I Usually Get Kissed First

Monday, March 20, 1995

Where to begin?

Yesterday, I guess.

Jesus, my mind is fried, and I don’t know if I can get all this down. I have a pounding headache. It is nearly seven Monday night, and I’ve been home for only about fifteen minutes. Lisa was a goddess enough to fix me dinner--on her birthday, no less--and let me get on the computer before I lose all my thoughts. But that is today. Yesterday...

I arrived at school at two o’clock, to meet with Aimee and look over the video Vince had left her on Saturday. It was wonderful. Better than anything Aimee and I could have concocted, filled with great footage, good music, neat transitions. She was still nervous, but happy. She had gone out shopping on Saturday, spending three hundred dollars on two suits--today’s was the "power suit" (I guess I don’t respond to power well)--a new skirt, panty house, jewelry and assorted doodads. So far, so good. She went off to meet the visitation committee and to tour them around the campus; I went to my classroom to put polishing touches on it for the beginning of the week.

At ten ‘til three, I headed into the library to find members of the leadership team gathering for the first meeting with the committee. Aimee was there; she explained that since no one was asking her questions on the tour--except two members of the committee complaining that they had received reports that were missing appendices--she decided to head to the library and prepare there. Everyone was nervous, but I knew we had a killer video and a great report...

What, me worry?

The Committee came in and settled in for the meeting. Before introductions, Aimee introduced the video, but before it could begin, the chair asked, "What, no multimedia presentation?"

Oh. Shit. The video rolled, and I thought that would allay her desire. No way, at the end of it, she said, "When I visited the campus here in September, Bill had created a great multimedia presentation, and I’ve been raving about it to the members of the Committee. Now I see you have other talented members of your staff as well."

Gulp. Aimee looked at me. Well, I hope you’re happy, Bill. So a video would be good enough, huh?

Then the meeting began. The chair had us put the library tables into a circle/rectangle. We introduced ourselves, and the Committee started in on their questions regarding our report and the process that led to it. ESLR’s. The Focus Groups. And so it went for nearly an hour and a half. We are praised for our honesty. This worries some, who suddenly think that we have been too blunt. I make mention of how some members of the staff had problems with examining our campus, "warts and all" in such a public forum. Others take on the concept of process versus product. But no mention yet of the Action Plan. And suddenly I am thinking that maybe there was reason to be nervous, after all.

But I couldn’t concern myself with that now; I had to get out of there before four-thirty if I was going to make it in time for Lisa’s birthday dinner with my parents. The meeting broke up at four-twenty-five. As Lori, Mary, Aimee and I gathered briefly, all three stared at me, grinning.

"Well, multimedia boy..."

I put on my best mea-culpa chagrined grin. "Gee, Aimee. I’m sorry I cost us the six." It was a joke. The idea of losing accreditation years on the lack of a dog and pony show. It was funny at the time.

I left in time for dinner and to hear my Bruins had won their NCAA tournament game. All (or mostly all, if you just didn’t count WASC) was right with the world.

This morning, however, it all started to fall apart.

I arrive on campus at six-forty, ready to edit some past journal entries, but, without time to do so, I go straight to the library for our six-fifty meeting. As I enter the quad, I notice GumpDumb taking photos...bad sign. Then I see why. Taggers had hit overnight. There is graffiti everywhere. Wonderful. Well, at least the WASCers are seeing reality.

In the library, Mary and Lori voice their quiet unease at the feeling gleaned from yesterday’s meeting. When Aimee asks me to help her take some stuff back over to her room, I know she has some concerns of her own to voice. We head across the campus, not heading directly across, of course--Aimee’s high heels have to remain on concrete--and Aimee tells me that not even this new suit is retail therapy enough to erase her fears, her bad feeling about all this. I look at her suit. Very nice, almost sexy, a bright pink-purple (Lisa and Aimee would be able to tell you the specific color [magenta, I later learn]; I can’t). It matches the shirt I’m wearing today. We look like the fucking Bobsy twins.

She feels that she is letting the school down, that the report she has incited the staff to write won’t be good enough to get us a six-year accreditation. The missing appendices. The lack of a multimedia presentation. The grilling we took yesterday over the ESLR’s (something that was fully written up in the report...hadn’t they read the report???). All of these are making her worry. I try to allay those fears, but all she’s doing is make me second-guess our preparation.

Back in the library, the Committee walks in. Stone-faced. One of the WASCers, wearing an almost identical copy of Aimee’s suit--only this one is green (well, it works for her)--sits next to me, and I pull out her chair. Chivalry is not dead, but niceties are. The chair launches in on a full-scale probing (Aimee would later call it an attack) on our Action Plan. It seems they had discussed it last night, but were and are unclear on specifics, especially on how it relates to student achievement.

