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The School for Legal Studies
Grand Street Campus
Brooklyn, NY
"If you can teach in NY you can teach anywhere!!!" (slogan of the department of education)
This is my school from the outside - not very welcoming - it looks more like a prison!!!!! It is called the Grand Street Campus and the metrostop is Grand Street on the L-train in Brooklyn/ Williamsburg. It was one of the most dangerous school's in the 80's and then they split it into three schools and to bring it under control. Every floor houses a separate school. Downstairs we have the Project High School, mine is on the second floor and it is calledThe School for Legal Studies. On the third floor is anther school called EBT. The official link to my schoolis:
Splitting up the schools worked well until they started to accept more students. Now the building could house more students without increasing the number of security guards or teachers. So we are stuck with more than 1000 students (that is on our floor only). I have 34 students in one classroom - and when they start to act up there is little chance of maintaining control.
Something else about the system: We have a new principal, her name is Ms. Morgan. She is African-American, short, very enthusiastic and charismatic but also very demanding as she expects too much from her staff. So everybody tries to get out of her way whenever she walks in the hallways. Let me explain how the school is organized: he school is split into several departments - I am in the department of humanities -and every department has an AP (assistant principal) . The head of all the departments is another AP and then there is the principal. So if you want something you have to write a letter to each member of the administration and try to get a signature from each one which is very exhausting. So the first thing you learn is not to want anything.
The first days at school (before the students arrived) we spend decorating the classroom. The other Spanish teacher, my colleague, is called Ms Valencia and it is already her 3rd year at this school (which is quite a long time and so she is very experienced). We share the Spanish classroom and thank God she had 2 students come to help us decorate the classroom. One big thing here is the "bulletin board"!!!!!!!! There are bulletin boards in the hallways and in the classrooms and every teacher is responsible for his own bulletin board. It has to be decorated at least once a month with the latest student work. Luckily we don't have one in the hallway, only in the classroom and hardly anyone comes to check ours!!!!! But the others are checked regularly and the teachers are given points for doing it - or deductions for not doing it.
Sickdays deserve its own chapter. We have only 10 paid sickdays per year and they start adding up from September - so by December you can stay home for 3 days if you are sick!!!!!!! Very generous - so teachers come to school sick and never really recover. If you need more days they are deducted from your pay. This does not make the administrators happy and they start giving you problems!!! (thank God I am staying only one year so I just don't care)
I learned very fast that Spanish is not regarded as an important subject in my school - on the one hand it is ok because there is not so much pressure on us but on the other hand they just put students in our classroom regardless of their knowledge or level. So it can happen that every month you jare stuck with new students because there is no other course they can take and they need some credits.
Now about my students: the first weeks were very challenging and I was shocked. First of all I have 5 classes a day each with 34 students who wouldn't stay quiet. They are mostly African-Americans with a few Hispanic-Americans - so I don't think they accepted me as I am white with a strong British accent and coming from Europe - although they all knew Schwarzenegger - which was my biggest pluspoint. "I am from the same country as Schwarzenegger ," I said. They answered, "Russia!!!!" - and my smile froze. "Close", I said. Then one students said: "Hey miss you have a hell of an accent - where are you from???" I told her from Austria - "Oh therefore you can barely speak English!!!!!!" - They think, that if you don't speak with an accent like theirs you don't speak English!!!!!!!! The next problem was that they didn't believe I could speak or teach Spanish because I come from a country where they don't speak Spanish. So it was a fight every day to become accepted.
One of the biggest problem was remembering their names - for me they all looked the same and then they have names like: Laquan, Yuberquis, Quanisha, Shanee, Zipporah, Keone, Shauna, Dasmine.... just to name a few - and then they are/were upset if you pronounced them wrong and would start acting up. When I told them to try to pronounce my name they just said: "Don't worry we just call you "miss" anyway" and so they do: "miss, come here, miss, miiiiiiiiiiisssssss" - and that the whole day - and sometimes 10 students at a time.
