Emergency Repair Day Wednesday

When I left school on Monday, I prepared my classroom for the possibility of being out. I wrote out the entire week's activities and taped it to the overhead. I wrote a new homework assignment on the homework board. I got copies together and clearly labeled who they were to go to and when.

Imagine my disgust on Wednesday, when I entered my room. The plans were no longer on the overhead. The homework board was blank. The worksheets I'd left were still on my desk, piled haphazardly but otherwise clearly untouched. There was a pile of math worksheets that someone had done with one of my classes. Around the room I found some worksheets I'd made for my next coverage, and which were sitting in a bin on my desk. Later in the day I found the plan sheet, shoved in the bottom left-hand drawer.

I was disgusted and pissed off. I tried to make things as easy as possible, and the staff IN MY OWN BUILDING refuse to follow my instructions, willfully breaking the plans *and* pillaging my desk? Oh, hell no.

People suck.

Another thing that sucks is the chair situation. Two of the chairs in my room have detached/broken seats. I have thirty-six desks and thirty-six students (in my biggest class), but only thirty-five chairs. Clearly, two unusable chairs is quite unacceptable. They have been broken for months now. Isn't that ridiculous? I have mentioned it to a couple people, but of course nothing is to be done. I don't even think anyone cares. I'm quite sure that many of the classrooms on the upper floors don't have enough chairs, period.

Anyway, I decided to do some emergency surgery, with the teacher's best friend, TAPE. That's right, I TAPED the seats back on the chairs.

Here they are, post-op:

Can you say GHETTO?

This is just one of the myriad reasons I'm exhausted with the state of teaching in New York City. This kind of stuff makes me want to flee to the suburbs, in a different state.