How I Ended Up In the Dungeon Part 1

I have been teaching photography for 10 years.  It is at the point that my students have no idea that I did not begin my tenure at this place as the photography teacher.  So, I thought I would tell the story.

In the winter of 2006, I was called into the principal's (JW) office.  I was told I would be teaching photography the next school year (2006-2007).  Reasons given were that they wanted to re-vamp the program, move it from the Business and Technology Department to the Art Department, and I was the only person in the Art Department with a good amount of photography experience.  A non-administrator was involved in this decision, but that was not put in writing.  I was hired by this school to teach Sculpture and Yearbook.  This was my fourth year doing so.  School districts have "right of assignment" meaning you teach what they tell you to teach, as long as you are qualified.  I was also asked to not say anything to the current photo teacher or anyone else at all.  The impression I was given was that he was retiring and we didn't want to push him out the door.

I complied.

My photo experience was this:  Two college level photo courses, Assistant Photo Editor at a television magazine in NYC, research and photo library maintenance for a paparazzo and a major league sport organization.  Yes, I did have the most photo experience in my department.  Yet, I had not been in a darkroom for 10 years and the last time I worked on Photoshop was on an ancient version.  I needed to refresh my knowledge.  Coincidentally, my sister was leaving a photo job for a general art teaching job so we traded resources.  My district was not going to pay to help me train and refresh.  I spent the following months doing that on my own.

I was excited at the prospect of change.  Most teachers are not excited when told they are teaching something else.  It is usually a punishment.  I rarely sit still and have hopped around a lot in my life.  We moved a lot when I was growing up.  I switched schools a lot.  This did not feel like a punishment to me.  It felt like a gift.  My breathing was getting worse due to the refusal of the custodians to change the filters in my air filtration system in room 105.  I was getting sick of smelling like clay and being covered in dust all the time.  I mean, I wear nothing but dark colours.  This was not working!  I love the smell of chemicals.  What a match.

Then some things started happening.  My department head - who I had a wonderful relationship with - was kept in the dark.  When he found out, he was hurt that I "hid" it from him.  I had to tell him I was following orders and thought he knew.  Then the rest of the department found out.  One was involved in the decision - more on that once I leave the district.  One thought s/he was the head of the department and was angry with me because s/he was not involved in the decision.  Note s/he was not mad at the individual who was involved in the decision.  The rest were happy for me.

Then I found out the photo teacher was not retiring.  This was the superintendent's (VJ) way of trying to push him out.  JW and VJ had not liked this man for a long time.  Coincidentally, he was cruising and not putting effort into the program.  However, like typical administrators, they couldn't be bothered to create the paper trail to justify firing him.  Photography shrank to one period they had trouble filling.  The combination of the two situations - as well as an Art Department situation that will be told about another time - made for an easy solution.  They took away the program and moved me downstairs, away from anyone else in my department.  The guy dug in his heels and refused to leave.  He told them they would have to carry him out of there on a stretcher.  He was also led to believe by VJ, JW, and others that I went after the program.  And we would be sharing the room next year.  At no point did any of the involved parties make any effort to tell the photo teacher that the decision was made administratively and I was just following orders.  For the next few years I walked the halls with people talking about how I deceived people and stole the program from someone.

To be continued....

Friends

A former student posted something online this week about not having a best friend and always feeling like the extra in groups of friends.  Then the flurry of comments come.  "Let's hang out", "Call me and we'll get together", "I miss you",  "I'll be your best friend", blah blah blah.  I don't know if she smelled the bullshit, but it reeked by me.  I could have written that post any day of the past 35 years.  I smell the bs claims to want to hang out from a mile away.  It seems to be so much easier to make those claims as well when we have social media.

Here's the thing, if you are keeping in contact via social media by liking pics and posts, making the odd comment here and there, and you make no other effort, you are not reciprocating friendship.   After a suicide last school year, a friend of the kid was bothered that he didn't accept the offer to hang out with said person the last time he heard from him. Now he was dead.  This student then reframed the suicide as selfish.  Not exactly.  The selfish person was you, the person who just figured because you keep in minimal contact on social media, and you were too "busy" (bs excuse), that person would always be there.

