For a full week in June, Melanie Kanduskie logged an impressive 42 hours at the Secondary Literacy Achieve Beyond the Summit Conference for Reading, Writing, and Growing Beyond the Core and Ahead of the 21st Century with Social Justice, Diversity, and Technology. When the school year began, she had 16 new acronyms under her belt and was more than ready to share them with her department. On their first professional development day of the year, her colleagues filed into the room looking dejected. (Melanie had to host the meeting in the staff lounge because the Social Studies department had already staked claim on the library, and all the classrooms were off limits because they were getting sprayed for fire ants.) Paul and Noreen walked through the door in mid-conversation about a student they both shared. Noreen slammed her water bottle on the table and gesticulated fiercely.
“I told his mother, it’s as simple as this: he doesn’t pass English, he doesn’t graduate.”
Paul shook is head. “I know, I know. He needs to pass my class, too. But there’s nothing we can do about it, right? I mean, if he doesn’t do anything, I just….” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I know, right? And Shifton has the nerve to say I should just excuse some of his missing assignments. Excuse them! I mean, are we trying to teach kids around here or are we just trying to pass kids? That’s all I wanna know.’”
Melanie bit her bottom lip. This was going to be tough. She felt weak because she had worked straight through lunch, and now Noreen seemed especially irascible. She couldn’t grapple with Noreen on the power of just a handful of Wheat Thins. But the district wanted everyone to get on board with the Webster Writing-to-Achieve the Core and Beyond the Spectrum model before the spring term, and she was the English Department’s Instructional Leader (and had been ever since “Department Chair” was changed to “Instructional Leader” three years earlier and Noreen stepped down from the position). Now, it was Melanie’s job to lead these people – to inspire them with new and innovative teaching strategies – and on top of that she going to have to provide evidence that everyone was using the WWACBS. Evidence. As in lesson plans. From everyone.
The rest of the department trickled in and plopped in their seats. Melanie called the meeting to order. “OK, everybody, I want to honor your time, so let’s get started. I get to lead you through a new type of activity today, and it’s something you get to start using in your classrooms as soon as…” everyone groaned.
“Hold on, everybody, hold on.” She put her hands together in a T-shape and immediately wished she had flashed a peace sign instead. After all, she didn’t want her department to take a “timeout.” She wanted them to work together as one. And she believed in this work.
“Just let me hand you this simple activity,” she said. “Before I tell you all about the WWACBS, we’re just going to experiment with it a little bit. Just play with it. No judgment. Just moll it over a tad in our minds. Just bounce it back and forth between our hands like a balloon. You know. Just toss it out into the center of the room like a tennis ball, and then retrieve it like an enthusiastic puppy.”
While Melanie spoke her words of encouragement, she placed a pink neon index card in front of each of her colleagues. “All you have to do right now,” she said, “is make a list of the sixteen deadliest diseases of the 1980s.”
More groans.
“The 1980s? I wasn’t even alive in the 1980s,” said Bertrand. A few chuckles.
The more index cards Melanie placed on the table, the more the voices kept cascading.
“All I can think of is Ebola!” someone shouted. Everyone chortled.
“Hey, did you read that article about the airport requiring everyone to wear face masks when they enter baggage claim?” Hums of discontent.
“AIDS?” asked Paul, squinting at the ceiling.
“What in the hell,” spat Noreen.
Melanie put her hands in an emphatic T-shape. No one noticed. She tapped her hands together in a more pronounced “T.” She tapped. She kept tapping. A cacophony of voices. Bernice started folding her index card into a paper crane. Then her cell-phone rang and she slunk out the door next to the Pepsi machine. The din in the staff lounge grew louder. Melanie placed her hands on her sides and sucked in her rib cage. She blew out a deep breath and watched Bertrand cross the room to the coffee machine. A voice came over the loud speaker.
“Mark Palacio, please call extension 4634. Mark Palacio. 4634.”
Melanie wiped a bead of sweat from her upper lip and glanced at the clock. Yesterday, Shifton told her they had to cancel the PRDW training in the computer lab because Safe and Secure Environments wanted to fingerprint all the keyboards. “Do you think you could stretch your PD out another, oh say, 90 minutes?” he asked. “You can do that, can’t you? Thanks, champ.” He gave her a miniature shoulder punch and sped off before she could respond. Now she had to figure out how to stretch out a 30-minute activity for at least another hour.
