Oh, to be certified! Certified, like my
supervisor who instructed me to hide 10 of
her'bad' kids in my portable and send
10 'good' ones to take their place to fake
the class for the visit of a politician!
Certified, like our boss who told me not
to 'worry about teaching them too much,
you're just here to help us warehouse them
until they quit.' Certified like our
Director who barred me from the guidance
office and any contact with that staff
because I discovered they were putting ESL
kids with 2 years of algebra (3A' and 1B)in
a Functional Math class! She also said she
had no knowledge of any union agreement
that spelled out planning time! She also
asked staff to turn their co-workers in for
tardiness and kept private personal files
on them! Certified, like the Head of
Guidance who said, (and she's Af Am) 'we
have to treat those ESL kids equally...'
not knowing how this contradicts "Lau vs.
Nichols." Certified, like the union
president who said I had to fake the
classroom because I did not have tenure!
Certified, like those who 'locked ' the ESL
kids up in the guidance office everyday for
an hour and an half with no teacher, books,
or instruction! Certified, like the Media
Center Director who accused someone in my
class of stealing the ball out of a
mouse...'it couldn't have been one of our
(white) students!' Certified, like the
State Education folks who refused to act,
forcing the intervention of the OCR!
Certified, like all the teachers who are
silent when faced with violations of
Federal Law every day and do nothing out of
fear! Certified for what? Complacency in
the workplace? Money in exchange for
silence? How do you certified people live
with yourselves, or was this just an
anomaly specific to Maryland?...it is
not...PA has it problems too
apparently...what i don't get is this...We
teach Civics and History in our schools but
the closest place to look for violations of
our Constitution are right there in the
same schools, every day.

Tom, tjjhjr@netscape.net,
2/14/02

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