THE BANE OF TEACHER TENURE

Tenure has lately been a topic of discussion at lunch time. Why? Because there are a few teachers in this school who really are a detriment, when it comes to teaching our students. Ironically, most, if not all of them, do not teach in areas that do state testing. There is not any real accountability for what their students do or don’t achieve.
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In our school, one major area of weakness is the social studies area. One mother was telling how her daughter, a fifth-sixth grader, gets take-home pictures to color for her social studies homework – COLOR! Another mother of a child past fifth-sixth grade told her that that has been the teacher’s standard social studies assignment over the years. What happens? The next teacher has to work extra hard to get the students caught up because at the end of the eighth grade, they have a major social studies test that the state requires. The good news is that the seventh-eighth grade social studies teacher does an excellent job, but it takes the seventh grade students awhile to catch on to the fact that they have to do REAL work in that class.
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The problem occurs again when the students reach ninth grade. There they encounter a young teacher who wants to be cool, like her students are. She wants the students to like her. She wants them to come to her to pour out their troubles. In many ways, she acts like a high school student. Anyone who has subbed for her will tell you that her ninth-grade classes are out of control, and she rarely leaves decent plans – when she does, they are inaccurate. Usually she is absent when it is too hot, when it might snow, when it is a Friday or a Monday.
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The year she decided to marry her live-in (usually a sign that the couple would like to have a baby) , she often took long weekends, telling her students she needed the time to plan her wedding. The following year, when she was expecting, the long weekend pattern persisted. Then she began to claim she had pregnancy problems and needed to be absent often – however, she was well enough to come in on days she had promised to go with groups on field trips. (She herself never planned any field trips.) She was to go on maternity leave the end of March (baby due mid-April); she went in mid-December, managing to get an excuse from her doctor. (She was startled more than once when she would be spotted out shopping by other faculty when she supposedly needed to have bed rest.) She took almost all of the following year off (not all with pay), coming back in time to give local exams – if she decided to – to her classes.
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Quizzes are rare. Tests are rarer. (Often she is absent on those days.) Why does she not feel any urgency? There are not state exams in social studies until after tenth grade. Thus it falls to the tenth grade social studies teacher to catch the students up and then cover the material they need to cover for their state exam. This teacher also teaches a senior elective, which means she teaches nothing for which she is “majorly” accountable. In this course this year, for example, the students needed to have current events. Rather than come to class prepared, she takes them to a computer lab. In front of her, one student will tell his girlfriend to find him a current event and print it off. She does. Then he hands it to the teacher. She highlights a few items in it and gives him a grade for doing his assignment!! That’s just one area in which she shirks her responsibilities with this group. Resource teachers who sit in her classes with their students don’t like her. They say she is lazy. They say she lets students get away with cheating . . . She has no control whatsoever. The tenth grade social studies teacher does not like her either. Says she is lazy. Subs say they hate subbing for her. Why? They say she is lazy and that she obviously has no control over her students.
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What saves her? Tenure. To get rid of her would be a nasty, costly thing. The administration has to hope she finds a job elsewhere – applicants can indicate they do not want anyone to check with their past employer. The other possibility would be her crossing the line in some way. The current buzz is that she is out today getting a tattoo. Yesterday she told her students she was going to get that done today, and she had one of her students (not sure if a “he” or “she”) draw a sample on her back yesterday during a class . . . In the past, there have been complaints about her -- how often her chosen few get to go up to her room at lunch and watch movies for fun, movies that probably would not make it through an administrative check. Even today's "educational" movie she left for her sub makes no sense whatsoever as to how it fits the students' current studies.
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In my own thinking, this young woman is a very insecure woman. I can’t think of any adult staff member who has a favorable view of her. She doesn't do much to mix with the adults. From when she first came as a long-term substitute to the present, she prefers to be friends with the students. The woman is also smart, when it comes to “the system” as she knows how to use it. She herself decided when she thought her tenure kicked in -- ahead of everyone else's for that year, in her thinking! It seemed as if she lived for that. Why? It would give her job security.
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Who gets hurt? Students. That's too bad. Although I now benefit from tenure and from the support of a union, I haven't changed my mind as to how both hurt education and how costly both are, not just in learning but in cost as well.

DESPERATE LANDSCAPE? YES!!!