“Mark Palacio, we need you to call 4634. Mark Palacio, 4634, Thank you.”
Noreen was in full form now, still pontificating about the student who was deliberately cutting her class while at the same time ripping this Professional Development to shreds. “And when am I supposed to grade all of that idiot’s late work?” She yelled. “When am I supposed to fill out those fucking SRW reports and upload them to the MRD database? Never. Not when they insist on wasting my time like this.” One of the office ladies came into the teacher’s lounge and started the dishwasher. A few people were still making a fool’s effort at the activity. “When did that really bad influenza start? You know, the one that killed all those cats in Charleston?”
Shifton stuck his nose into the conference room. “Has anyone seen Mark?” he asked.
“He’s not even in our department, Lou.”
Melanie bunched up her t-shirt and dabbed at the sweat under her bra. She circled around to the end of the table where no one was sitting. For some reason, the temperature just seemed cooler down there. She slid off her shoes under the table so that no one would notice. She placed her hands on the surface of the table. It felt cool. So cool. Bernice had returned and was now regaling the department with a tale about the Toyota dealership and her misaligned oil change. “I never take my car to those bastards,” Noreen interjected. “Let me get you my mechanic’s number.” She lifted her cell phone out of its holster and tapped away at her passcode.
Melanie gazed down into a vase of half dead flowers leftover from the September birthdays. Then at a stack of fall sports flyers. Then at a half-eaten donut that had been abandoned in a Krispy Kreme box. Oh, the table felt so cool against the palms of her hands – so smooth. She leaned in to sip some of the coolness off the surface and stretched her arms out on top of it. She pressed her cheek against the plastic and exhaled. Slowly, barely conscious of her own movements, Melanie slid her entire body up on top of the table. The voices around her faded into the distance and all that was left was the light hum of the fluorescents. She army-crawled across the table slowly as if through quicksand; then she moved the vase to the side and plucked two of the semi-fresh daisies from their stems. She gradually crawled further into the center of the table until she was amidst her colleagues. Then, ever so slowly, Melanie rolled over onto her back, closed her eyes, placed the flowers on top of her eyelids, and gently folded her hands across her stomach. One deep exhale.
Silence. Finally silence. The wretchedly beautiful silence only the dead (or pretend dead) can achieve.
Bertrand hovered over her. “Umm… Melanie?”
She didn’t respond. She heard someone crumple up an index card and toss it in the trashcan.
Probably Noreen.
“I told his mother, it’s as simple as this: he doesn’t pass English, he doesn’t graduate.”
Paul shook is head. “I know, I know. He needs to pass my class, too. But there’s nothing we can do about it, right? I mean, if he doesn’t do anything, I just….” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I know, right? And Shifton has the nerve to say I should just excuse some of his missing assignments. Excuse them! I mean, are we trying to teach kids around here or are we just trying to pass kids? That’s all I wanna know.’”
Melanie bit her bottom lip. This was going to be tough. She felt weak because she had worked straight through lunch, and now Noreen seemed especially irascible. She couldn’t grapple with Noreen on the power of just a handful of Wheat Thins. But the district wanted everyone to get on board with the Webster Writing-to-Achieve the Core and Beyond the Spectrum model before the spring term, and she was the English Department’s Instructional Leader (and had been ever since “Department Chair” was changed to “Instructional Leader” three years earlier and Noreen stepped down from the position). Now, it was Melanie’s job to lead these people – to inspire them with new and innovative teaching strategies – and on top of that she going to have to provide evidence that everyone was using the WWACBS. Evidence. As in lesson plans. From everyone.
The rest of the department trickled in and plopped in their seats. Melanie called the meeting to order. “OK, everybody, I want to honor your time, so let’s get started. I get to lead you through a new type of activity today, and it’s something you get to start using in your classrooms as soon as…” everyone groaned.
“Hold on, everybody, hold on.” She put her hands together in a T-shape and immediately wished she had flashed a peace sign instead. After all, she didn’t want her department to take a “timeout.” She wanted them to work together as one. And she believed in this work.
“Just let me hand you this simple activity,” she said. “Before I tell you all about the WWACBS, we’re just going to experiment with it a little bit. Just play with it. No judgment. Just moll it over a tad in our minds. Just bounce it back and forth between our hands like a balloon. You know. Just toss it out into the center of the room like a tennis ball, and then retrieve it like an enthusiastic puppy.”