Slowly I started to discover that my school is actually a school of high needs - meaning we have lots of special education students in our school and some are in my classes as well. So every special ed student needs a para-teacher to accompany him- but there is no money so I am also stuck with them plus my other students. One group had more than 10 special ed kids and only one para - the two of us couldn't manage the class - it was so exhausting. They are special ed for a lot of reasons: emotionally, learning disabilities, physically disabled or just violent. One colleague told me: if you know you have violent special ed students in your class never turn your back on them - you never know!!!!! Very comforting information :(
So my classes are a mixture of everything: normal students, special ed, natives that speak Spanish but can't write it, some that don't speak Spanish at all, and some that can't even write (I mean they are 17 and are illiterate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Something is wrong with this system. So how can you teach with so many different levels in one class???? Some are ready with the exercises in 10 minutes and start talking because they are bored the others take 45 minutes to copy 3 sentences from the blackboard, then there are some that are hyperactive and can't sit still and always run around or out of the classroom - which is forbidden - I thought I would go crazy in my first weeks.
Bathroom pass: I don't know who invented this system but it is crazy: the students are not allowed to use the bathroom during their breaks - it is locked - also during the first and last 10 minutes of the lesson - so once the lesson starts they also start needing the bathroom and the fight for the bathroom pass breaks out - and you as a teacher have to decide whether it is an emergency or jwhether they just want to walk the halls - terrible - and that every lesson. They drive you crazy. I let them only use the bathroom if they copy the work on the blackboard and did some of the exercises - and it works more or less -because sometimes they just leave the classroom without permission.
There is always security in the hallways and the first weeks I only taught with open doors especially during my 7th period with all the violent special ed kids in the class.
They have fights every day - but it is mostly the girls fighting. During their breaks they are not allowed to stand together in groups and mingle but they have to move to the next classroom and the security guards just push them along the hallways: "Walk and talk ladies and gentlemen, go to your classes........" Sometimes they have fights in the hallways but mostly they happen during the lesson - all the students know beforehand and just disappear from the classroom and the only thing I can do is to call security to run after them. Some fights are after school - therefore there is always police around the school and even in the metro stations making sure everybody leaves safely. Once a student brought a machete (a very big knife) to school. Another time there was a shootout after school (meaning gangs meet and shoot at each other). And yet another time one boy was killed at the McDonalds next to our school and some of our students were involved - I never found out who it was. Even the adults are attacked. Our AP was kicked in the head while he was going upstairs and landed in hospital for at least a week. They later found out that it was none of our students but one from the other school. Still I am very cautious whenever I use the staircases.There is also the lesbian mafia at our school - some girls are lesbians and harrass other girls in the bathroom and so most of the nice girls are afraid to use the bathroom. For me it is stressful but for a nice student this must be even more stressful and agonizing. I wouldn't want to go to a school like this. Thank God I also have lots of very nice students and they are prepared for class and want to learn and do their homework and get good grades in the tests. The majority is nice but it only takes one student to turn the class around, unfortunately.
In the beginning I went through up and downs but slowly they started accepting me and I started liking them and I even had some classes that are actually working although I never have the feeling that they really learn something. But they might have so many other problems that learning Spanish is just not important to them. Many of my students live in the so called "projects", which are ghetto like rundown buildings with lots of flats. Many don't know their fathers, they live with uncles and aunts, their parents are far away in Puerto Rico or South America, many mothers have to work so they are never at home - if they are not in the streets they are at school - as the principal told us: some have only two choices: school or prison.
Drugs are a huge problem at our school. I know that some students are in the school only to sell drugs and are being paid to do so by adult dealers. Ms. Valencia even caught two students selling drugs during her Spanish lesson and had to call security - but nothing happened to them - they are still at school although we even have a police department in our building!!!!!! Many come to class and have this strange look in their eyes - as if they look through you- if you are lucky they are tired and sleep during most of the lesson if not they act up: singing, dancing, walking aroung, disrupting other students, rolling on the floor laughing, cursing out security guards, running in the hallways - throwing themselves on the floor.... if I am lucky I can convince them to go and see the nurse but it is not always easy.
But I survived past Christmas and might even survive longer. One gets used to anything in life and as mentioned before there are many very nice students. I have pictures of the nicer ones:
In one of my first lessons I tried to do an exercise with them: they had to find out all the Spanish speaking countries in the world - then I wanted to stress the importance of knowing the language. I told them, "As you can see if you speak English and Spanish you cover most of the planet and can find a really well paid job....." One student answered: "But miss - you speak both languages - how come you are only a teacher then???????????" That made me think :(
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