He took the carton into
the lounge room. Then with a mug of hot tea in hand and he pulled the coffee
table up and rested his knees against it.
Then, he lifted the carton up onto the couch beside him. The tedious task of sorting began as he separated
the notebooks, plastic sleeves and folders into piles. Students’ note books and
project work, he placed on the floor near the couch. Lorri’s personal files and
lesson materials he placed on one end of the table. The work was nearly
complete when he found it. Wedged between some student notebooks near the
bottom of the box, it was a Tudor 240 page exercise book. As it did not have a
name written on the front cover, he opened it. The handwriting was Lorri’s
familiar slanting script. He began to read. The first entry was dated sometime
in 2010. Eighteen months prior.
11
March 2010
I
am not sure what the real problem is any more. Everything I am doing lately
seems to be wrong or needs redoing because it is ‘inappropriate’ or I am told
it is not appealing to the students.
I chose a text that Lee has told me, is just wrong for the class. I thought we
could do ‘Trust Me’ a collection of short stories but I was told they were ‘too
childish’ and I had to do ‘Before I die’ which would deal with more mature themes.
‘She chose the text. It is rather grim. Before I die’ a short novel by Jenny
Downham, about a girl who has only a few months to live and she wants to live
life to the fullest. While it is well written, it deals with some risky
behavior by the sick girl and her girlfriend Tessa. The two girls smoke, take drugs
and indulge in some really risky sexual behaviours. Do we need to be so
obsessed with drugs, drink and rock an roll? Lee thinks it is all about
educating students to the potential dangers and teaching them to deal situations
but we leave moral issues alone. Lee and I had words about what is appropriate
and then the next day she gives me back my Visual Lit task for year 10 and
tells me to make it block style and not indented. I said, ‘lee does it really
matter?’ She says ‘Of course it does. Do as I ask you.’
I see the two other Year 10 teachers’ tasks
on the desk. Neither of them is indented. They are block style. Is this petty
or what? I indent the text and she looks at it for a few seconds and says to
me, ‘I have changed my mind. It looked better before. Put it back into block
style.’ Lucky I had the text saved in
the other format. I just print it out again and take it over to her. She looks
at it. Then she takes a red pen from her set of different coloured pens laid
out on the desk, lined up next to the rubber and pencil sharpener on the left
hand corner of her desk. She slashes through the second paragraph with the
criteria and tells me ‘You need to rewrite it. The language is too sophisticated
for students in year 10.’ I could not for the life of me see what was so
difficult about the language used. So I asked her for suggestions, after all
she is the head teacher.
There
and then, she said to me, ‘you are a teacher too, you should be able to figure
it out.’ I had to redo my Year 10 task
for the Visual Literacy Unit a total of nine times and then when we finally got
it right it was the original wording except for the use of ‘organize’ instead
of ‘classify’.
I
had changed it and changed it and then it went back to the original wording. I
was beginning to feel desperate. I have never felt so wrong in all my life. I
felt like the dumbest of the dumb. Unworthy to bear the title teacher. I just
hope that this is not going to continue. I used to always have such a good
report with my HT ‘s and students and my working colleagues. I just can’t
understand what is going wrong. I left work with a dull ache like a tight band
around my head and my heart pounding. I had marking to do, but did not want to
stay at work at the school. I decided I would do it at home and bring my work
in tomorrow in the morning. Brian will be there to get the kids up. I so need
this job. We need this job and the money. I must try and do what she wants. I
must not lose my job at any cost.
Brian took a long sip
of his coffee. He began to feel like he might need something stronger. He
flipped through the pages of the exercise book. It was 240 pages and possible
two hundred pages of writing with possibly forty pages unwritten at the end.
The next entry was dated the 16th of March, 2010. It was a Tuesday.
It was not a long entry but it was water stained and the page was crumpled. She
had underlined several words heavily.
