Wednesday, August 11, 2010

How Much Do I Share?

So last week we had our little training. It was cute how they were so positive.
At one point, we were discussing who our "stakeholders" in the community are. Teachers, Students, Parents, Neighbors, etc. Someone pipes up with "The Criminal Justice System." After all they do have a stake in us, the better we are, the less work they have to do.
One of the new teachers (there are soooo many!) looks alarmed and says, "Why on earth would we have to deal with the criminal justice system?" (oh, you are so cute, new teacher.)
I raise my hand and say, "Well, in an official capacity, you meet with Probation Officers to discuss a student's progress. But we also have several kids who go to jail during the year, who've been in jail, who's immediate family members are or have been in jail."
The presenter (who is in charge of our "school climate" but has never been to our school and actually lives in Houston) quickly interjected with, "Oh! But to be fair, that is a VERY small percentage of students! Maximum 5% right?! And there's never been a bad incident, right?" I said, "NO, not right." And she just said, "Wellll, anyway..." and went on to some blahblahblah.

This guy that worked with me last year stood up and was like, "WAIT A MINUTE. I'm sorry, but I have to say something. If you are going to work at this school next year, you need to know that teachers HAVE been assaulted, cars HAVE been stolen, bad things HAVE happened. You NEED to know that." And he sat down. I'm thinking, THANK YOU. The presenter AGAIN tried to gloss over it.

My question is this, how much do we share? Personally, I think they should know what they're getting into. Don't NOT tell them that Darrell is going to cuss them out...tell them what to do WHEN Darrell cusses them out! I'm not saying be all doom and gloom...I can stories about my sweeties too. But come ON.

4 comments:

the fam said...

Honesty is the best policy.

Forewarned is forearmed.

The truth sets you free.

Those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Put yourself in the new teachers' place. Wouldn't you want to know as much as possible BEFORE you entered the classroom. It seems cruel to send lambs into proverbial lion's dens with out telling them what and how to deal with what they are about to encounter.

Common Sense 101 to me.

Carole

the fam said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Not to take away any of the seriousness of your post... but wouldn't it be funny if one of the other participants - either the instructor or the newbies - was also keeping a blog about this event? Wonder what they'd be saying...

Miss V said...

Haha, I think it would be awesome. I'm pretty sure it would just be lots of adjectives for "excited" and "nervous" and "everyone seems really nice."

it's like that saying--we were the best school ever until the kids showed up.

i can't wait!