Well, since ambiguities were built into the plan, we can understand some level of un-clear-ness. We had written the plan as a true process, one in which we had not prescribed the actions ahead, but had set up a framework and a structure for decisions to be made. We had been asked to write a narrative, one that would show how we planned to move into reforms over the next few years, and that was what we had done. But now, the Committee was unclear and they are nailing us on process-based ambiguities.

We try to answer their questions. Some of us become rather defensive--one vocal member of the team talks of faculty buy-in, of creating a process for our campus (not necessarily for WASC) and uses the phrase "WASC be damned." But there is little time, as most of us need to be in class by seven-twenty-five, and the Committee has to be ready for classroom visitations by seven-thirty. As we walk out of the library, Mary looks at me as if to say buckle up, ladies and germs, it’s going to a bumpy ride. Two of the guys teasingly give me shit about if you’d had a fuckin’ techfest, they wouldn’t be givin’ us shit. Lori just closes her eyes, like she’s dying a slow unnatural death, and shakes her head. Aimee looks like she’s about to cry. "Are we fucked or what, Bill?" she asks.

I tell her, "Usually, I get kissed first, or at least offered dinner..."

And it’s off to classes we go.

During first period, one of the WASCers comes in while I’m moving from a discussion of the perceptions and supporting examples for the characters Anne and Helen in the section of The Miracle Worker we watched on Friday, to quick showings of the remaining scenes from Act One. I’m pausing frequently, using the laserdisc player, so that I can elicit further responses on the characters’ personality traits and how these traits are proved by the actions and statements of the characters. This will be the basis for later writing, and a possible multimedia presentation project done by the Nines. Of course, my observer leaves before I can allude to this. For all I know, she could be thinking that I’m just another video-happy, electronic-lesson-plan-spouting knucklehead. Oh, well.

Second period is its regular, happy place. Luckily, there’s no visitation/observation. Midway through, I receive a note, cryptic, that I need to see our fearless leader after lunch. Third period goes well as usual, as we are burning through Hamlet. At the end of class, I’m heading over to Bruce’s room, for our English department meeting with two representatives from the Committee.

Lunch has been catered, a three-foot sub sandwich with chips. I lean over and quietly tell Aimee about my post-lunch meeting with the principal. She whispers to me that she’s been summoned, too. Now, she’s downright worried. She’s heard that the morning focus group meetings have gone poorly. God knows what "in-flight adjustments" we’ll have to make after lunch. We sit in a circle, and talk about the process of creating our department narrative. Of how we need to integrate more. Of what ways we need to redefine what we do across the strands (Honors, college prep, standard) within the course years. Their questions still seem kind of, well, hostile. Maybe we’re just being paranoid.

After the meeting, the members who have fourth period prep--Bruce (he actually has Yearbook that period, but that is a class that--at this point in the year--practically runs itself), Aimee, and I--stay around to talk with the two members of the Committee. We discuss assessment standards, and one of the WASCers asks about our own ways of determining how we decide which methodologies we keep and which ones we abandon. This is the woman who observed my class. I tell her of how the assignment she saw will be the basis for the writing and multimedia assignments. I tell her that I’ll take a look at example-based paragraphs written before the multimedia presentation, and ones done after, and if there is a higher lever of writing afterwards, it’s a lesson I’ll keep. I’m winging this big-time. I tell her that I’ve done it both at the Honors level and the college prep, but since this is English Nine, this is the real experiment. She is impressed with this heightened level of expectation, this use of the same assignment across the strands. And she wants to know how prevalent this is in our department, on our campus. I let the others ramble now.

The WASC ladies are impressed and on that note, Aimee and I leave to Joanne's office to find out what's up. When we arrive, there is a note on her door directing us to go to the office conference room. A quick turn and we are there. So are four other members of the leadership team, all buzzing with activity. They seem to be trying to compose some kind of response. Aimee and I sit down. We listen, but it's hard to make out what is going on at first.

It all sounds familiar. The Action Plan? But somehow different. More educationese. More assessment-oriented. Oh, God. It dawns on me. They're rewriting the Action Plan. I guess it dawns on Aimee at about the same time because she questions if that is what is going on.

"Not rewriting," our fearless leader states, "just putting it into their own language."

Bullets, I think. I’ll give ‘em some bullets.

"Obviously, they're not getting it in our version," Lori pipes in.

"Okay... so are we screwed, or what?" Aimee asks.

A round of not-at-alls explode from every corner of the conference room.

Aimee's worried and she lets it show. She says that she thinks we've already lost the six. All chime in at once on how we have a great plan, that we've done the job asked, that it's just that they don't seem to be understanding how it relates to... and here they start to look over a new handout, one to which Aimee and I have not yet been made privy. Somehow, we now have in our hands the questions that the Committee must answer; these have been placed in our hands by Dr. Taratino, the visiting chair. I think, she thinks this will allow us to doctor our response to get the six. Or maybe she thinks we’ll think this will allow us to doctor the response for a six. I don't know. She certainly isn't happy with what she's getting. And Aimee has slipped into this kind of catatonic funk. Not responding. Barely even meeting my gaze.

