crawling out from teddy bears

After three days of sorting, hauling, throwing and (insert violent, action-packed verb here) old crazy hoarding lady's former classroom, I have found mine underneath the stolen, mice-dropping strewn, five years of dust laden, t-shirt covered, if for lack of a better phrase, insane hot mess. My assistant principal came in to help me for about 10 whole minutes, and spent part of the timing wondering out loud how it got like this? (Answer, she may have been crazy, but you let her express her craziness out loud in this room.

But here's the good part. For those of you who know, cough, competent literary coaches, you'll understand.

My literary coach is teaching two periods of 11th grade English in my room. (And it is mine, I found it under the rubble.) I am also teaching 11th grade English. As I disentangled the books in the room, I pulled aside the ones I wanted to use (aka, Huck Finn, Awakening, 451, Gatsby, etc.). I asked her what books she wanted to use. She said, "Oh, just the Regents prep books, grammar text book, vocabulary workbook and World Literature textbook."

[It should be noted that in a lengthy series of meetings at the end of last year, meetings in which she was a participant, the entire English department agreed on reading lists and curriculum mapping for each grade, and decided 10th grade would be World Literature and 11th grade would be American literature.]

When I reminded her that 11th grade was American literature and not World literature, she sounded confused, and said she didn't remember that, and that she'd have to ask the Assistant Principal. She pulled out a course syllabus from last year that outlined the fact that 11th grade would have World literature textbooks. I said, since all the 11th grade teachers taught American literature last year, that syllabus is wrong.

It sounds minute, it sounds so unworthy of spending 15 minutes mentally regurgitating the whole brief episode here. But imagine it this way. Imagine you work for American Express. Imagine that this whole episode took place, but in a fancy corporate America conference room and not in the shambles of an old crazy lady's classroom formerly decorated with teddy bears. Maybe gross incompetence happens in corporate America. It most likely has on an astronomical scale given the economy. But was the conference room covered in teddy bears? Did the CEO walk by the conference room decorated with teddy bears and say hey, kinda cooky, but we'll let it slide?

No.

Thank goodness for public education to keep the craziness alive and well.

Welcome to the rabbit hole.