A Philly teacher gets thrown into a classroom that's 'a hot mess'
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
A teacher who fills in for a sick colleague enters a classroom that has no paper, no books and not even a roster of the students' names.
I recently got a call during my first-period class informing me that I would be spending my staff meeting/prep time later that day covering a last-period science class.
Usually, in-house teachers only cover for other teachers because of meetings, events or other emergent situations — but when a teacher calls in sick, a sub gets called in. I later found out this particular science teacher had taken a standard sick day, but for whatever reason there was no sub.
During lunch, I researched and made my own sheet of student ID pictures, as I had never met most of these students and had no guarantee of getting a class roster. When last period rolled around, I headed to the sick teacher's lab with no idea what to expect. The only direction I got was a sign on the door directing me to a different room — can't put the lab equipment at risk of theft or damage.
The new room was, literally, a hot mess — overheated and unused, with barely enough chairs tossed in for the students who opted to stay. The door was left unlocked, allowing students to wander in and out. At least two weren't even in the class; they were there visiting friends instead of in their own classes with other subs, they said, because our student body equates having a sub with not needing to go to class at all. I kept them because I'd rather not have them get in trouble wandering the halls.
It's good that I had my own sign-in sheet, because that ended up being the only paper in the room. There were no texts and nothing to write with except board chalk. Most frustratingly, there was no emergency or make-up work for the kids, or any suggestion of something productive to do with them. I'd had this happen so many times across three schools in six years; I'm not sure if it's a result of teachers not leaving a plan, or the roster chair not distributing it.
For the last 90 minutes of the school day, I and the English teacher who'd gotten a similar call that
morning concentrated on making sure the worst this "science class" did was talk shit and stare at their
cell phones.
This wasn't a classroom, this wasn't even baby-sitting — this was storage. It spoke to so many
systemic, everyday problems faced by teachers: student attitudes, lackadaisical co-workers, unconcerned administrators, the District's frightening lack of basic resources. The old sing-song rhyme "No more lessons, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks" popped into my head. It seemed frustratingly accurate.
Teachers Anonymous shares brief stories from Philly teachers and others that illustrate their daily lives working in a severely underfunded system. Email stories to emilyg@citypaper.net or by mail to Emily Guendelsberger c/o City Paper, 30 S. 15th St., 14th floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19102.
