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Friday, May 19, 2006
We Interrupt This Class …
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Do intercom interruptions drive you crazy? When I’m a guest speaker at a school I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep talking over the intercom announcement once it is made clear it is not applicable to the class I’m speaking to. Or should I stop talking and wait for the intercom spiel to end?
It seems like a little thing, but … it’s the little things that make you nuts, you know?
Today I’m off to Providence to watch my best friend from high school graduate from law school. She started out a teacher. Her first school was a Chicago middle school, one of those schools with an academic-sounding name that belies the harsh reality of what goes on inside. She got the “low class” of seventh-graders. I think she taught them all subjects. There were no activities at the school, no clubs, no sports. To say she had no support would be an understatement. When one of her students was murdered, she had no idea what to do about the girl’s desk and no one to turn to for advice. When I saw her over Christmas break, we laughed about how at age 23 she was coloring her hair to hide the gray even though it wasn’t really funny.
When people asked her what was wrong with the school, she didn’t talk about her murdered student or the schoolwide assembly when the guest speaker encouraged the kids to rise up against their white teachers. Instead she talked about that darn intercom interrupting her class all day long. Sometimes, the secretary would announce that a salesman was in the office peddling cell phones and anyone who was interested should come down. Really!
It’s a little thing, but it says it all.
Teachers, does the intercom blare into your classroom all day long? Or has your administration reeled it in in some way? Do you teach through it, or do you stop talking for the duration? Do you get do you don’t notice it?
Have a great weekend, everyone!
