grade PE standards:</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Kick a rolled ball from a stationary position</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom: .0001pt;mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Identify the right and left sides of the body</p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-add-space:auto;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">·<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Explain the importance of drinking water during and after physical activity</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is not calculus.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I think I could manage to incorporate this into my daily teaching routine without have to return to university for an advanced degree.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I already have an advanced degree, by the way.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s in Education, which means that I know how to deliver instruction about pretty much anything, as long as I understand the content.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I know how to do all of the things listed in the first grade PE standards, so<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">….<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Scenario Three – Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In this scenario, the TL has worked for LAUSD since, I believe, 1977.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He holds multiple teaching credentials, one of them qualifying him to teach high school Social Studies classes, although he has never done so outside of the Library setting.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I see that you’ve submitted a lesson plan into evidence for a research project on various countries.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: That’s correct.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The students were assigned a country and then did research on the history, culture, politics, etc. of that country.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>So, you taught them research skills?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Yes, and I also taught them about the countries they’d been assigned.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> So, you taught them about the history of those countries?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Briefly, yes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As you can see, there are about twenty countries on the list.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> So, you taught them about the history of Armenia?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Yes, briefly, I did.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> Could you please tell the court what you told the class about the history of Armenia?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: You want me to give a lecture on Armenian history?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> Please, if you wouldn’t mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The TL then proceeded to give a 3-4 minute lecture on the history of Armenia.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was spot on, and I think the LAUSD lawyer may have been a bit disappointed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The disrespect for this man’s credentials here is egregious. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Again, why weren’t the UTLA attorneys coached?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Several points that I would have made are: </p> <p class="MsoNormal">One, research skills are a part of almost all content areas at the secondary level, so why is LAUSD treating them as the bastard stepchild relegated only to the library? <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Two, research skills cannot be taught in a vacuum; content is imperative or the research is meaningless.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And finally, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, when issuing a credential to a teacher, verifies that the teacher has met subject matter competency requirements.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If LAUSD takes issue with the CCTC’s definition of subject matter competency, then that should be a discussion between those two organizations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>End of story.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The TL should not have been made to prove to a panel of lawyers with no pedagogical training (and, by the way, perhaps zero knowledge of the history of Armenia?) that his valid, current teaching credential is actually valid.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Scenario Four – Gotcha!<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In this scenario, the LAUSD lawyers just got plain old nitpicky.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> How much of your school day would you say you spend teaching?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: I teach all day long.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> You teach all day?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Yes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> Do you ever catalog books?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Yes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> Are you teaching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">while</i> you are cataloging books?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: (pause) No.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> Do you ever write purchase orders for library materials?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">TL: Yes.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Are you teaching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">while</i> writing these purchase orders?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ack!<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>UTLA lawyers, where are you?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>First, teachers have conference periods.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s when they take care of administrative and clerical tasks.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Second, TLs do all these things in the moments between classes, or after school, or when a class cancels its appointment because of district-mandated testing, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If this is the kind of thing that’s going to persuade the judge to rule against us, I will have lost my faith in judges.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the end of the first day of the hearings I attended, the judge was visibly frustrated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Twenty TLs had been on the docket and only four had been heard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Each of us brought a mountain of evidence that the attorneys would argue about, one page at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The judge asked the attorneys to come to an agreement, to make a deal, to expedite the process.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was clear that she believed the TL testimony would be the same thing over and over.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yes, we teach.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yes, we evaluate student progress.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Yes, we are familiar with the content.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Blah, blah, blah. On and on it would go, unless the lawyers agreed to something that would put an end to this.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps lifting the recency rule for all TLs would do it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps rescinding our RIF notices.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps allowing us to have a single spokesperson testify on the behalf of the group (we had chosen such a person and she was prepared).</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The lawyers conferred and we murmured to each other while sending out a prayer and crossing our fingers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As a group, we had been pummeled pretty hard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We were tired and no one wanted to come back for another round of this the next day, much less for the weeks it would take if they heard us one by one.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We had coffee jitters and our toes were cold from the air-conditioning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We were angry and humiliated, scared of what might happen, frustrated by the snail’s pace and inefficiency of the proceedings.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Please, oh please, just make some sort of deal.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The lawyers returned to their tables.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">UTLA:<span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>Your honor, we were unable to come to an agreement.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">LAUSD:<span style="mso-tab-count:2"> </span>Your honor, we want to prosecute them all.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ouch.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Could that be what he really said?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Prosecute them all?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was; I was sitting just behind him and heard it quite clearly.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So, back the next day, and the next.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The same thing over and over again with the same results.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I believe that’s the definition of insanity, is it not?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So many questions arise as I think about this process.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have answers for none of them, although I do nothing but speculate as I try to fall asleep, as I drive to work, as I shower.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What I think is this:</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>LAUSD does not want to pay for the TLs because we are expensive.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most of us have been teaching long enough with enough advanced degrees that we are at or near the top of the pay scale.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If we were allowed to return to the classroom, our pay would be the same.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Better for LAUSD to discredit us and replace us with young teachers on emergency credentials who will make little more than half of what we do.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is clear that LAUSD has instructed its lawyers to do whatever they can to prove were are unqualified, even though we have satisfied every single requirement for qualification that LAUSD had asked of us for years, not to mention the state itself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is clear that LAUSD does not give credence to the massive volumes of research that prove that school libraries are directly linked to student achievement.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps LAUSD is not aware of this research, but I imagine it is just being ignored.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It is clear that LAUSD is not trying to provide the best possible services for its students.