So, I was sitting around the apartment this morning, drinking coffee, doing my regular morning web-checks and listening to Regis and What's-Her-Face on TV in the background, when my cell phone rang. This was the good ring (the level-up sound from Final Fantasy XI—Metallica's "Creeping Death" [look out on that link, it's very noisy] plays if anyone associated with my current place of employ calls, while Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" [and watch that link, too; it's significantly less noisy, but infinitely more creepy] plays if it's a creditor or a telemarketer) so even though I didn't recognize the number, I answered it anyway.
FEMALE PHONE VOICE: Hi, may I speak with John [my last name]?Well, it turns out that an ELA is an English & Language Arts teacher. And it turns out the Frank H. Peterson Academies (of Technology, no less) are not the weird, Christian, private school I thought they were, but a Duval County accredited magnet school which specializes in prepping kids for getting a good job right out of high school or for continuing their education in a college setting. And it turns out, since they called me, that what I've come to think of as the "burden of desire" doesn't rest on me alone: these folks called ME!
ME: (warily) Speaking.
FEMALE PHONE VOICE: I'm calling from the Frank H. Peterson Academies and we're looking for an ELA.
ME: Wow, that's…wait, you're looking for a what?
Now, as the Wikipedia entry for the school suggests, this assignment isn't without its darker side: the school seems to have been born out of desperation, out of a desire for the least promising to have a future. They haven't, traditionally, scored very well, especially in reading. They seem, in their mission statement, to emphasize "safety" to such an extent that I, initially, feared for mine.
However, my brother, whose wife is a teacher, had this to say when I asked him what he knew about the school:
The students are very disciplined, they are divided into "academies" like a vocational school so that when they graduate they can go directly into the work force if they want to. We know a spanish teacher at the other academy school and she loves it. Their FCAT grades are low, C's and D's the past few years, a lot of that falls on the English teachers. They are in need of new blood to turn things around.New blood. And a teacher in a subject which is, in my mind, much more esoteric than the one I would teach, loves her position at a similar school: loves it and talks about the students being "disciplined."
That's all I know.
So, a school that's looking for an infusion has called me? They've not waited for me to call them, but have called ME? Me?
I want this job. And I think it's mine for the taking. For that reason, tonight I am cautiously—cautiously, mind you—really and extremely super fucking excited!
Of course, all of your advice is welcomed, cherished and appreciated.
Please?
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1 comment:
That's exciting.
Advice?
Recognize that how you do your job as a teacher may not be as directly related as you'd like to how your students do as students.
If you do a great job and they don't, results will be negligible, except that, looked at properly, you will still have the self-esteem and contentment that comes from doing a great job.
I just a read a great book by Garry Wills called "Certain Trumpets" that made the point that the only thing great leaders can do is organize followers efforts at accomplishing what the FOLLOWERS want to accomplish. You can't make them do what you want, you can only help them do what they want.
I thought that was a fascinating idea, that great leaders are just guides or facilitators for the desires of others and will always fail if the try to take folks where they don't want to go.
Lane
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