A number of years ago, one of our neighbor families sold their house and moved so that they could be closer to their jobs. This would enable the adults to be able to spend more time with their daughter because they would not be having to spend 30-60 minutes commuting to and from work.
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Their house, although small, had been improved, both inside and out. Inside, a doorway was added to improve the traffic flow from the living room to the dining room and kitchen. On the outside, bright burgundy shutters were placed on both sides of all of the windows. A bracket to hang the American flag was attached to the house, an American flag added. The driveways, both the entryway to the garage as well as the area outside the kitchen door, were paved. A large planting area was constructed along that longer driveway, in it bountiful and bright gardenias, which were tended to regularly. The man, a woodcrafter, built a nice-looking sturdy post for their mailbox. Along the edge of the adjacent lot, which also was theirs, they had planted several trees.
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The couple kept the grounds looking very nice as well. Although the property had some banks steep banks, the couple kept the lawn mowed and the banks trimmed, even if it meant using a weed-eater on the steeper slopes. Things were kept picked up. The house and its yard fit well in the neighborhood, where neighbors took pride in making their properties look nice.
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The house, with the adjacent lot, was purchased by a young, unmarried couple. In short order, a small field fence with metal stakes and a metal fence (not chain-link) was put up in the front of the house, enclosing the front entry area. This was for the little dog when it was let out of the house for a few hours. Mowing seemed to fall to the woman of the house. She worked locally, part-time. Having a small tractor mower made the job fairly easy; however, to do some of the slopes, a push mower or weed-eater needed to be used. Neither she nor the young man bothered with that area. On occasion someone, either a friend or relative, would stop by and would become the one to mow the property. Still, no one would tackle the sides or front areas that sloped downward.
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It wasn’t too long before the young woman moved out. No one knows the reason, nor does anyone ask. From that time to the present, things continued to deteriorate.
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A small, dying tree lost some large limbs in a storm and it needed to be taken down. For months, the limbs continued to lie on the ground where they had fallen and the remainder of the tree remained needing attention. A good Samaritan neighbor came to the rescue, and the young man had the decency to come out and help.
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The mailbox fell off the post and lay on the ground beside it until a good Samaritan neighbor came to the rescue and put that mailbox back on the post and used a bungee cord to get it to stay. Did the young man ever do anything to make the fix more permanent? No.
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The shutters have dulled. The banks continue to never get attention, filling in with weeds – maybe even critters. The planter box has become all weeds. The lawn itself does not get mowed unless a good Samaritan neighbor steps in. One has done the flat area below the bank; another does the flat area plus the adjacent lot.
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Winters he never shovels the snow. He just hopes he can get his vehicle into the driveway – although its location makes it impossible to get a running start. He just steps into the snow as he enters his house.
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Outside the side entrance are bags spilling over with containers that need to be returned for a deposit refund. Just inside that entrance, in the kitchen, are ever-growing piles of pizza boxes. The young man never puts out his trash for pick-up. Instead, his house and property continue to look more and more like a pigpen.
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Does this young man have the equipment to mow? Yes. To trim? Not sure, but he could purchase on very easily. Is his work schedule such that he isn’t home when there are daylight hours in which he could work? No. Does he claim to not have enough time do mow or do the upkeep on his property? Yes. Is he just lazy? Yes. Does he show any appreciation for what his neighbors do for him? No.

What is the solution? I have three ideas:

1. Sell the property and move to a place where none of this matters.
2. Invest in a zero-maintenance landscape.
3. Grow up and act like a responsible adult.
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It would be neat if a show like Desperate Landscapes would consider coming to a more rural area to help us out. In the meantime, maybe we need to look for local contests and submit the property for consideration.

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BTW: His car was at home all day, except when he left for a few minutes (perhaps to grab a pizza). No other signs of life were evident. Makes me wonder if he doesn't want to be seen by his neighbors . . .

No doubt I shared last summer about "The Pew Incident." When this picture came to me in an email (along with several other pithy sayings), I thought of how that illustrates not just that particular incident but other incidents over the years.
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I have never been a member of a church that charges pew rentals for a particular pew for the year. Churches I have been a part of never have had to go to that extreme to meet their annual budgets.
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I have been a part of churches where it seems the same people always sit in the same places Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. That spot may stay the same for every service of that day AND extend to the midweek, if the church has a service then. It's not that others wouldn't think of sitting in those spots -- often they, too, do the same thing. There are others who have their spots for Sunday services, and then a different spot for the midweek service. Then, there are still others who have one spot for Sunday mornings, another spot for Sunday evenings, and yet another spot for the midweek -- and it is up to the rest of us to remember all of this detail, from the always-all-the-timers to the one-spot-for-each-servicers. Even in all these variations, it's not so much the fact of being in the exact same spot each time; it is just something they do.
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However, I know people who seem to not like it if someone sits in what they perceive to be "their pew"! These few will make it known, whether with a verbal dig of some sort or, as in my case last summer, moving other people's things that are on the pew because they have had to leave for the moment.
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In my current church, seating is not at a premium. There is ample seating in the pews, with no need for anyone to feel forced to sit in the first two rows. In instances mentioned above, all it might entail that particular service is moving up or back a pew. How ridiculous is it to think that such an inconvenience!
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Have you encountered these kinds of people? Have you, like me, just gone ahead and let them move your stuff (or sit in your usual spot) and not make a big deal out of it? After all, where are we? Why are we here?
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As corollaries to all of this is this:

1. Why is it that in a church with ample seating, no need to sit in the first 1-3 pews, people still want to sit in the rows of chairs behind the last pews?
2. Why is it our church people will not leave the back pew(s) available for families with young children, families with other special needs, or people who arrive late? (The answer to the late one in our church is that about half of the people arrive 5-20 minutes late regularly . . . and we aren't talking delays because of work schedules either, such as milking.)