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The AP history teacher is a case in point.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Student achievement is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">not </i>LAUSD’s highest priority.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">What is not clear is what will happen next.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Will the libraries be closed and locked?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Will the district violate state Education Code and keep the libraries open with clerical staff but no credentialed Teacher Librarians?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Who will be the teachers in the coming years, when thousands of qualified and tenured faculty members have been released while the Board of Education announces a massive teacher shortage?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why is there no media coverage of these hearings, and does anyone even know we’re down there in the basement, defending ourselves?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And on a personal level, can I continue working for an organization that wants to prosecute me? Even if the judge rules in my favor, can I stomach the thought of taking a paycheck from a school district that will just keep trying to push me out?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On Friday, I returned to my school.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a pleasure to see the children and to work as a teacher, but it was a bittersweet feeling after having been where I had been.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The truth is, there is little time left to make plans for the library’s future.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If it closes, if I’m released, what will happen to that room?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My library is one of the largest middle school libraries in the entire district, with over 35,000 items in its collection.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There are twenty-five computers, three printers, an LCD projector, and shelves of multimedia resources.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The value of that library is well over a million dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So what will happen to it after June 30<sup>th</sup> of this year, if I am gone and my clerks are gone (yes, they were laid off as well)?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Will teachers and students just come and go as they please, taking books willy-nilly? <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If so, why is LAUSD not concerned about the financial loss implicit in that scenario?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today I am furloughed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Tomorrow I go back to the hearings to plead my case.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I do not want to.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The next day I go back to school to prepare the library to be closed forever, or to be run a few hours a week by a reluctant clerk, or to be ransacked.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The questions continue to pile up, but no answers are forthcoming.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Stand by for further developments.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hurry up and wait. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">At the bottom of all of this is a political reality that I find so daunting, so dark, that to enter into a discussion of it strikes fear in my heart and nausea in my belly. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I believe that this is part of a larger movement in our city (and state, and finally, nation) towards a for-profit education model that takes pressure off of elected officials and puts money in the pockets of clever financiers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Charter organizations are sweeping the nation, taking over school after school under the guise of a reform movement that doesn’t exist.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I believe that LAUSD is in cahoots with this movement.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps it is not LAUSD as a whole, but instead the unseen, rarely heard politicos that move the gears inside the machine, like the Wizard of Oz.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The collapse of LAUSD will accomplish some big things for a few people.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">A Prediction in Ten Simple Steps:<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"></p><ol><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">1.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>LAUSD proves that its teachers are awful and should be fired.</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">2.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>The school board allows charter organizations to take a crack at running the schools.</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">3.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Charter organizations receive public funds meant to finance the education of children (just under $7,500 per student in 2009-2010), but are not required to fund libraries, provide special education services, or pay teachers union wages.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This means that charter schools can pay for services that cost only three or four thousand dollars per student, let’s say, and pocket the rest.</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">4.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Charter organizations are allowed to remove students from their schools at their discretion, sending low-performing students back to the public schools just in time for state testing. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What luck! Schools with no special education students, few English Language Learners, and the ability to remove low-performing students prior to state testing show, according to the only measures we seem to care about (tests), improvement and success, thus lending credibility to the reform ruse.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>(Note: Although people believe that charters’ test scores are higher than public schools, in many cases a direct comparison shows otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Why aren’t they higher, I ask you?)</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">5.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Charter organizations (run largely by financiers, investment bankers, etc who are making a nice profit) gain legitimacy as an educational reform model, making inroads in districts across the nation.</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">6.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Mayors, governors, and other politicians get a nice break from answering for their failing school systems.</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">7.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Qualified teachers move on to other careers, while inexperienced, underpaid teachers are worked to the bone and burn out after only a few years.</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">8.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>This goes on and on for years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Few people notice, because few people think about schools unless they have school-age children.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In a state where people elected not to pay an extra $18 on their car registration in order to fund state parks, who would expect any different?</li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">9.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Consumers begin to wonder why the clerk at the Gap doesn’t understand how to calculate the 40% discount on last season’s khaki capris when her computer is down and her manager is on break.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This seems outrageous.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Eventually, people begin to take note that nearly half of the students entering college need remedial classes, teachers are leaving the profession after just a few years due to burnout, dropout rates increase, and students are faced with huge inequities from campus to campus.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></li><li><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"><span style="mso-list:Ignore">10.<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span></span>Finally, the public demands yet another overhaul of the school system. The charter organizations are evaluated using the same criteria they imposed on public schools years ago to prove their incompetence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The charters are proven incompetent.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Local governments reestablish public school districts and states spend millions of dollars for intervention consultants, trainers, and curricula to swoop in and repair the state of affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Libraries are re-stocked and re-opened.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>New teachers are recruited and trained.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And we begin again, from the beginning.</li></ol><!--[if !supportLists]--><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">As this happens, I will be raising my own children.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I will not be allowed to participate in these movements, and I will not be a teacher.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I will grapple with how to educate my children and will be forced to forsake my belief in free education for the public, because that will no longer exist.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I cannot afford private school for them, and I do not believe home schooling is a good choice in terms of social-emotional development (plus, I cannot afford it).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As a person who has devoted her life to the art and science of teaching, I will be faced with no acceptable choice for my children.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yes, I would like to continue work as a teacher and librarian.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>People who are teachers, real teachers, cannot imagine doing anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s a knack, a calling, like a painter or writer or brain surgeon may feel.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If not allowed to teach, what will we do?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>More than this though, I’d like the children, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">all</i> of the children, to have teachers who are supported, respected, and assisted, not attacked, discredited, and humiliated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’d like the children to be given what we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">know</i> that they need, not just what we can afford, or what we feel like giving them at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe it’s hard to say what they need or how to give it to them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What is abundantly clear to me, however, is that what they don’t need…is this.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-42488768563189848332011-05-02T11:46:00.000-07:002011-05-02T13:19:49.588-07:00Cut Off One Head, See What You Get?