b & w

In celebration of our winter recess, our Parent Facilitator and the Parent Teacher Organization cooked us a homemade lunch. I was told she stayed up until midnight last night cooking for us, baking chicken, cooking rice, carrots, green beans, and the best macaroni and cheese I have ever tasted. There were tablecloths on every table in the teacher's lounge, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits. The 2nd grade teachers organized a cookie swap for the teachers and that was going on at the same time as the lunch. If you are unfamiliar with cookie swaps: a cookie swap is an activity where a group of people each bake a specified number of specific variety of cookie and then trade them with a group of people - so each person arrives with a batch on one cookie and leaves with two of each variety that the other folks made. That being said, the cookie swap made things a little confusing, and some of the teachers not involved in the swap began eating the cookies, which caused one of the teacher aids who organized the swap to become a tad bit testy. She began yelling (yes, yelling) at people who approached the cookie table, with no regard to the fact that people were trying to enjoy their lunches and that we had parents in the room who were taking their own time to serve us our meals. On one particular occasion she began yelling on one teacher, who happens to be the only black male teacher at our school. The two began going back and forth at each other, degrading one another's jobs and so on. At first people laughed a little because we thought they were joking around -- but then it became apparent that both parties were very serious. The room got uncomfortably quite and the duo continued to yell and threaten on another while moving closer and closer to one another. Their behavior, tone, and demeanor was a perfect mirror of what I see in my classroom on a daily basis and it really was surprising to see two adults engaging in such behavior.

The teacher in question is someone who does not have a whole lot of respect in the school, as he is frequently late to school, to meetings, is very loud, and is sometimes overly aggressive when dealing with discipline issues. I always have a strange feeling about the staff's disdain for this man, because he is the only black male who is a teacher in the school, and he grew up in this neighborhood, attending this very school many years ago. When there are situations like today I can only imagine the thoughts going through the other teacher's heads. I don't know whether this disdain is rooted in covert racism, or if the guy really is just a pain. It makes me question myself and my own ideals, as I attempt to balance my emotions and opinions of this particular teacher. Are teachers frustrated to see someone succeed who still sometimes acts in many of the ways that our students act - the same ways we continually remind them will impede their success. Is it fair to single him out when the other party involved in the altercation was a middle aged white woman? She was certainly just to much to blame, yet I just spent all of this time typing about the other man. Self-reflection can be hard to swallow, but I think it's important if I want to improve myself as an educator and as a person.