We look over the questions. All of this is student-based. This is good, though a majority of what we've done over the past year has been teacher-based. Apples and oranges. Mary is taking notes, acting as scribe, penciling what it is becoming clear will be some kind of addendum to our Action Plan. And our fearless leader is pushing it through. Others are chiming in. But Aimee and I are completely confused as to what is going on. What are we doing?

As it turns out, the other members of the team are less than clear on all this as well. Working on an addendum? Yes. But what form it should take--methodology or outcomes--is still a matter to be decided.

My mind must be fried. I'm still not getting it, though Aimee is seemingly catching on. The fire is back into her eyes. She says that while writing something new might work, it might not. Maybe something written is not what we need. She looks my way. Oh, no.

"Whatever we do, we shouldn't write another narrative," she says. "Look where that's gotten us. Taratino keeps harping on the damned multimedia presentation... well, let's give her one."

I shake my head. "By when? Tomorrow morning, six-thirty? I'm not sure it's even possible...and I'm not saying I'm even willing."

Our fearless leader gets us back on track. Even if we decide to go multimedia, we're going to need to have something that goes on it. Back to content, substance, matter, message. But within another fifteen minutes, we've bogged down again. Just what do these people want?

We decide to send for Taratino, pull her out of a focus group meeting. She arrives and she says that the Committee is having problems with our lack of specifics in our Action Plan. She doesn't explain whether those specifics are in outcomes or methodology. Part of me thinks she's being coy, another part of me thinks she has not a single clue as to what she's supposed to do.

I press the point. I tell her we were given the task to create a process, and that's what we've done. But now, as we're about to be evaluated on that task of a process, it seems we are being dinged on not having a good enough product. What's the deal?

She responds by telling me that looking over the Action Plan, it seems pretty obvious what needs to be done on this campus, but we don't outline it. There are no explicit statements.

Others jump in, calling for staff empowerment, staff buy-in. But she claims that the buy-in should already be there, a product of the WASC process itself. That's horseshit, and I think it takes every ounce of Harold Law’s restraint not to tell her that in a visual--a prime mover and shaker on the leadership team and the campus at large, he is a reformist now champing on the bit. But before he can attack, I take a different tack. I say that while it is obvious to us what needs to be done, it's not so obvious to some other members of the staff. Yes, we see what needs to be done, but we cannot merely prescirbe that. If we did, the general perception would be that, and here I point at our fearless leader across the table, she wrote the report, that this is a top-down process, it's another case of the administration telling teachers what to do. And it will never fly. We, here in this room, know what needs to be done. Sure. But the staff out there needs to discover it.

And still we hem and we haw over this, what is becoming increasingly obvious to me, crucial point. Product versus process. And it's hard to walk that fine line between the two. Again, we press her for an answer, what do we need to give you?

She says that she cannot speak for the rest of the Committee. She will talk to them tonight. She'll have more information for us in the morning. Tomorrow. Six-thirty. And it could mean more questions rather than answers. In fact, that is becoming a given. And she leaves.

We talk for another thirty minutes. We talk out what could be two good responses for what we can already envision might be two questions tomorrow morning. The team members who pontificated so well minutes earlier are now urged to remember what they had said, so that it can be regurgitated in the morning. Great. I feel better. Sarcasm.

Aimee feels even less on-balance. As the meeting is breaking up, she looks to me. "We need a visual," she says.

"Library," I respond.

Aimee catches Mary's eye. "Let's pull a long afternoon."

It's already three-fifteen by this time. But it's off to the library we go. I buy five dollars worth of candy bars from the textbook clerk, and we begin work. It takes nearly two hours to get even the slightest idea of what kind of visual we need. We don't want words. Pictures. A re-examination of the organizational flow chart. With concrete examples. A discussion on how it will impact student learning.

Aimee asks me about a multimedia presentation, some bells, no whistles. No text, just graphics, no film clips, no music. I say that that's really tough to do. Any kind of animation would take hours. I don't think there is enough time. She says she can deal with flip charts. It would be nice to just blow up the flow chart from the report. Liz Kurtz, library clerk extraordinaire, who has been sitting in on this meeting, suggests overhead transparencies. PERFECT!

And I sit down to create the visuals on Mary's computer as the four women (Aimee, Mary, Lori, and Liz) hash out what it should show; even Cindy Daniels drops by--still on campus at five--to toss in some ideas. I listen and create, and by six o'clock we have four visuals. We print them out (thank God the Committee has left so that we can put the transparencies in their printer). And we set up the overhead projector and take a look at the visuals on the big screen. Cool. I will be in charge of displaying and overlaying the transparencies as Aimee talks tomorrow morning; I'll also be drawing on them with colored markers to highlight points she will make.

In about twelve hours. And we all go home.

WASC is hell.