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIR4NTZORKhyphenhyphenyxnDis7w-YJiz38ZbqwbuS3jCH2K1fLmqtYm_KKxssMfru-pDlkzSs5U4QZvTpeWpSLR7Pyvdl2WDud7FGBo6JGrI7cRmSWokpPJ0hB9o-v_feLXU8rVE7Tc7XWN8zkm_I/s1600/M12_2Hydra.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5602215815269479154" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 327px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 162px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIR4NTZORKhyphenhyphenyxnDis7w-YJiz38ZbqwbuS3jCH2K1fLmqtYm_KKxssMfru-pDlkzSs5U4QZvTpeWpSLR7Pyvdl2WDud7FGBo6JGrI7cRmSWokpPJ0hB9o-v_feLXU8rVE7Tc7XWN8zkm_I/s400/M12_2Hydra.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>Since my last, long post many things have happened, both within my boggled mind and at my school. First and best is that for several days after I wrote, I felt a renewed sense of enthusiasm for my work. It was so surprising to find, just the next morning, that I was experiencing a true sense of joy and purpose in my interactions with the students. Since that time, my school had its annual Arts Week celebration, and I spent all last week teaching students about American painters from the late 1800s to the 1950s, art from the Age of Exploration, painters of the Harlem Renaissance, and Greek mythology as portrayed in ancient vase paintings. I've lesson planned, made summer reading lists, delivered instruction, and basically done all the things I love to do on a daily basis. Sounds pretty nice, right? It has been. I've been thinking that sticking around is pretty tempting, considering there is clearly still good teaching to be done. I've been thinking that it's not so bad, that perhaps all I needed was to vent. I've been thinking that I could put this difficult time to good use, chronicling it for public consumption to increase awareness about the difficulties our education system faces. I've been feeling pretty positive. Until....<br /><br />1. I saw the budget for the next school year.<br />2. The district started holding hearings for teachers who had received RIF notices.<br /><br />So, first, the budget. What to say? It's would be very long winded to give a full explanation, but I think I can sum it up for you pretty well with one line-item, a position called Ed Aide II. This position is currently held by five women at our school. 2 work as library clerks, 2 work in the copy room, and 1 works (I think) in an office. These women work 3 hours a day and make, I'm guessing here, about $10.00. LAUSD spends less than $10,000 a year to fund each one each year. This year, however, LAUSD cannot afford that whopping $50,000 and is taking us down to a limit of ONE Ed Aide II on campus. That one is determined by seniority, which means my wonderful, amazing library clerk who has worked here for a decade and whose children went to school here (one of whom is my other clerk) is going to be out of a job, or <em>maybe</em> will be able to move to another school nearby, but maybe not. So no library clerks, and a copy room that's open three hours per day is prioritized because we don't trust teachers not to break the machine. And four women out of a job.<br />The three hour meeting that I attended to learn about the budget presented us with countless scenarios like this one that we are helpless to prevent.<br /><br />2. Late last week, other librarians began to have their hearings to defend their rights to return to the classroom. You see, the district made a new rule this year. If you've been out of the "classroom" for 5 years, you are no longer qualified to be in the classroom, so you're fired. I have been out of the "classroom" for exactly 5 years. The district says that means I cannot teach English, history, or anything else I once taught. Of course, in my current job description and according to my contract with the district, I am still considered a teacher, but I guess just not a teacher of the right stuff. I understand why they made this rule. It's because in the last two years, they put people into classrooms who had been in cubicles for more than a decade. I can see how those people might have needed a few refresher courses before returning to the classroom. I mean, if you left for a cubicle in the mid-90s, you might not be so up-to-date on current literature, pedagogical research, technology tools, etc. I get that. But I'm not IN a cubicle. I'm teaching children every day, and working with teachers to plan instruction, and....oh, well, I am preaching to the choir here. Anyone reading this knows I'm a teacher. For crying out loud!<br />So, librarians are taking documentation in quintuplicate that shows that they teach on a daily basis and then they are crossing their fingers that the union-appointed lawyer can convince the judge that they teach enough to gain the right to return to the classroom. And this is being done one person at a time.<br />I don't get to have a hearing. I was furloughed the week the hearing notice came to my house, which was the same week I had to return a piece of paper saying I wanted to have said hearing. I made the mistake of leaving town that week (foolish me for wanting a little getaway while I'm furloughed!), and the district won't accept late paperwork for any reason. So, even if I had my three-hole-punched packet in quintuplicate that would prove I do my job every day (and that my job is to TEACH), it wouldn't matter. No one wants to hear about it.<br /><br />After the last time I wrote, things got so good for a moment that I had pretty much decided to stay. At least I would stay at <em>some</em> school, if not this school, and keep working for the people who matter - the students. Now though, I may not have that choice. I am waiting for a loop hole, something that will allow me the right to return to the classroom even though I have no right to a hearing. It seems unlikely, but then again, things change rapidly in this district so that one just never knows....<br /><br />PS - This is TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK. Please, appreciate your teachers if you get the chance.</div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-41771247272022373812011-04-21T12:06:00.000-07:002011-04-21T12:10:41.680-07:00A Sure Thing<div>There is really only one question to ask:</div><br /><br /><br /><div>What sensible Hispanic or African-American middle school student in South Central, Los Angeles <em>wouldn't</em> want to read this book?<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598115843278185026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHSTy3gR0lFP3QTeJqCUE7SXEZlC9WPRypF0D54ijrIcihozQZ2DypnHc3uN33VpxDCYtSC5jneBS_4MyEggm8MSs10lanynxaym50ppr8Ba6_dynUg2WLXvZNsrDrIWIJl_UV8sK1NvdE/s400/scan.bmp" border="0" /></div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-18394542034691291522011-04-12T12:25:00.000-07:002011-04-12T14:17:02.086-07:00Flirting with Disaster<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ee5yGN05Ibu6wwhiA55FAHhgVqaZw5wUFL_2QjIMDrEjD4RsLjRnL03SeXKKUGBjD_mQU67WicDVRFBmSoQ1hLvTG8U5Pm50VZGOWLSp4ePxzOHJuXeXKu_IKcWvuDXyZtUNq2hyphenhyphenbuWc/s1600/Addie_006.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 150px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5594808618428301922" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ee5yGN05Ibu6wwhiA55FAHhgVqaZw5wUFL_2QjIMDrEjD4RsLjRnL03SeXKKUGBjD_mQU67WicDVRFBmSoQ1hLvTG8U5Pm50VZGOWLSp4ePxzOHJuXeXKu_IKcWvuDXyZtUNq2hyphenhyphenbuWc/s200/Addie_006.jpg" /></a> <br /><div>I have been avoiding this blog for three months and a handful of days. Recently, a teacher at my school wondered if it wouldn't be therapeutic to begin writing again. These past few months have been traumatic, to say the least, for educators all over Los Angeles and in many other parts of the country. I haven't written because I didn't want to whine and complain; this blog is meant to be about the joys of the library, not the crumbling of the public education empire. After three months and a handful of days, however, I can no longer avoid the reality of this collapse, and it is becoming so deeply hurtful and personal that I do need the therapy. Badly. For the first time in eleven years I am seriously considering what life would be like if I just didn't work in a school anymore. The luxury of that decision is so mouth-wateringly tempting that I have found myself browsing nonprofit job listings more than once in the last few weeks. Just to think of a life that doesn't start until after 6am! A one-hour lunch break! </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>The public school system in Los Angeles is on the verge of collapse, or at least it feels that way to me sometimes. More and more schools are being auctioned off to charter organizations, in spite of the fact that many of those charters have not proven to be any better in terms of student achievement. Massive layoffs and budget cuts mean that each day is a struggle for teachers and students trying to navigate the most basic of everyday operations. These operations take so much time on all of our parts (since our staff is down to a skeleton crew) that instructional time starts to disappear, processes erode, chaos ensues. Two BIG charter organizations have put in bids for my school. Meaning that after the next school year, the Board of Education will decide whether those of us who have been working our butts off for the last decade are good enough to keep fighting the good fight, or if some politico has offered a slick enough package to make it seem like selling us out to a charter organization is real education reform, which it is not. I repeat, giving public school control to charter organizations does not equal educational reform.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I just want to be a teacher. That's it. I want to teach children in a large, underperforming school in South Central, Los Angeles. Is that really so much to ask? I mean, I was under the impression for the last ten years that there aren't that many people out there who really want to do what I want to do. Am I wrong? Are people clamoring for this job? I heard an ad on NPR last week for a teacher preparation program practically begging people to become teachers in order to fight the "overwhelming teacher shortage" in this country. WHAT? Where? Half the people I know have been fired in the last two years. They all wanted to work here, chose to work here, and were told they were not needed. Now I'm being told the same thing, and even if I manage to scrape through and hang on for one more year, my school will probably be usurped by a charter kingdom that will most likely shut the library doors because, according to many (if not most) charters, it doesn't make financial sense to fund the library program. This is, of course, in opposition to pretty much all research done on the subject, which proves time after time that libraries are critical to student achievement. But whatever, right?</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>Here's the thing. I don't want to fight a political battle for the next year, breaking my neck to write a competing plan that will explain why what we do here was working quite well until a third of our teachers were fired two years ago and another big chunk was sent home again last year, and another group again a few weeks ago.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I don't want to have to beg the Board of Education to value school libraries. They should already value them, don't you think? They should be able to see that our school's test scores were going up steadily, year after year, and only took a dip AFTER the first, massive, painful round of layoffs that stranded our students in classrooms with substitutes every day or people who had been out of the classroom for more than a decade.