16th
March, 2010
Why
is she doing this? What does she gain by it? I have not yet figured that one
out. I have always worked in collaborative workplaces. It is as if she hates me! I want to work with her. I do not
want to lose my job. Today one of the students passed a note in class. I
happened to be standing behind her as she passed it into my hands instead of
the student sitting behind her. I had been walking through the rows of
students. A big year nine class with 28 students and nine of them are on
behaviour cards including this girl. She tried to grab the note from my hands
and actually crushed my fingers in her effort to retrieve the note. I did not
let go of it and asked her to remove herself from the classroom. She just said
‘Make me!’ I sent a student out to get the head teacher. Then I stood next to
the door of the classroom and asked her to leave the room. She began to shout
and throw her things around.
‘Fuckin
‘ shit. You fuckin’ dickhead of a teacher. You are a fuckin’ bleedin’
dickhead.’You know that?’ she came up to me and stood close breathing her smoke
laden breath into my face. I tried not to grimace. Then she swung her bag
around and wacked me with it. Clearly intentional. While shocking, it was not
as bad as what happened next. I gritted my teeth and said as quietly as I
could, ‘Please leave now and stand outside.’ She laughed and told the class,’
She’s in me way. Should I smack her out of me way?’ the class burst into
laughter and some applauded. Lee Hammer marched down the corridor her blonde
corkscrew curls bobbing. She stood at the door. The laughter died.
Looks as things are a bit out of control,
are they Lorri? Then she turned and
addressed the students.
You need to behave for Mrs Witz. Don’t you
lot want to pass your School Certificate next year?
There
were a few mumblings and then an audible comment from the back row of students carried
to the front.
‘Ow ken we pass with a fucken shit of a
teacher like Witz. Sack the bitch and get someone else in ‘o knows what they’re
doin’.
Lee stood at the door and scanned the students
who fell silent. She turned to me and
the student with her bag slung by this time over her shoulder.
‘Finish to question four,’ I told them ‘and
then write a reflective response to the text.’ I motioned with my hand for the
girl to leave the class room. Lee stood back from the door and waited.
‘So what’s going on? ‘She asked Tess. Tess
screwed up her face and looked weepy.
Miss took a note from me ‘and. She snatched
it and ‘urt me ‘and. She held the hand up for Lee ‘s inspection. It looked perfectly
ok apart from the chipped black nail polish.
There was not a word to Tess about the fact
that she was not supposed to be writing notes in class and no mention of the fact that black nail polish wasn’t a part of the
school uniform. She turned to me.
‘Well, Mrs. Witz I guess you owe this
student an apology. She says you hurt her hand.’ The students in the row next
to the corridor wall tittered.
‘Mrs. Hammer, I think you may not have
understood the situation. Tess was meant to be doing her work and not passing
notes in class. In fact, I confiscated the note she was passing to the student
behind her and she tried to snatch it back from me. Then she swore when she was
asked to leave the room and actually belted me with her school bag when I
insisted she leave.’
‘You were gunna read me bloody private note.
‘and you was standin’ in tha way otha door. ‘ow do you bleedin’ well spect me
to go out when ye fat carcass is in me way? Ay AY?’ Lee put up her hand for quiet.
‘Shh, stop now Tess. Mrs Witz will apologise
for snatching the note. And Lorraine, you need to stand back from the door, if
you are asking a student to leave and you are in the doorway, it is kind of
contradictory. You need to give students clear instructions that they can
follow. Tess you can come with me and
finish your work. Have you got all your work and your things? I will take the
note and you can have it back after the lesson is over.’ She held out her hand
for the note and like a chastised school girl I gave it over. She turned and
said to me over her shoulder, ‘Lorraine, we need to talk in the first half of
lunch.’
‘I have yard duty near the canteen.’ I blurted out.
She
paused. ‘Do you? Ok, I will swap someone and you can do second half. We need to
talk.’