While Melanie spoke her words of encouragement, she placed a pink neon index card in front of each of her colleagues. “All you have to do right now,” she said, “is make a list of the sixteen deadliest diseases of the 1980s.”
More groans.
“The 1980s? I wasn’t even alive in the 1980s,” said Bertrand. A few chuckles.
The more index cards Melanie placed on the table, the more the voices kept cascading.
“All I can think of is Ebola!” someone shouted. Everyone chortled.
“Hey, did you read that article about the airport requiring everyone to wear face masks when they enter baggage claim?” Hums of discontent.
“AIDS?” asked Paul, squinting at the ceiling.
“What in the hell,” spat Noreen.
Melanie put her hands in an emphatic T-shape. No one noticed. She tapped her hands together in a more pronounced “T.” She tapped. She kept tapping. A cacophony of voices. Bernice started folding her index card into a paper crane. Then her cell-phone rang and she slunk out the door next to the Pepsi machine. The din in the staff lounge grew louder. Melanie placed her hands on her sides and sucked in her rib cage. She blew out a deep breath and watched Bertrand cross the room to the coffee machine. A voice came over the loud speaker.
“Mark Palacio, please call extension 4634. Mark Palacio. 4634.”
Melanie wiped a bead of sweat from her upper lip and glanced at the clock. Yesterday, Shifton told her they had to cancel the PRDW training in the computer lab because Safe and Secure Environments wanted to fingerprint all the keyboards. “Do you think you could stretch your PD out another, oh say, 90 minutes?” he asked. “You can do that, can’t you? Thanks, champ.” He gave her a miniature shoulder punch and sped off before she could respond. Now she had to figure out how to stretch out a 30-minute activity for at least another hour.
“Mark Palacio, we need you to call 4634. Mark Palacio, 4634, Thank you.”
Noreen was in full form now, still pontificating about the student who was deliberately cutting her class while at the same time ripping this Professional Development to shreds. “And when am I supposed to grade all of that idiot’s late work?” She yelled. “When am I supposed to fill out those fucking SRW reports and upload them to the MRD database? Never. Not when they insist on wasting my time like this.” One of the office ladies came into the teacher’s lounge and started the dishwasher. A few people were still making a fool’s effort at the activity. “When did that really bad influenza start? You know, the one that killed all those cats in Charleston?”
Shifton stuck his nose into the conference room. “Has anyone seen Mark?” he asked.
“He’s not even in our department, Lou.”
Melanie bunched up her t-shirt and dabbed at the sweat under her bra. She circled around to the end of the table where no one was sitting. For some reason, the temperature just seemed cooler down there. She slid off her shoes under the table so that no one would notice. She placed her hands on the surface of the table. It felt cool. So cool. Bernice had returned and was now regaling the department with a tale about the Toyota dealership and her misaligned oil change. “I never take my car to those bastards,” Noreen interjected. “Let me get you my mechanic’s number.” She lifted her cell phone out of its holster and tapped away at her passcode.
Melanie gazed down into a vase of half dead flowers leftover from the September birthdays. Then at a stack of fall sports flyers. Then at a half-eaten donut that had been abandoned in a Krispy Kreme box. Oh, the table felt so cool against the palms of her hands – so smooth. She leaned in to sip some of the coolness off the surface and stretched her arms out on top of it. She pressed her cheek against the plastic and exhaled. Slowly, barely conscious of her own movements, Melanie slid her entire body up on top of the table. The voices around her faded into the distance and all that was left was the light hum of the fluorescents. She army-crawled across the table slowly as if through quicksand; then she moved the vase to the side and plucked two of the semi-fresh daisies from their stems. She gradually crawled further into the center of the table until she was amidst her colleagues. Then, ever so slowly, Melanie rolled over onto her back, closed her eyes, placed the flowers on top of her eyelids, and gently folded her hands across her stomach. One deep exhale.
Silence. Finally silence. The wretchedly beautiful silence only the dead (or pretend dead) can achieve.
Bertrand hovered over her. “Umm… Melanie?”
She didn’t respond. She heard someone crumple up an index card and toss it in the trashcan.
Probably Noreen.