"¿Cómo estás?" I asked Joe, a kind of tough looking Kindergartner, just like I do everyday. Something about this kid reminds me of some steel worker in a Bruce Springsteen song, but in the best possible way. He's not a crier, he just takes things as they come. He fights girls, but he is like, five, so I guess it's okay. "Man, I'm bien," he answered "I got to go to a sleepover at Todd's and his dad put a projector in the backyard and we watched Trail of the Dead. I'm not supposed to tell you that, but we watched TRAIL OF THE DEAD". It's cool. All seventeen of us are good at keeping secrets.
"¿Cómo estás?" I continued. "Bien," the Zebra girl answered "we ate pie and turkey and Christopher is getting stitches in his private parts". Alrighty, I guess I now know why he started to tell me about some strange surgery before the break, stopped himself, and decided he didn't want to tell me anymore.
I have to tell you I was shocked when one of these little assholes walked past an empty table and straight up to the most regal member of our teaching staff during our insane dismissal procedure and told her to move, move because he wanted her chair. Not any of the empty chairs. Her chair. It was hard to see the steely look she gave him through the tears of hysterical laughter in my eyes, but I could see a five year old streak of movement going pretty quick in the other direction.
I went into the closet. The dreaded storage closet located in my room. It is piled high with random crap from other teachers and is unlit. I heard there was some Spanish stuff in there, way in the back. Someone had finally moved a few boxes, maybe I could see what was back there. Well, I found it. Piles of posters, craft supplies, nice hardcover books about themes I had already taught, jumbled, mixed together, getting torn up, wasted and re-bought by me because there was no rhyme or reason to what the hell was stuffed in that closet. I realized I was getting pissed off. And weirdly, that I wanted to cry. I have dragged around a class set of scissors, little piles of construction paper, a container of glue sticks and a small box full of DVDs, workbooks and laminated, free artifacts from my Hispanic world travels between two metro-Atlanta high schools, a school in Mexico and over to my new environment. I bought all of that shit out of my own pocket and have literally coveted and guarded it so that my students could use it. I have practically carved my initials in every part of my treasured tool box to keep it from going home with some kid or even more likely, a fellow teacher.
That closet upset me. Is this how rich schools roll?
I know I shouldn't be talking about this.
I should have probably stopped a long time ago, while I was ahead.
That closet pissed me off.
As well it should piss you off - piss all of us off. We heard about funding problems in our schools and here is a treasure trove of materials going to waste and ruin because people have no sense of value or the necessity to only spend the money once. These are adults, not children. What lesson are they teaching about the prudent use of resources?
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