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I don't want to hear bad news every day. </div><br /><div>I just want to be a teacher. I am a teacher. Why don't they want me?</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>This whole thing is somehow deeply, personally painful for me. I find myself feeling resigned, depressed, and rejected. I worked so very, very hard to become a good teacher. My first year in the classroom was as bad as they say it can be. I struggled in front of my students and wept when they left the room. I drank too much tequila on the weekends to dull the pain, and I somehow found my way to the surface, gasping and flailing, to find that I loved the job and wanted to do it forever. I found a mentor who told me to persist, that I should and I must, and I followed that advice even though it was the most difficult thing I've ever done. I have earned three teaching credentials and a Masters in Education, but the school board is going to make me attend a hearing to defend my qualifications as a teacher, as if all of that time and work means nothing to them. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>I have never met a single, real human person who has said that they think teachers or libraries are unimportant. Where are these people? I suppose I'm grateful I don't know them, but the fact is, they're controlling my life even though they seem to be invisible figments of our collective imagination. Does everyone just SAY they think teachers are awesome but then secretly answer some clandestine survey saying the opposite? It's so hard for me to understand, and that lack of understanding has translated into (as all good teachers know) frustration, fear, anger, and apathy.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>So what do I do? That's the real crux, is it not? What the hell do I do?</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>1) Flee. Get out while the gettin's good (although it's not really that good, is it?). Leave public education for the seemingly greener pastures of....what? Nonprofit work? That's where I get stuck.</div><br /><div>2) Stay. Keep plodding along for the sake of these marvelous children. Figure out a way to stay at least one more year before the school board has its menacing way with us. Cope with the everday tension and pain. Keep checking out library books to the kids who, thank god, don't know the difference.</div><br /><div>3) Fight. Join the protesting masses. Write on this blog vehemently and often. Write letters and sign petitions, work long hours, respond to Google groups, attend more meetings, and sweat it out.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>It's funny. When I became a teacher, I would have chosen the third option without a single qualm. No questions asked, fighting would have been the obvious choice. What does it say that the most appealing of these now is to flee? That's where the pain really hits home. I've changed, and maybe it's this thing that I love, being a teacher, that has changed me. And maybe that change is not altogether positive. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div>So, if you've read this far, thanks for being my therapist today. I may call on you again sometime soon. Just out of curiosity, what do you think I should do? Flee? Stay? Fight? I'd love some advice here. And just to be sufficiently nerdy about getting that advice, I've created a little poll on the sidebar of my blog where you can tell me what you think! Oh man, I am just a born librarian. What are they thinking, trying to get rid of me?</div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-38735915541460714772011-01-04T12:28:00.000-08:002011-01-04T13:05:33.780-08:00I am the DeciderHaving thought a lot about the dilemma posted here yesterday (What the heck is my job anyway?), I've made a decision about the direction this semester must take. I needed a focus and now I've got one. I plan, in a positive way, to withdraw from campus life. Well, no, not exactly. Here's the thing - with a few dozen secondary libraries already closed or staffed with clerks only, there's a decent chance my days are numbered in this position, right? So, do I want to push forward with projects I'll never complete, only to be unprepared to pass the torch to someone (or no one) else at the end of June? No, I do not. Not to mention the fact that forward movement is totally out of the question on this campus right now anyway. <br /><br />Yesterday ten or more teachers at our school learned that they would no longer be teaching what they have been teaching all year long. Why? No one really knows. Some district-level loophole closing (or opening) meant that Mr. Q had to move from 8th grade Algebra to 7th grade history and science, , Ms. C moved from 8th grade English to 7th grade something and a brand new first-year teacher who JUST got her credential was hired to take the 8th grade class (WHAT???), and so on. In addition to those confusing changes, another teacher is out on leave for two months and so has a sub, another has taken a position elsewhere and so a science teacher has become an English teacher to fill that position (wait, who's taking the abandoned science class?), and so forth.<br /><br />So really, how am I going to innovate or collaborate under circumstances like these? Our poor, under served students. This is really and truly a tragedy for them (the teacher shuffling, not my lack of innovation).<br /><br />Instead, I will get this library in ship shape. Every unfinished project I will either finish or dismantle. I will finally, after five years, go through the previous librarian's file cabinets and bring them up to date. I will catalog all of those pesky, strange materials that have been hiding in cabinets and drawers for ages (like the authentic Egyptian papyrus a teacher brought back from a trip). I will clean up the links on the library's web page, diagnose the problems with computers #2 and 14, weed out the unread and obsolete biographies, properly store the school's archival materials, and basically tie up every loose end that's been dangling since the summer of 2006 when I arrived on campus as the librarian. The previous, wonderful librarian left in a major medical rush and I spent a year tying up many of his loose ends, many that stretched back to the school's opening days in 1998. That was sort of fun, really, because I had to act as a detective, which I liked. However, it prevented me from getting a proper start here. I do not have to leave things that way (if I really do have to leave this summer), and so I won't.<br /><br />This feels right. It's focused and it's not dependent on the participation of others. It's just me finally getting to the end of my To Do list. And hey, if I get to stay, I'll get to work in a pristine library for the first time! Not bad.Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-52564680555123356922011-01-03T13:19:00.000-08:002011-01-03T14:13:36.858-08:00A Case of the MondaysIt's the first day of second semester and things are unusually quiet in the library. I've blocked off the first week of school to train new student helpers, prepare for the upcoming weeks, and generally catch up and all the things I didn't do last semester. As I go through my To Do list today I cannot help but ask myself, <em>Why am I doing any of this? What </em><strong>is </strong><em>my job? </em>It's a little hard to say what my role is anymore. Am I still a teacher? I can't always tell. Here's a glimpse of my day so far. What do you think?<br /><ul><li>7:15-7:30 - Checked out books to kids before the school day began</li><li>7:30-8:15 - Taught the Yearbook class for my friend who was really ill this morning. The kids reviewed yearbook pages to by submitted for printing this week while I took attendance, reset passwords, called tech support. So, not teaching at all.</li><li>8:15-10:00 - Began training new Student Librarians by having them complete two interactive, online activities in groups. So again, I had nothing to do with it (except for months ago when I created the activities in the first place).</li><li>also 8:15 - 10:00 - Reset passwords for teachers; showed a new teacher how to access the admin page for her part of the school's website; checked out books to random students; </li><li>10:00-11:45 - More training of new students (same); chatted with a few teachers about their upcoming library visits; responded to some emails</li><li>11:45-12:15 - Lunch (for the kids). Stood behind the counter and checked out about a million books</li><li>12:15 - now - more emails; checked IN books dropped off at lunch; looked at circulation statistics</li></ul><p>So, what the heck IS my job? Like I said, this is a SLOW and atypical day. Still, these are not challenging, stimulating, thought-provoking activities. They are mind-numbing, boring, tedious, and simple activities. I feel a bit like someone's assistant, but whose?</p><p>I am not complaining, even though I realize how it could sound that way. I am, in fact, trying to inject a little analysis into my day. This morning I registered for the annual American Library Association conference in June. While perusing the conference workshops, it dawned on me that my role here has become unfocused. I tend to put out little fires all day rather than working to build something new and innovative. But what would that new and innovative thing be? And what IS my job? </p><p>There is nothing to be done about the fact that all these passwords need to be reset, the books scanned in and out, the emails answered. But does my day have to lose all structure because of it? If I were asked what I've accomplished as school librarian this year, or for the entirety of 2010, I would be at a loss. I have kept the doors open most of the time. I have kept most of the computers running, most of the books on the shelf, most of the magazine subscriptions up to date. I've acquired a few hundred new books for the kids through donations, personal spending, and begging. I've resurrected the old coffee pot in the back room and started it percolating again. I've gone to a few meetings and missed a few others. I've reacted very dramatically to news of more cutbacks on library spending with more demands on library staff. </p><p>This is not what a great year should look like. Rather than feeling discouraged by this (as I have been for many, many weeks) I now feel a deep craving for purpose and focus. I need a plan. A structure. Something to make of this place and of my role in it. But what? It has to be something insular, to a certain extent. Collaborative efforts are the best, for sure, but they are also unreliable and extremely difficult to pull off in an under-performing school when testing is approaching like the Grim Reaper. Anything I can accomplish between now and mid-June will need to be done with minimal support from other adults on this campus. So I have to think semi-small; it should be something I can handle, something that will be fun and rewarding. </p><p>I could...... establish a regular rotation of student book clubs? This would satisfy by love of talking about literature with kids. It could be maintained over long periods of time. But when would they meet? </p><p>I could..... bring back Game Day. I used to keep the library open once a week after school for gaming, which was really, really fun. Not a bad idea.</p><p>I could..... establish a regular after-school element to the library program. Maybe stay open a few times a week for Game Day, homework help, etc. Of course, this only works if I'm willing to stay after school a few times a week. Am I? I don't know. Maybe. </p><p>I could..... spend the rest of the year doing an in-depth analysis of the collection, including an inventory and list of recommended additions (for grant writing purposes, perhaps?)