Guess what...   The people you rely on or consider "friends" will not always be there.  Do not take their presence for granted.  An acquaintance from the club I go to just lost a kid he knew in a car accident.  So far this year, there have been suicides, drug overdoses, death due to illness, and accidents.  No one's presence here is guaranteed.  This girl's comment this week really hit home.  My father has great trouble making friends.  My mother has pushed away anyone she does not approve of.  He has no best friend, no one to talk to or confide in (I am the spitting image of him in way too many ways).  He finally made one a couple of years ago.  I was thrilled for him.  A few months ago, the man died suddenly in an accident.  I passed by the broken divider on the highway recently and all I could think of was the loss.  And the fact that while some of us end up friendless and it is out of our control, for most of you, it is within your control.

And I keep thinking about this girl's post.  Comments from a bunch of people who come around too late.  What if we just took the time to hang out and talk face-to-face once in a while?  What's so hard about accepting an invite to hang out (or extending one to those who have anxieties about initiating)?  I am tired of hearing or reading "Yeah, we'll hang out sometime" because sometime never comes.  It might not come due to laziness.  It might not come because of loss.  If you care about someone enough to use the word "friend" in connection with them, make time to see them (in the flesh, not snapchat or online crap), make the time to actually talk.  Because being in the presence of others and hearing their voices and being able to see and touch them is better than this online crap.  That's not friendship.  That's minimal effort.  If you are lucky enough to have people who want to be with you, take advantage of that.  We're all going to die, some sooner than others.

You just haven't earned it yet, baby

Iconic Morrissey line to start this off, because I don't know if I will ever earn what I desire.  What would that be?  Respect, friendship, genuine thanks.

 So at the end of they year, I go through my network folders and clean stuff out.  I have a folder at work and at home titled "Favors".  This consists of things I have done for colleagues, supervisors, parents, and former students.  In essence, things above and beyond what I am paid to do.  This includes photographic editing and printing, logo designs for businesses, and recommendation letters for jobs, scholarships & college program applications.  I have also donated money to pay for funerals or burned down houses.  I have never said no to a single former student.  Ever.

I love my students as if they were my friends or family.  I will always be there for them.  However, when the only contact you get from them after graduation is when they need something from you, it hurts.  I never knew of students keeping in touch with their teachers.  I visited my high school all of once.  When I got to PV, after a few years, I noticed that students and teachers do keep in touch.  Then I found out that that the relatives I have who are retired teachers still talk to and meet with their former students that they had special connections with.  Then I started having kids say they wanted to keep in touch.  I was not getting my e-mails, so I started a facebook with the sole purpose of keeping in touch.  Facebook is passe, so I started an instagram since this is what you need to do.  And boy do I know what I need to do - I nearly lost a friend due to my desire to talk to him face-to-face, not via e-mail.

But I'll be honest, this isn't "keeping in touch".  What it is is keeping a connection to me so that they can get what they need because they know I will help when needed.  Do they want to keep in touch?  I don't think so.  One girl I went for coffee with only did so because she wanted to talk to me about getting another former teacher to not be angry with her anymore after a disagreement (The three of us had even gone hiking and exploring together but I was clearly just the third wheel.)  She was worried about losing that connection and knew I would be the reliable one to help.  I never heard from her again.  I get requests for recommendations of all types every year - from kids who have already graduated.  And I comply.  I get requests for information, advice, help.  I reply quickly.   Sometimes I get a confirmation and a thank you.  Sometimes.

You might say that these kids only look for this kind of stuff.  However, when you bump into former students out to lunch with a former teacher, when you hear about them meeting up with other colleagues, when you see the glowing posts and pictures, I realize I am being used.  When you see derogatory things online a bout a misconduct you wrote (five+ years after the fact) for putting pretzels in the computer disk drive and then you get a sheepish "thanks for saving my life in high school" private message, you get the connection between the two and you don't say anything.  You just take the emotional hit.  And they keep on coming.

I had a student tell me something the last week of school.  He said "This place doesn't know what they have in you."  It was so wonderful to hear that and it was the first I ever heard anything like that.  It made me feel good.  But then I get a couple of e-mails from graduates for information, I promptly send a response, and I hear nothing.  Is this lack of manners or just a show of the fact that I am disposable when no longer useful?  I think it is the latter.

