Office Monkey

Thanks for all your comments. hilarious. Thought i’d wrap it up with this endnote:

A few weeks ago I was at Yonge and Sheppard waiting for the bus to head home. It was rush hour and there was a bunch of us at the bus stop. In front of us, a sea of cars waited for the light to change. As the light turned green, the flow of traffic was abruptly halted by a car that had stalled in the middle lane. We stared through the vehicle’s passenger window at the helpless driver while motorists honked impatiently behind him. Cars eventually attempted to go around the car but with little success. Finally, the light turned back to red and the driver was given some respite.

The action got more exciting for us onlookers when a pedestrian- young scruffy guy- started walking quickly towards the car while yelling to get the driver’s attention. The driver ignored the young man-even when Scruffy had made it to the car and was knocking on his window- until he yelled, “you need some help?”

Our bus arrived but from my seat I watched the young guy and driver push the car to the side of road. Totally blown away at this man’s initiative and compassion and a little sheepish as one of a horde of people who’d witnessed the entire episode and perceived the motorist’s distress as nothing more than spectacle. I was silently grateful the bus had arrived so we weren’t still all standing there when Scruffy walked past the bus stop. *resolves to do better next time*

And then there’s people like the napkin lady. I was walking through a building lobby with a tim hortons coffee that had spilled on my way there. I pop into a little food kiosk in the foyer and reach up to grab a napkin when the employee there remarks, “those are for paying customers.” I nod and tell her that I spilt my coffee and wanted to clean it off. She responds, “maybe you should have gotten napkins at tim hortons.” !!! i left the kiosk very angry and without a napkin!!! I shoulda bought a coffee off her and then taken all her precious napkins!!! blargh.

People who speak in metaphors should shampoo my crotch.
- Jack Nicholson in as good as it gets

As an end of year assignment for my school and society class (which i loved- the most challenging class in my program by far) my prof asked that we each make a “brick” towards “building” an equitable classroom. The brick should be decorated/designed to reflect our teaching philosophies and how we plan to make our classroom inclusive. a little hokey, i know, but whatever, i cut and pasted my teaching vision onto a box.

Then we presented them in class and after 4 months of careful in-depth examination of inequity in the classroom, i was blown away at the ridiculous amount of bullshitting and trite reflections which at best were weak platitudes and at worst- misguided and harmful views. A sample:

- i glued all these buttons on my box. They’re different shapes, sizes and colours, just like the diversity of abilities and identities of my students in the classroom.

- my brick is a garden. i have seeds, that represent students and the different flowers that grow are like the diversity of abilities and identities of my students in the classroom. Some of them need more water, but some of them need more sunlight.. just like some are more visual learners and others might need more one-on-one attention. I also added a lady bug. the lady bug represents equity. because lady bugs eat aphids, which eat plants. and aphids represent exclusion. so with equity, we’ll have no exclusion and the flowers, i mean students, won’t die.

- my brick is also a garden. i have seeds, but they represent knowledge and how we can help that knowledge grow. and these are tools, which represent equity and inclusion.

- my brick is also a garden. i have seeds and tools too.

- my brick is actually a banner with the word welcome written in different languages. The different languages show the diversity of the classroom.

- my brick is a ring of lightbulbs. the different shapes and sizes of the lightbulbs show the diversity of the class. and if one of them doesn’t light up, then none of them do.. which represents my idea of inclusion.

- my brick is a meal. i have steak for north america, sushi for asia, caprese salad for europe, morrocan olives for africa and brazilian tea for south america. this represents the diversity of the classroom. insert cooking metaphors here (students are ingredients, teacher is chef..some people like their steak medium, some like it well done, students might take different amounts of time to learn).

- my brick is a scale made out of rulers, paper clips and textbooks. I used rulers because there are certain “measures” we have to take to ensure equity. paper clips because they hold things together and inclusion keeps everyone together.

- i tried to include all types of identity here on my brick: age, religion, ethnicity, ability, gender. all of them are represented so everyone’s included.

you’d think after 4 months of class we would have moved beyond, “there’s diversity in our classrooms.” and a person’s identity isn’t solely determined by those identifiers which we so often use to marginalize and discriminate individuals: class, age, religion, ethnicity, ability and gender. That’s going back to identifying P as “The Nigerian” while the rest of us are given the privilege of being perceived as complete individuals. i dunno. maybe i’m not being fair. but i thought it was mostly a bunch of hooey.

Just 4 more days of class left and i’m trying my darndest to stay engaged and involved. I know i can be excessively critical and pessimistic. I know my expectations can be unreasonable.

But then i go to class and think “how is this NOT A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME!!?!”

truly ridiculous or excessively negative? You be the judge:

- so yesterday was the last day of our Youth At Risk class and we had 2 guest speakers come in to give us a workshop: The “STAR Workshop.” STAR is an acronym for Student at Risk. Because we should see them as Stars. awww, isn’t that cute? and it gets better! they then break down “risk” into categories: behavioural risks, emotional ones, academic, medical, and social. Never mind that the categories lack coherence/sense. there’s a method to their madness. That’s right! another acronym! BEAMS! cuz really, why use science and the social sciences to inform your work when you can come up with a bunch of words that share a motif and make us feel good about the work we do? so then they give us a profile of a student at risk and tell us to “BEAM our “STAR.” *rolls eyes* you could see the glee on the speaker’s face at being able to say that. “IS EVERYONE BEAMING THEIR STAR?” idiot. and shouldn’t it be “BEAMSing their star?” Doesn’t sound so catchy now, does it?

- following the exercise the speakers then shared some personal experiences in the classroom to tie into the workshop. He presented 2 “resources” that he uses in his grade 11 drama and english classes. They were 2 children’s books. picture books. about? right again! STARS! he didn’t actually say WHAT he used them for but assured us that the students LOVED it when he brought them in and that they LOVED being read to. !!! soooo…. this guy feels he’s meeting the province’s grade eleven curriculum expectations by bringing in picture books and his justification is: “the kids liked it.” cuz that’s how we evaluate our teaching strategies and our effectiveness as teachers.

- they also handed out Mars bars. cuz you know, Mars is up in the sky.. with the stars…

- and to top it all off they closed with a song. with really special lyrics. that we were asked to pay close attention to. I have posted them here so that you too may benefit from the experience I had yesterday morning: you can hear it here as you read along:

WTF. this song was written by a toronto former high school teacher (of course) named Barlow. he really understands his kids. and respects them.

So.. that was how we spent 4 hours on Monday morning.