</p><p>I could.....conduct some informal, qualitative research about student reading habits/preferences and write an article for publication in School Library Journal or elsewhere</p><p>Ah well, all of these things sound good. The trouble is choosing one to do well, rather than trying to do them all and getting a sorry result. Something to think about....</p>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-59609094380415199592010-11-19T09:51:00.000-08:002010-11-19T13:50:26.689-08:00The Root CauseA teacher at my school recently wrote a great blog post that is starting to get a lot of attention. You can read it <a href="http://accomplishedcaliforniateachers.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/month-3-as-a-failing-school-the-hatchet-drops/">HERE</a>. She writes about the ways in which 'failing' schools like ours are subject to all sorts of mandates that limit our ability to do the things we know (and research shows) are what the students need in order to be successful in school. She makes the point that <span style="font-style: italic;">"the root cause of our students' under-performance continues to go neglected: poverty, crime, violence, and hunger"</span>. She is right, of course. No amount of teacher training on how to deliver vocabulary development lessons will ever make up for a student's lack of breakfast. No scripted curriculum requiring teachers to deliver identical canned instruction to each and every student can begin to address the needs of a child whose parent has just been deported. As much as we need to constantly improve our teaching practice, we also need to be realistic about what our students need and how those needs are all so very, astonishingly different.<br /><br />This, of course, is a really hard thing to do. Each kid comes to school with unique, often hidden, baggage. Some of it is good, like the student whose father teaches at East LA Community College and takes him to all sorts of writers' events and art openings there. Or the young girl who has been playing violin for years and even got to sit in with the LA Philharmonic last year. We don't always know these things about our students, at least not right away, and to the detriment of their schooling. When teachers are forced to limit their interactions with students to a very expensive, very rigid set of activities defined by the school district to intervene in our 'failing' classrooms, there is no longer room for the kind of personal exploration and discussion that allows these character traits and special skills to shine through.<br /><br />On the flip side, there is the other kind of baggage. The bad kind. The kind that we combat every day and only slowly, if at all, can change. In small, mundane ways, kids put up walls that block them from getting anywhere close to successful. These barriers tend to have a snowball effect, as in the case of a young lady who ended up calling me a bitch last week. Over a $9 book. Let me explain.<br /><br />The 8th grader in question (let's name her Shontae) owes a book to the library. It was due June 2. This has prevented her from checking out more books from the library, since the policy is that the books must be returned or paid for in order to check out more books. We often allow students to make weekly payments on lost books so that they can continue to use the library. All of this has been explained to Shontae many times, but she still will not take care of it.<br /><br />On the day in question, Shontae's teacher and I were trying yet again to find a way to clear her account. You see, she needs an independent reading book for her English class. All 8th grade students in the state of California are supposed to read one million words independently. This is worked into her grade. This is the way she can improve her reading skills. This is one of the ways she can prepare for the strenuous state reading tests at the end of the year that require her to have staying power in her reading habits (and that determine whether our school is failing or succeeding). Without the ability to use the school's library, Shontae cannot really do any of these things. One might suggest that we just forgive Shontae her trespasses and let her use the library in spite of the overdue item, and maybe that will be the end result since I hate to deny anyone books, but the truth of the matter is that this sort of policy is ubiquitous in schools, important, and relevant to educating kids about the real world they will soon inhabit.<br /><br />On this day, Shontae came up with some new information about her missing book. She said that she never checked it out, that a friend of hers stole and used her library card to check out the book. Skeptical but open to the idea, we called in the friend to ask his version of the story. If he confirmed that he indeed had the book, we would happily transfer the item to his record and Shontae would be free and clear after 6 months of stalemated negotiations. The friend (let's call him Deshawn) denied the charges against him. Yes, he once had the book, but it was simply a short-term loan from Shontae, who was the one who checked out the book inthe first place. Deshawn had returned the book to Shontae months before.<br /><br />Ok, so, Shontae....we have a bit of a problem. Would you like to talk with Deshawn a few minutes and figure out the discrepancy in these two versions of the case of the missing book?<br /><br />Sadly, Shontae did not want to speak to Deshawn about it. She wouldn't even look at him. She stood right next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and stared straight ahead, shrugging her shoulders and muttering, "I don't care." I sent poor, sold-out Deshawn back to class and turned to Shontae to say, "I'm not sure you told us the right thing. I'm afraid we can't put the book on Deshawn's account, so what are we going to do?" This is when it happened.<br /><br />She turned, walked away from the counter, and spat out, "I don't care. I'm not gonna pay for any book. I really don't care....BITCH!"<br /><br />Shontae's teacher turned to me and simply said, "Do you have a referral?" She sent Shontae to the dean and had her suspended. The teacher later told me that Shontae's mother also said that SHE didn't care either and did not intend to pay for the book, and she expressed surprise and dissatisfaction that her daughter would be suspended for so petty a crime.<br /><br />All of this trouble for $9.86. Why is Shontae so angry? Why is her mother so angry? Do the powers that be really think that more teacher training, more assessments, more workshops, more meetings would change this? Shontae's difficulty is not stemming from the educational system or her teacher's abilities in the classroom, except for the fact that we are not allowing that teacher (or me) the time to really focus on her, to help her see her strengths, to help her identify her glowing abilities and draw them out, to build her self-esteem and reduce her stress and anger. The Root Cause of her under-performance is not being addressed, not by the educational system and certainly not by the political system that drives the choices about our schools. Our 'failing' school may be failing Shontae, failing to reach her, but it is not for lack of trying. Apart from completely disregarding her negligence and allowing her to lose a library book with no repercusions, I have done everything possible to accomodate her in terms of replacing that book. She doesn't want to. Neither does her mother. So now what?<br /><br />The official answer is to test Shontae more and evaluate her teacher on the results of those tests. Maybe they'll even fire the teacher someday for not being "highly qualified" enough to raise Shontae's test scores. In the meantime, what will happen to Shontae? How is she being served by this model?<br /><br />In a classroom where a student like Shontae sits right next to the student who plays with the LA Philharmonic, the teacher needs to be able to approach each student's needs differently. Doesn't that make sense? Aren't they totally different personalities with different support systems and different messages and values circulating at home? The teacher needs to be allowed to work like Ms. Beadle in Little House on the Prairie, with each child one-on-one, learning about their lives, coaching them as they grow up and outward. Ms. Beadle wasn't given binder after binder of lessons prepared by non-teachers and told to follow them to the letter. Because Ms. Beadle was a teacher - a person with a craft that is personal and progressive in its development. And Ms. Beadle's students weren't numbers in a database. They were children, with likes and dislikes, families, abilities, disabilites, hardships, and successes. They needed her, and they respected her because she was able to act as a guide and a stabilizing, nurturing force.<br /><br />The more I think about it, the more I have to wonder. Did anyone ever call Ms. Beadle a bitch? WWMBD?Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-4079300179251909102010-11-10T15:15:00.000-08:002010-11-10T15:30:20.973-08:00Chuck Norris knows no boundaries.Today while cleaning up the library I found a page of Chuck Norris...jokes? Sayings? Maybe axioms. No student's name was on the hand-written page, so I'm sorry to say I cannot identify the Norris fan in order to return it. Instead, I'll share these bits of wisdom with you, as written, no corrections made.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Chuck Norris</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic;">When Chuck norris types or says "LOL" hes asking you if you wanna be kicked in the "Liver or in the lung."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Chuck norris doesn't need to breath the oxygen comes to him.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Chuck norris doesn't use anti-virus viruses use anti-Chuck norris.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Chuck norris doesn't pay the goverment, the goverment pays him</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bird is not the word "Chuck" is</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hitler didn't kill himself because they were loosing the wae. He killed himself because chuck norris joined the army</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Chuck norris doesn't guess when he plays guess who: he knows</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Chuck norris puts the "fun" in funeral</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Chuck norris knows no boundaries, the noudaries know him</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">chuck norris doesn't go to hell, hell comes to him</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">why did the chicken cross the road?? because chuck norris was walking towards him</span><br /><br />It's hard to say what I enjoyed most about finding this artifact. Maybe it's the thought of a couple middle school boys (probably boys, right?) huddled together in the library at lunch, cracking each other up as they come up with Chuck Norris joke after Chuck Norris joke. I love this especially because it's so clear how they hit upon a formula for reversing statements in order to make them funny, and then they ran with it. Or maybe it's the fact that Chuck Norris has such longevitiy, such staying power. He fascinated boys when I was in middle school too. Back in the late 80s, 12-year old boys sat around doing this exact same thing. Does Chuck know how influential he's been? Is he aware of the magical powers that exude from his person and infect pre-adolescent manhood, year after year after year? I hope so. This was a great find, and it really made my day for some reason. I have always wanted my library to be the kind of place where this kind of thing can happen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div></div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-69791089106955204502010-11-08T13:41:00.000-08:002010-11-08T13:50:16.491-08:00One of those daysI am having one of those half bad, half good days.