I went back into the classroom seething and
feeling completely misrepresented and deliberately undermined. In a daze I stumbled through the last half
hour of the seventy five minute lesson. The bell went for lunch and I walked up
to the staff room. Lee was there in the staff room. She had her booted foot up
on the chair. She looked at me as I walked in.
‘That was most unprofessional. You are not
to touch students.’ Taken aback, I blurted out, ‘What on earth are you talking
about?’
‘You apparently grabbed the note from Tess
and you held her hand and used your finger to stroke her wrist. Then you stood
so close to the door that she had no choice but to use her bag between you and
her and she accidently hit you with the bag. She was so freaked out by what you
did with the note and trying to hold her arm.’
At first I was furious and then amazed. But
what was worst was that this Head Teacher was telling me that I am some sort of
female pedophile and trying to come on
to a student and a girl at that. It would have been funny, if it had not been
so disgusting. I tried to tell her my side of the story and she did not listen.
She blathered on about duty of care. I told her she should ask some of the
other students in the room what had actually happened. I had the note in my
hand because I had seen her try to pass it behind her while she had her head
down and pretending that she was working. The boy behind her had half risen in
his seat to take the note. That was what alerted me and I had indicated he was
to sit and I took the note intended for him. She realized split seconds later
and that was when all hell broke loose.
The
conversation with Lee Hammer was bad enough, because it ended by her saying she
would have to discuss this incident with the principal and other head teachers.
I went down to playground duty. Tess was standing over to one side with her
group of friends. They were the rough tarts of the town and proud of the fact. Sad little girls. I took my place near
the lunch lines and ignored them. Suddenly I felt a presence at my back. It was
one of Tess’s overweight friends with too much make-up and attitude.
She
leant close to me reeking of cigarette smoke. I moved away, but not before I
heard her whisper. ‘Lessy bitch. You are gunna get the sack. Leave Tess
alone.’ I felt something close to
palpitations and my chest hurt. I pretended I had not heard and I wanted to say
to her how dare you? Leave me alone. But I could not. I decided to ignore
irrelevant behaviour and do my duty. The bell went and I was lucky I had a
spare. I decided to revise my lesson plans and do my registers for the first
semester. The events of the day had upset me.
Things were to get worst. Lee
came in at the end of the day and told me that she had arranged a meeting with
the principal and her to talk about my issues.
I
want to talk to Brian about this but it seems so stupid. How do I say to my
husband, one of the students today accused me of making a pass at her when I
disciplined her for doing the wrong thing in class. Is he going to believe me? Is anyone going to
believe me? The Head Teacher did not believe me. I decided to read and just do
my job and it will all sort out. Hopefully.
Tonight is Tommy’s second birthday. Work has become such an uncomfortable
place.
Brian stopped reading. He put the exercise
book down and walked over to the room they used as their office. There on the
desk was Lorri’s last letter to him. He did not want to read it again. Instead
he went to the phone and called Ella.
‘Where are you?’
‘Down in the coffee shop writing. What’s up,
bro?’
‘Can you come back soon? I found a diary of
Lorri’s in all that stuff that Maria and Rita bought over from the school.’
‘Ok. Where are the kids?’
‘They are with Rita and her children. She
picked them up from childcare at midday and they are in the park.’
‘Ok. I will come now. Have you made anything
for dinner or do you want me to get something from the supermarket? Why don’t
we have fish?’
‘Fish sounds good. Ok. See you when you get
here.’
‘Brian..’
‘Yes..?’
‘Get rid of the old man kvetch. You sound
half dead.’ The phone went dead and he debated whether to ring her back to
protest or ask her what she meant by that remark. Instead he went into the
kitchen and began to do the dishes. If they were going to make dinner, it
should be in a clean and tidy kitchen. The potted happy plant looked very
unhappy. He sprayed it and gave it some water. Then he had to clear the ledge
of dead and dying herbs. The floor needed cleaning and the refrigerator was
smeared with small palm prints. The family would soon be home with one notable
exception. He needed to clean up.
No comments:
Post a Comment