So why bother anymore?  Because as Morrissey also said, "I know my luck too well and I'll probably never see you again."  I would rather the slim possibility of being remembered fondly by someone for helping out than to be despised for neglecting the kids I loved so much.

I took a break from writing.  There are two reasons.  The first one is that I was very busy at work and in my personal life.  I hold an office in two organizations out of work.  I also was having such a wonderful year with students in my room so often that I needed to let something go and it wasn't going to be the kids or the grading.  It was the blogging.  The second reason I stopped was because of one person who I believe was reading this and then trying to kiss my ass by relating to me with similar issues.

I had a bit of an issue in one of my classes this year.  I hope to keep in touch with most of my students after they graduate, and many times that happens.  I rarely try to make the contact with them, leaving that choice up to them.  This is because I couldn't presume they want to keep in touch with me, even if they claimed so while they had me as their teacher.  When they do contact me - via social media or e-mail - my heart skips a beat.  However, there have been two students in the past that I will never allow to have contact with me ever again.  One is someone who submitted a filthy thing about another teacher in the yearbook and then denied it to me and my staff.  I was not the only teacher that thought this kid might end up as a sexual predator some day.  The other is a student who treated his classmates and me like we were beneath him - all because he got into a photo school that told him he did not need me anymore.  Students can treat me like dirt and I forgive them (Heck, I have forgiven the kids who threatened me with harm) but once you treat your peers in a demeaning manner, that's it.  He tried to apologize twice after graduation, but I didn't have the stomach for it.

Now I will add two more to that list.  To say the past year's politics brought the ugly out is an understatement.  As a teacher, my politics are secret and I treat each student equally regardless of their politics.  However, I had two students who behaved and talked in such a manner that I could not ignore it.  I knew the situation with one of them when he ended up in my class.  He then targeted a weaker link to bring him over to his side.  Neither worked very much, choosing to plot and complain most of the time.  However, their behaviour was offensive to many of their classmates and quite hurtful to a couple of ladies.  When I came up with how to deal with them, I had to do it with a plan and carefully.  You see, expecting a certain atmosphere of respect for each other in the classroom is now "political."  I had to buy into everything they said in their effort to kiss up to me from day one.  The kid who was pulling information from this blog would try to tell me stories about home that were just like events or incidents I would relay in my posts.  I would pretend to be sympathetic.  But there came a point when the comments were just too much.  I gave an angry response.  I know I did the right thing because afterwards, many kids from the class thanked me.

They tried to report me to "administration" for "forcing [my] political beliefs" on them.  If respect and courtesy are political, so be it.  However, there are students in other classes with some similar beliefs as them now and in the past and I never had an issue with them.  So to say I am glad to be rid of them is an understatement.  It is a wonderful feeling.

Now on to the bad stuff....

This was the best year of my teaching career.  The majority of the students were creative, hard-working, and inspiring.  I absolutely enjoyed getting to know them.  One referred to me as a friend and I had to correct him (colleague in the room) but this was one of those rare times that I thought "Yeah, I like you guys so much that I like that you consider me a friend"  If I was in high school, these are the kinds of people I would wish I could be friends with - from afar, way over in the corner, afraid to approach them, of course.  It broke my heart when one sophomore asked if she could have my number to keep in touch over the summer and I had to say no.  I don't just have a teacher/learner relationship with these kids.  We talk about so many other things that it goes far beyond that.  I say "You can e-mail me" but they rarely do.  When we see each other in September, I will be so happy.

But there are a lot I will not see in September because they graduated.  They talk of keeping in touch, but I don't hold out hope. On the rare occasion I try to reach out to people, I experience rejection, so I will not do that anymore.  But I love and care about these young people so much.  I know I am not the only teacher in my building that does.  We are a very small minority.  I miss them.  It feels like my heart has been ripped out.  When you have an art class, the feelings and emotions are more intense.  It could be due to the creation and communication inherent in a project.  It could be due to the intensity of the learning process and the excitement of success.  This was in intense year for me considering the depressing shit-show that was the previous year.  These kids were a gift and I feel like I lost it.  I am sad but there is nothing I can do but hope they are doing OK and might want to stay in my life and want me in theirs.