<br /><br />The bad:<br /><br /><ul><li>I heard a teacher say, "You better pay attention, cause I'm not gonna help you."</li><li>I have no afternoon help, so while I am teaching classes the phone rings and rings and rings. When I finally do answer, people say, "I have been TRYING to CALL you." They are all mad.<br /></li><li>It is 2:40 and I just finished my lunch. I microwaved it at 11:30.</li><li>My student librarians have been making so many shelving mistakes that I haven't been able to find several books I've needed.</li><li>A teacher called in sick today and then sent her kids over with a substitute (not supposed to happen).</li><li>The kids here with the sub are supposed to be researching a "significant event". Most have them have chosen random earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Why? These are hard to research.</li><li>I keep looking at the clock and thinking it is an hour closer to quitting time than it already is because the school's clocks have not reset.<br /></li></ul>The Good:<br /><br /><ul><li>Two of the kids from the class above are researching the advent of Coca-cola. They are reading to each other from the World Book Encyclopedia in slow, halting speech. They are enjoying what they are learning.</li><li>It was light outside when I left for work this morning.</li><li>My lunch, although cold, was both delicious and healthy.</li><li>I had a student bring back a book that I recommended on Friday, finished and ready for the sequel. She has decided her favorite genre is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">dystopian</span> fiction. I also love <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">dystopian</span> fiction.<br /></li></ul>I hope that by the day's end the list of good will be longer, and the list of bad will seem insignificant and funny.Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-44092980322421983492010-11-01T18:15:00.000-07:002010-11-01T18:28:51.186-07:00I. Am. Mortified.On a recent trip home, my mother gave me a pile of old belongings to go through to see what I wanted to keep and what she could pitch. Treasure of treasures, my diaries from age 11-15 were in that pile! Oh, the humiliation. I thought they were lost for sure, and now I'm not sure if I'm relieved that they aren't out there in the hands of someone else, or mortified that I now feel compelled to go back and read them. I think mortified is it, because, you see.....I wrote poetry. Yes, twelve-year old poetry. Pages and pages of it. Mom, if you already read it (which I totally would have if I were you) I hope you don't love me less.<div><br /></div><div>I thought it might be fun to sprinkle a few of those gems here now and again, for your reading pleasure. Since you are all my dear friends (I think, cause who else would be reading this???), I thought I would dedicate this first one to you. It is called "True Friends". I will transcribe it as it is on the page, but please try and imagine wide, looping handwriting to make this experience as authentic as possible.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ready?</div><div><br /></div><div>True Friends (written circa 1988)</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Friends can't </i></div><div><i>wait to see each-</i></div><div><i>-other. They don't</i></div><div><i>care what you</i></div><div><i>look like, where </i></div><div><i>you live or what </i></div><div><i>you wear.</i></div><div><i>They love you</i></div><div><i>just the way you</i></div><div><i>are. They don't</i></div><div><i>love you becau-</i></div><div><i>-se of your car, </i></div><div><i>your taste or your</i></div><div><i>hair. They love</i></div><div><i>you just the way</i></div><div><i>you are.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>I know. It's good stuff.</div><div><br /></div><div>But before you get too hopeful, let me end with a bit of a warning to you, just in case you are taking life, and the friends who love you for the way you are, for granted. My young self would also like you to know (from the very next page of the diary, no less):</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Life is forever</i></div><div><i>if you play</i></div><div><i>your cards</i></div><div><i>right. But if you</i></div><div><i>start to bluff</i></div><div><i>it could be</i></div><div><i>ended tonight.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>I have NO idea what that is supposed to mean, but it's pretty dark! Or possibly religious? Hmmm, this is going to be extremely painful for me..... and also fun. Hope you like.</div><div><br /></div>Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-71244457970606779042010-10-28T14:05:00.000-07:002010-10-28T14:42:09.986-07:00Earthquake PreparednessWell, it turns out that we at this school are totally unprepared to deal with an earthquake, should one happen from 7:30-3:30, Monday through Friday. We had the most bungled earthquake drill today, which ended with the principal barking through the hand held radios that some of us get to carry, "This just isn't working! We have to do it again! Just ring the bell for lunch!"<br /><br />What went wrong? What went right!<br /><br />The entire thing can be summarized in the following radio exchange that ended in the Principal's fevered cry that called the whole thing off. To put this in context, you must know that all of the students were on the PE field, lined up with the classes they were in when the alarm sounded. Various staff members were assigned to search and rescue teams and were searching their assigned wings of the buildings in order to rescue accident victims, played by other staff members and students. My role was to sit at the "Reunion Gate" where we would reunite students with the parents, which is something we've never actually practiced with any success. I predict chaos at al times. Anyway, the principal and others (including me) are connected by radio. The rescue teams report to the principal at the command center when rooms/floors/buildings are clear or when they've found a "victim".<br /><br />So, on the radio we hear:<br /><br />Teacher: <span style="font-style: italic;">Command center, command center, we've got a victim in room 3107.</span><br />nothing<br />2 minutes pass<br />Teacher: <span style="font-style: italic;">Command center, we've now got two victims. We're bringing them in.</span><br />Principal: <span style="font-weight: bold;">I have to know what the room numbers are! </span>(angry)<br />Teacher: <span style="font-style: italic;">Command center, that would be rooms 3108 and 3107</span>.<br />nothing for 30 seconds<br />Principal: <span style="font-weight: bold;">But don't they have broken legs????</span><br />Teacher: (pause) <span style="font-style: italic;">Yes, uh, that's right. Broken legs.</span><br />Principal: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Then how are you going to move them??!!??</span><br />Long pause<br />Teacher: (sounding like he <span style="font-weight: bold;">hopes</span> this is the right answer) <span style="font-style: italic;">Uh....stretcher?</span><br />Principal: <span style="font-weight: bold;">This just isn't working! We have to do it again! Just ring the bell for lunch!</span><br /><br />Aaaaaannd SCENE!Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-50428764774944562352010-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:002010-10-13T09:29:42.438-07:00Comprendez Vous?Our students' reading comprehension skills are, to be frank, pretty terrible. In fact, this year, for the first time in a long time, our students did worse on the reading comp portion of the state tests than they did the previous year. We usually make some gains, but nope, not this time. So we're focusing in on these skills, which makes me reflect for the millionth time in my career on what they really are. How do we comprehend what we read? How does a kid who is 12 make sense of the material presented to him/her on a state test, or by a teacher, or in a magazine? There are several reasons why students do poorly on these tests, of course. One is stamina. They are presented with several 2-3 page passages, usually BORING passages, and asked to read and answer a dozen questions about each. This takes hours. It is dull. And the kids have no staying power. They are used to reading for 10-15 minute stretches, maybe. They are used to being coached through everything they read. They are used to being given clues, prompts, encouragement, definitions, and visuals. They are rarely asked to slog through long or difficult passages on their own, and they are therefore ill equipped to do so on the tests. This is most kids of course. I also know kids who read for hours upon hours every day. These kids do fine on the tests though, and so I'm not too worried about them for the moment.<br /><br />So, how do we comprehend what we read? And what to we do when we don't understand the meaning of a text, any text, including blogs, films, conversations? I ask these questions because I am about to embark on a difficult and possibly rewarding journey that will require a lot of work on my part and will inevitably stall all of the other projects I have started in the past several months. Luckily, I have been feeling disgruntled and blue a lot of the time lately, so I haven't really put too many irons in the fire, as is my habit. I intend to up the ante in the library. Instead of bringing classes to simply get book recommendations and check out books, how about bringing classes to LEARN A READING SKILL and then get book recommendations and check out books? Sounds radical, does it not?<br /><br />The idea is this. When teachers sign up to bring their classes, I find out what the kids are doing in all of the content areas. So let's say they are studying post Civil War America in Social Studies. I can then prepare a lesson/activity on, say, historical fiction about that time period in which the students will learn to read heavily accented dialogue or dialect. We don't think about it much, but at one point in our lives, we didn't know how to tackle words that some crazy author deliberately misspelled! So I can teach them, using an exciting passage from an exciting book, and then - BAM! - I can recommend more books of that genre and get them reading something new and challenging.<br /><br />Seriously, this may sound obvious, but it's just not been the way things have worked. So far in my life as a librarian, the only lessons I really get to teach are outside the purview of other classes. Things relating to technology usually, or maybe using reference materials. But a straight-up Language Arts skill? I haven't directly taught one of those in years. And I love to! Usually teachers aren't too interested in having their material usurped.<br /><br />What I need to ponder now is what types of reading comprehension skills will fit this model. Some ideas that come to minds are:<br /><ul><li>dialect and accented dialogue</li><li>the nonsense vocabulary of Sci Fi and futuristic fiction</li><li>the use of textual clues (like italics or page breaks) to indicate flashback</li><li>non-standard dialogue (few or no "he said" "she said" indicators</li><li>textual clues indicating internal dialogue (again, often italics or parentheses)</li><li>interpreting allusions to other, perhaps unknown, literary/historical/artistic works</li></ul>Um. I know there are many, many more. Any ideas?