Establishing the Setting

Wednesday, February 15, 1995

I pull into the decaying parking lot at a few minutes before seven am. The union contract prescribes a teacher’s on-site hours as beginning thirty minutes before the start of the first class (or the prep--preparatory--period); and since first period begins with an ugly, dull bell at seven twenty-five, I'm arriving more or less on-time. And if I'm technically late, who's going to see it? The parking lot is fairly deserted. A few cars are there, and a half of them belong to students.

I remember watching Tom Snyder interviewing Ice-T once, when the rapper/rocker/provocateur said that inner-city kids would have a great deal more respect for teachers and education in general if they saw teachers driving to work in BMWs and Mercedes coupes. If the teachers' old junkers are what an education can get someone, then--his theory went--why bother? Why, indeed. My 1984 Tercel's driver door squawks horribly since I have not WD-40'ed the rust away from its hinge since before the rainy season began. Not that I'm listening to the door now: the car radio, which I have just repaired last week, is operational again, and sounds of NPR, cranked to 8 (what a aural image that is) are drowning it out. I hear it only as it screeches shut, but by then I'm already on my way across the lot.

Through the gate, unlocked by the morning janitor and to be locked again within the hour by the redcoats--campus supervisors-- I enter the open-air halls. I notice that last night we were hit again by taggers. A huge "WAK 722" scrawls across the triangular side of the building above the hall roofing. I continue on. The lights are not on, again turned off by the morning man, but the center lamp of three in this stretch of corridor, is not exactly fitting snugly to the wall. It hangs slightly, its screws loose. I look at the lockers, rustoleum’ed brown to cover three decades of use and abuse. There are few padlocks on selected lockers, forbidden by school rules but used regardless (and with impunity) by students who wish to keep their items safe from burglary. I cross another ceilingless section of hall, hang a quick left and head down the open hall to my classroom.

The brown leather satchel is heavy in my hand, filled with papers, my teaching life, and two apples and a bottle of water, my sustenance. Yesterday, it held a few new pictures of my son Kyle, in all his eight-month splendor, a different kind of sustenance, and now those pictures are up on my bulletin board over my desk. The desk is used only after my last class and during lunch, as I’m on my feet and in motion all during the class periods--it’s the only way to keep the students on task. I reach the door, its dark brown matching the lockers back in the outer hall. A turn of the key and I’m in. I step on the small black and blue doormat I purchased only last weekend to replace the old dirty, muddy white--now brown--one that I had taken from home to keep the kids from tracking in the wetness from the recent rains. WalMart, four bucks, and I have a new door mat; this afternoon, walking down the hall, I will see my old door mat just inside the jamb of another class. Paul, super-custodian, the god of our wing, has in his utilitarian wisdom rescued the ragmat from the trash and used it in the room on the corner, where the muddy traffic is even worse.

I wipe my feet and head over to the desk. I plop my satchel down on the nearest student desk to my own, open the leather and pull out what I need: the apples for lunch, my water bottle, and the papers from last night. I put all of this on the desktop, close the satchel and put it on the floor, next to the wall, behind the desk. I organize the new stuff on the desk. I record the scores onto the period three clipboard.

The scores belong to a set of "shotgun essays," essays done under duress, a time limitation, with no prior knowledge of the topic. I’m trying to prepare my English 4 and English 4 Honors students for this spring's Advanced Placement exam. The course started only last week. I have from now until May to get those who decide to take it ready for the A.P., and until June to prepare them for the rigors of college, though most will be lucky to see the local junior college, let alone a university. This means eighteen weeks for what is in reality a full year’s course work. The only plus to the insane pace is the fact that our campus has seen at least a foggy halo of the light of reform and restructuring; we work in a term system, where we have four 90-minute periods per day, and a term (nine or ten weeks) equals a semester’s worth of study. In this system, the students have fewer classes per day (and theoretically more time to devote to each class they do take), and the opportunity to take more classes throughout the year (eight classes rather than six in the old system). The teachers have fewer student contacts per day (down from around 175 in five class periods, to around 125 in three), and fewer "preps" or course preparations. The site administration wins out, too: they get to use teachers to teach six classes over the course of the year (rather than the typical five), and they pat themselves on the back for being innovative.

It is innovative, but could be so much more so. But right now, I’m trying to invent a way to get these students ready for college in eighteen weeks. The class was supposed to be a English 4 Honors class, but there were not enough sign-ups for an Honors course, so instead of creating a hard-core true A.P.-style class for ten to fifteen students, we now have a combination class of twenty to twenty-five (still my smallest class of the day). The reason for the lack of sign-ups is me. I was this year’s senior class’s English 3 Honors teacher last year. I was tough and demanding, and many of the students decided that they would rather take their senior English in a much less stressful context, either regular college prep here at the high school or at the local junior college.

