Day 35

I decided to lively up the joint and let my students pick out of options to show they understood characterization. Kids could make posters, sing or rap a song, act out a scene. Fun! I had kids drumming on tables and rapping, I had great big colorful posters, I had letters written in character, I had scenes acted out with wit and charm. The students were laughing and gleeful and K-shawn told me "we learning stuff in here."

And then I got the new schedule which starts next week. The Big Cheese has decided to have me mentor a teacher who's been at it for some time. Dude's coming to "assist" me with my new section of 6th graders last period. Apparently this crew is Big Trouble, but how can 15 6th graders stack up against my 27 bad-ass 7th graders on the misbehavior scale? Let's just say I'm not quaking in my boots.

So McGillicutty, once I found out I was to mentor him--I went to see him with the head of the Language Arts Dept. She said "I don't want any goddamn dittoes or puzzles or vocabulary exercises. Mr. G does creative stuff with his kids. I want you to align with the skills their Lang Arts teacher is doing and make it entertaining." So she leaves and McGillicutty starts in with "I'll start making dittoes and puzzles and vocabulary exercises for next week," and I'm like "no--didn't you hear the lady? That's not how we roll." And McGillicutty gets all up in my grill with "I've been doing this for some time. I know what's research-based and aligned with national standards." And I'm like "Step off muthafucka or I'ma pluck you."

Dude doesn't even have rules and consequences up in his room. The kids call him names to his face and he just smiles and looks away. They role over him and he doesn't even call their houses. I got a feeling that McGillicutty is tenured and they can't fire him, so they're just sticking him with me to give him something to do. My assessment right off the bat is this guy just shouldn't be a teacher, and definitely shouldn't be in B'more. He's lazy and ineffectual and is obstinate to boot. Just what I need!

I need to look at the Union book and the Contract--I think I'm supposed to get compensated for mentoring.