<br />I think this could be really cool.Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-75062605376879853142010-10-11T12:40:00.000-07:002010-10-11T12:53:25.084-07:00Class Rules<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Apropos</span> of nothing, I just heard a teacher say to his class, <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Who is not clear on my policy on dilly-dallying? Raise your hand if you need to go over my stance on dilly-dallying again."</span><br /><br />Why no hands?<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> want to know the dilly-dallying policy! <br />I wonder if the kids even know what dilly-dallying <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span>.<br /><br />Other policies I would like to know, just in case:<br />Lollygagging policy<br />Dawdling policy<br />Monkeying Around policy<br />Hem-Hawing policyMizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-69415224807949255422010-10-08T12:56:00.000-07:002010-10-08T14:18:32.326-07:00An Aside on SuicideFor some reason, suicide has come up lately. There is the ever present student request for books about kids with "drama" and "problems" like suicide, abuse, etc. That's nothing new. And there are some really powerful books on the topic that treat it with the gravity necessary. Then there is the recent teacher request for book recommendations related to bullying and sexual orientation, a response to the recent discussion of teen suicide in the news. Also, par for the course to a certain extent.<br /><br />But these benign suicide regerences were followed by an email sent by the LAUSD superintendent that was titled RECENT GAY SUICIDES. In all caps, just like that. Strange that it would be in all caps. Strange that the word gay was really necessary. Is there a difference between a gay and a non-gay suicide (I mean, I know that societal factors may differ for gay and straight kids, and that all suicides are different and personal; I just mean, do they really differ in level of sadness or importance)? That title is just begging for someone despicable to say something really awful like, "That suicide was <span style="font-style: italic;">so</span> gay." In fact, I can't believe I just typed that. I feel really uncomfortable about it. But I'm going to let it stand, because I think it makes my point. It's like when people say "that black kid". Why don't they just say "that kid"? Anyway.<br /><br />In the first sentence of the letter to the school district, the superintendent expresses his condolences to "the six young students who committed suicide". Probably the readers know which 6 he means, but I wonder if there are families of a 7th or 8th kid out there who just experienced a similar loss. Where are their condelences? He lists some district resources for students who are struggling with despair. One of them is the district's Youth Suicide Prevention Program. This 'program' consists of one man, Richard Lieberman, who works his butt off and is responsible for every student in LAUSD, in a way. That's a lot for one man to do. In conclusion, the superintendent has sent five LGBTQ Resource packets to each secondary school and encourages principals to make sure all staff reviews those materials. Right. I can't even say how inadequate this response is. This school is a terrible place for LGBTQ students, and I would imagine it's not the only one. It's inhospitable, harassment is rampant, and there is zero school support or activism relating to issues of sexual orientation or gender identity. I don't really see how 5 resource packets is going to do a thing. I've only heard one teacher even mention the recent suicides, much less decide to talk to her students about them. Our zero tolerance policy for this sort of harassment is a huge, huge joke. Anyway, enough about that. I'm sure you get my drift.<br /><br />On a totally different note, suicide has also come up in a new graphic novel from Audrey Niffenegger, the writer of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Time Traveler's Wife</span>. Audrey also wrote a haunting and fascinating book called <span style="font-style: italic;">Her Fearful Symmetry</span>. Suicide happens to take a prominent role in that book as well. As for the graphic novel, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Night Bookmobile</span>, I have a mixed review (that includes spoilers). In the author's note, Audrey says that this is the first part of a larger work. I look forward to the continuation of the work, for reasons I will state in a moment. <br /><br />The basic concept is that there is a Library out there that houses everything you have ever read. Receipts, bookmarks, fliers, novels, articles, everything. And there is a librarian who manages this collection. Every time you read something, it's added. You may or may not ever encounter this library, but Alexandra, the teller of this tale, comes across hers (housed in an RV) when she's out walking late one night. She soon becomes obsessed with finding it again. She spends the next nine years wandering Chicago looking for it, reading voraciously, and wondering what her personal librarian thinks of her selections. When she encounters the library again, and then one more time 12 years after that, she begs to become a librarian too. She is refused, told she cannot, that the rules won't allow it. Then she goes home and kills herself. She takes some pills and slits her wrists and is immediately welcomed to the afterlife by her librarian who congratulates her and assigns her the library of a young girl who has just read <span style="font-style: italic;">Good Night Moon</span> alone for the first time. He has been reassigned to a non-reader, which he finds disappointing, but still, he's glad to see her. I'm simplifying, of course, but that's the basic story. Did she know that death was the only way into the library business? And if so, why was her life so unsatisfactory that she was unwilling to just wait it out? I suppose that's what obsession is.<br /><br />So, huh. Audrey's afterword is very interesting, and explains in more detail the concept behind this story. I do love the idea that these personal libraries are kept somewhere and by someone. What has each of us read that we've never discussed with anyone, either because it's a secret or because we've just forgotten? And how many books have I read that have slipped my mind so completely, but that I'd be joyous to find on a shelf somewhere?<br /><br />But the suicide really gets me. And, as my dad so thoughtfully pointed out, the suicide as entry ticket to immortality or a heaven-like space, well, that really gets me too. Not that I am a religious believer that suicide sends a soul straight to the fiery depths. But here it is almost a necessary right of passage to the next, desired stage of existence. That's DARK man. Very dark. And by the way, what happens to Alexandra's library after she kills herself? Does she no longer get to add to it? In the earlier frames of the book, when she first finds her library and personal librarian, he is reading while sitting at the wheel of the RV. Does his reading material get stored somewhere? OR does he only get to read material from Alexandra's library, in which case, couldn't that just be torture? If part of the delight is to peruse the shelves filled with all you have read, then it would be a great loss to die and begin to manage someone else's collection. I would think Alexandra would rather stay alive, contribute to her own library, and look forward to a once-a-decade encounter with it. Now, as cool as it sounds, she is just going to sit around the afterlibrary and watch little Sarah Rebecca learn to read. It'll be years of Clifford the Big Red Dog! Awful. I think maybe she didn't know what she was getting herself into.<br /><br />This sounds like criticism, and in a way it is. I hate to say anything negative about the work of Audrey Niffenegger, because I think <span style="font-style: italic;">The Time Traveler's Wife</span> is one of the most perfect books I have ever read (and re-read about 4 times). As much as I may question this new book, CLEARLY it's an interesting concept. Otherwise, I wouldn't have so much to say about it. This is what I meant when I said I'm really into the larger work that she's creating. Where will she go with it? Some of my questions may be answered in the future.<br /><br />So here I am on a Friday afternoon, pondering the many forms that suicide has taken in library-related discussion this week. Weird. Very.Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-67709878879992296162010-10-07T12:30:00.000-07:002010-10-07T15:33:12.413-07:00Like a Broken RecordI have got to say, it is not easy being me sometimes. When I made the shift from working directly with students only to working with students AND adults equally, I never new what was coming. I did not expect, for example, that adults would be just as reluctant to work hard as the most disagreeable middle school boy. Or that adults would ignore emails and memos, claiming to never have known about this or that policy. Or that adults would pretend to listen during a presentation, but really their eyes were glazed over and their daydreams were interfering with their ability to glean even the most superficial information given.<br /><br />But it is true. Adults do all of those things and more. Not five minutes ago a teacher asked me how to do something that I taught him how to do in a workshop on Friday. He didn't ask in the "I'm so embarrassed that I can't remember what to do next even though I know you just showed me, so please forgive me" sort of way. He asked in the "Wow! That's totally new information that's blowing my mind because I've never ever heard of such a thing" kind of way. <br /><br />Another teacher today claimed that the reason she sent her kids to the library with a pass scribbled on a scrap of paper is that she never received the school-wide official hall pass binder that all teachers received the first week, and also she's never even heard of such an official pass. But she does suppose that, yes, if would make sense if she wrote, say, the date or time on the hall pass scrap of paper. Maybe even her name could go on there, so I'd know which teacher sent the kids. And even <span style="font-style: italic;">their</span> names could be added, so that I'd know how many and which kids were meant to be there (we are a haven for ditchers, otherwise). She'll give me that. Seriously, if you are wondering why I would care about the form of a hall pass, it's because kids love to ditch class in the library. It's quiet, it's peaceful, it's easy for them. So I just have to know that everyone here is supposed to be here. Makes sense, yes?<br /><br />On the other hand, I get to talk more to adults who are doing really interesting things in their classes or with their lives. Like the 6th grade math teacher who works on antique sailboats, or the technology guy who is part of a competitive dragon boat racing team. In one 7th grade class, a teacher is reading articles about bullying and sexual identity in response to the increasing number of suicides among the young gay population. Stuff like that is good.<br /><br />So it's a trade off. I get a lot of the good stuff, and a lot of the repetitive, predictable behavior that teachers learn to expect from students. One teacher signed up for a whole bunch of library visits to keep from getting scolded for never bringing his class, but then conveniently forgot each time, so the kids never got to come, be he's covered just by signing up. Come to think of it, the adults' bad behavior is just like the kids'. <br /><br />Some things that SOME teachers do that is a lot like some things that SOME students do:<br /><ul><li>Come to school tardy with lots of excuses (for kids: my mom/dad wouldn't leave on time; for teacher: traffic). I've used this one. It's almost never really the traffic.