I hold the proof of my sadism in my hands, the "shotgun essay." And if that’s the case, I’m recording the latest death toll due to self-inflicted shotgun wounds. It’s decidedly not pretty, nor easy, but those who stick it out will at least stand a chance of surviving at the university level. Most of the student answered only part of the essay prompt, some none at all. This term will not be pretty. I shake my head and look up to see my son smiling and waving back at me from the wall. I look at the clock. 7:10. Still no students, so I’ll head on down to the teacher’s lounge.

No. Wait. I reach back down into my satchel. There’s a bundle of computer disks wrapped in a rubber band. I pocket it and go to the Library instead.

On the school site map, the building is called the Media Center because, as our Librarian states in her orientation to freshman students, "We have so much more than just books." Right. This is the public line, and we toe it every day. But she will be the first to tell anyone willing to listen that the Library’s budget has been slashed year after year, last summer she jettisoned more than 5000 books from the library’s 25,000 in circulation because they were so out-of-date as to be useless, and that our campus is woefully behind the times technologically. The library a few scattered computer workstations, mostly IBMs, a few Macs, none networked, though the wire has been laid (our administration consistent proclamation). Our software library is dismal, and now I’m sneaking in a personal copy of a desktop publishing program onto a "media center" Mac (since I’m one of the few faculty members to come in and use the machines, I figure it’s all right to load up my own copy of the software onto the machine). I drop it off on Teddi’s desk, leaving a note that I’ll install it later.

Back outside, I look across the quad area at the influx of students. Brown faces over black jackets abound. We have over two-thirds Latino population, and one-third of the total population is Limited English Proficient. Our Bilingual department grows larger every year, so it’s no surprise that last November saw huge student walkouts in protest over Proposition 187. It’s not what it was like when I went to school here--God--fifteen years ago. Forty percent white back then, demographically changed now, and yet most of the teaching done here is the same "drill and kill" as it was a decade and a half ago. The morning janitor scrubs more tagging off the water fountain as I walk by. "Hi" and "Hi" and I’m off to the teacher’s lounge.

Another dark brown door, this one with a light tannish gray streak signifying a recent tag that has been rubbed off with some toxic fluid, opens into a small room. A handful of teachers, some retrieving mail from their boxes (which line one wall), one micro waving a cup of coffee, another pulling caffeine from the soda vending machine, one in line for the only teacher phone on this end of campus, while another teacher tries to talk discreetly into the receiver on the outskirts of this hubbub. I nod hello to a few, smile hello to a couple, say good morning to one or two. I check my box. The computer scantron roll sheets are there, as is the bulletin. Nothing new, and I them back into my box.

Into the men’s room I go. One huge stall dominates. This is a recent addition: handicapped seating is mandatory, so one urinal was taken out so the stall could be widened. Because the stall couldn’t be shortened, a sink also had to be taken out. Thus, we’re left with only one urinal, one sink, and one stall for fifty-three male teachers. But we do have two mirrors, one of which has a wonderfully telling piece of duct tape holding the bottom of it against the tile wall. I do my business in this most professional of rooms, take a fleeting glance at myself in the mirror--zipper up, shirt tucked in, tie straight, pants a little wrinkled (I’ve got to do a better job of ironing, but who has time?)--and I’m out the door. As if my appearance mattered.

As if. My peers in the lounge are a motley crew. Coaches in school team sweat suits; stylish, but they still teach in the classroom, too. Levi’s and button-downs. The room's only other man in a tie now smiles and asks what I think of the Oscar nominations, and--before I can answer--lambastes Pulp Fiction again as degenerate trash. I nod and keep my opinion, degenerated garbage he already knows, to myself. Another English teacher, still standing in line for the phone, hears the warning bell ring: seven minutes to class.

"Shit," she mutters, and when I ask what’s wrong she gives me the litany: baby sick, baby-sitter cancelled, husband took the baby to his school, new baby-sitter has to pick him up there, needs to call mother-in-law to fly in for the next week (baby-sitter? it’s not quite clear), her rear left tire’s hissing, so she’s got to call the Auto Club. She’s usually quite charming and she does smile, so I smile back, wish her luck, thinking I’ve got to get to class.

I grab the roll sheets from my box and head out the door. More late arriving teachers are heading in, one even in a suit. I turn toward my class, and a huge single drip drop of water falls from the hallway ceiling onto my roll sheet. When did it stop raining? Two days ago? I can’t stop to think. The hallway’s crowded with students. I try to dodge both dripping old rain and stalled students talking in packs, as I accelerate to my hall.

And I take a right, and I see the beginning of a mob forming, waiting for me at my door. First period’s about to begin.