</li><li>Come to school dressed inappropriately (for kids: usually not suited for weather; for teachers: really high heals or way too casual/rumpled).</li><li>Talk while the teacher is talking (in the teachers' case, this would be while another adult is talking during a meeting)</li><li>Sleep while the teacher is talking (same as above)</li><li>Fail to listen</li><li>fail to follow instructions</li><li>fail to try to solve one's own problem before asking for help, even if it's a really simple problem to solve</li><li>fail to turn in papers</li><li>claim to never have heard of the assignment/memo/announcement/issue</li><li>claim to never have received the assignment/memo/announcement</li><li>use an absence as an excuse to get out of work/responsibility</li><li>claim that "He/She told me...." to shirk responsibility for a mistake or misinformation</li></ul>I know teachers who do these things. ALL of these things. So if we do these things, especially during meetings, because were are not engaged, and we feel that were are being mistreated or neglected, doesn't that mean that our students do these things in our classes for the same reasons? Or do teachers do these things simply because over time the behavior rubs off on them? And does this happen in other professions? Lawyers behaving like clients, cops like criminals, doctors like patients?<br /><br />*****Breaking News*******<br /><br />I paused my writing because of a ruckus in the stairwell. Let me describe to you what happened in the last 20 minutes of my life.<br /><br />A class came in. 8th graders who have been in school since July 6th but have not yet been to the library. Not a single time. You can assume that this means they are not reading. Nor do they remember how to behave in a library. They stomp in, followed by a substitute teacher wearing sunglasses. She does not remove the sunglasses the entire 20 minutes. I had an inkling this class would show up, but since the same teacher's morning group didn't come, I sort of assumed he was blowing it off. Especially since when I asked him what lesson he was preparing, he shrugged and said, "You know. Research."<br /><br />I stopped the kids at the door, reminded them where they were, and invited them in. After assessing the situation, I determined the following: the kids didn't know why they were there, the sub didn't know why they were there, since they were 20 minutes late we only had 10 minutes to go, the teacher had PLANNED this absence and knew he wouldn't be here, and finally (last but SO not least) some of the kids thought they maybe were supposed to be working on a paper called "Does technology help us or hurt us?" <br /><br />But some of the kids thought that, no, they had already finished that paper. No one was quite sure. I really just don't know what to say. This is so much worse than my usual crappy teacher experience. I could write pages about the problems just in that paper title! <br /><br />It's funny how well this ties in with what I was writing before. It's classic teacher acting like student behavior. The teacher in question is most assuredly one that comes to mind when reading the list of behaviors above. What is going on in that classroom on a daily basis? It's a chilling thought.<br /><br />To end on a slightly funny but slightly depressing note, I just had this conversation with a 7th grader:<br /><br />Me: "So, your name is Justin?"<br />Boy: "Yes."<br />Me: "But it's spelled J-A-S-T-E-N?"<br />Boy: "Yes. The nurse messed it up when I was born."<br />Me: "Huh. Well. You should write her a letter and let her know."<br />Buy: "She's dead."<br />Me: "Oh."Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8252215172499370225.post-35690676620454561582010-10-04T13:18:00.000-07:002010-10-04T14:42:49.715-07:00Aliens are SO last year<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_h4OJof8IUjNVK2K1b4iyCoUmBtw2czyuCv9Ica5GqKU020_5JWdKrcffdR8gJjOaj2yw7pAWfDlNBvoK6jjOcOKoL5gyrHgBN3oU4ZO4iDTxRREDxHrfV3OFMv2vmhkWvBr8IDo-DYVV/s1600/images.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 157px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_h4OJof8IUjNVK2K1b4iyCoUmBtw2czyuCv9Ica5GqKU020_5JWdKrcffdR8gJjOaj2yw7pAWfDlNBvoK6jjOcOKoL5gyrHgBN3oU4ZO4iDTxRREDxHrfV3OFMv2vmhkWvBr8IDo-DYVV/s200/images.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524308571933238498" border="0" /></a><br />Last night I was thinking about the book <span style="font-style: italic;">Ender's Game</span> by Orson Scott Card. I never read it as a child, but I did pick it up in my early years of teaching, and I loved it. It's exciting, action-packed, suspenseful, with an admirable main character and a crazy twist ending. I recommend this book at my school countless times each year, every time thinking that I'll get a bunch of boys hooked on this intergalactic story of military training and combat. I stand at the front of the classes, gesticulating wildly, jumping around to illustrate the excitement of each moment of Ender's ruthless training for battle with the aliens. My eyes widen when I describe how completely mind-blowing the ending is, that even I, Ms. Murphy, veteran reader, did not fully see it coming.<br /><br />There have been, like, 2 kids who have read this book in the last five years.<br /><br />Aliens are just out. I have to face facts. No one cares. No one cares about robots, rocket ships, spaceships (although they like NONfiction about UFOs), intergalactic voyages. Even time travel is a hard sell. These have been replaced by the supernatural or paranormal stories that pervade popular TV and film culture as well. Vampires, werewolves, faeries, ghosts, hauntings, psychics, even long dormant mythological beasts - these are the characters that populate kids' fantasies today.<br /><br />So, why?<br /><br />The obvious explanation is just that tastes change. A fad is a fad is a fad. This too shall pass. But here's the thing about that. Vampires were in when I was in middle school too, more than 20 years ago. They weren't just in; they were HOT! Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys! He was scary AND sexy (a combo that these modern-day "nice" vampires don't pull off, I might add). That movie was huge. Along with Once Bitten (comedy), Vampire's Kiss (Nicholas Cage's finest film), My Best Friend is a Vampire, and Salem's Lot (SO scary). These were not all books first, so I digress. It's interesting though that what they WERE was either funny or scary. They weren't, for the most part, about romance at all.<br /><br />Ok, so now I want to know both why kids don't like sci fi AND why the new vampire oeuvre is all about love. But back to the sci fi for now....<br /><br />Is Sci Fi out among this age group because science itself is out? These kids aren't talking about NASA or Mars or the moon. They don't want to be astronauts, probably because they've never even heard of a single individual contemporary astronaut (and really, have you?). US students rank below about 20 or 30 other countries in terms of their knowledge of science, so it follows that science fiction, which takes real scientific principles and speculates, wouldn't be too engaging. If you don't know the science, why would it be fun to speculate? One exception seems to be end-of-the-world Sci Fi, usually about a drastic global warming scenario, but sometimes about meteors hitting the moon, nuclear catastrophe, or plague. Of course, this is more about doom and apocalypse than real science, which brings me to my next question.<br /><br />Is this about religion?<br /><br />Years ago, Harry Potter was demonized by the religious extremists in this country, and kids all around the nation weren't allowed (by their parents, not their librarians!) to read it. Now we have a Mormon writer of a semi-erotic vampire series totally dominating the minds of our teens. I don't want to be anti-religion in saying this, because I AM NOT. I think religion can bring great happiness and purpose to a person's life and that is good. (I myself am not religious, but I know a lot of nice religious people.) However, the question has been begged:<br /><br />While science fiction is speculation usually based on scientific principle or even fact, and therefore in some sense it can be argued that the things that happen in science fiction COULD actually happen, you know, scientifically....<br /><br />supernatural fiction is based in the faith that beings outside the normal realm of science and experience, but of this earth in some way (and therefore not an undiscovered alien race) really do exist and can impact our lives in profound ways, including romance/love/marriage....<br /><br />and doesn't that sound a little religious? Hmmmmm.....<br /><br />So is the slow, decades-long transformation of American culture from scientific world dominator to religious world dominator evident in this trend in books for young people? And if the answer is yes then, again...why? For what reason do we look for (and find) such enthralled satisfaction in stories of completely unlikely creatures meeting and falling in love with us? Or protecting us? Or, in the case of Bella in Twilight, allowing us to transform into that same unreal form (metaphor for religious conversion very evident here)?<br /><br />(Huh, on a side note, are there many human-alien romance books?)<br /><br />And why do teens today enjoy that concept so much more than the one in Ender's Game - that humans are strong and capable, that we can and will go out and kick some butt if anyone threatens our humanity, that our intelligence is our most powerful weapon, that being smart is the best thing one can be, that being human is note necessarily a weakness, that we live in a human community that must be united to survive. Those are some really great messages, if you ask me. In the face of global warming, for example. We could use some of that! Of course, Orson Scott Card is known for being a bigot and homophobe, as well as discrediting global warming.....so, well, yeah. I guess we might not want to lean too heavily on his messages either.<br /><br />Ok then, how about A Wrinkle In Time! That's a goodie. Same messages there, really, without the military annihilation. Intelligence, united humanity, individualism, strong female characters, tight family bonds, loyalty. Lots of good stuff there.<br /><br />Again, I am getting off point. Although, I think I may have lost my point altogether because I am completely fascinated by everything I am saying!<br /><br />In sum:<br /><br />Has SciFi been replaced by the paranormal/supernatural because of:<br /><ol><li>a passing trend?</li><li>a lack of interest in science?</li><li>a growing semi-religious faith in that which cannot be seen?</li></ol>And from those questions arise these:<br /><br /><ul><li>Why does the paranormal/supernatural fiction now focus on human love for that supernatural being, compared to twenty years ago when the focus was fear of the being or humor at the expense of the being? Is this social commentary on the mainstream feelings toward certain religious faith in this country?<br /></li><li>Are there human-alien love stories for young people, and if so, what are they?</li><li>Why is Orson Scott Card able to write such great books when he is actually not that great?</li><li>What does this all mean? and/or Am I just blowing a lot of smoke?<br /></li></ul>That last one is a doozie. I'll have to think on that some more....Mizz Murphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05628880790853250260noreply@blogger.com2