Teachers Told to Dumpster Dive to Build Class Library

UPDATE: Read Marjorie Stamberg report of Manhattan ATR meeting of Oct. 11:
NYC ATR:  No Bright Lights at Manhattan UFT-ATR Meeting
 

The Best of Times and the Worst of Times

by former ATR "Life in Limbo," whose work usually appears at NYCATR blog. But there is so much incoming over there, we are picking up the extra load.

It was during the monthly department meeting – you know, the one where they take away a prep period, promising to have you out in fifteen minutes because they know how busy you are, but then some colleague or other has to go and ask a question or make a comment that gets the meeting off track and you end up sitting there in the library (which really should be renamed the “Meeting Room” because there is no librarian and the only time anyone ever goes into it is for some meeting or other) for the whole period anyway, and you can’t make up the time because you got slapped with a coverage on your other prep and therefore must add the work you planned to do today onto the pile that already sits on your desk.

You all with me here? Of course you are.

So were discussing the latest mandate from the Ivory Tower: That ALL students must read a self-selected book from the leveled classroom library for the first twenty minutes of every Literacy block. Seems like an easy enough task, right? However, there is one small glitch when it comes to my classroom library.

I don’t have one.

My classroom was not an actual classroom last year, and therefore did not come with the usual amenities that one generally finds in a classroom, like, say, a classroom library. I made this clear to my Assistant Principal when the little “How to Level Your Library” memo came around, and was told that she would see what she could do, and that was the end of it. So now this directive comes from on high and a couple of us who are without classroom libraries ask what we should do. Know what the response was? We were told to scour garage sales, Freecycle, and public library used book sales for cheap or free books and to realize that the books would need to be replenished regularly because, “You know if you lend four books, you will only maybe get two back and that’s just how it goes”. Then, it was actually suggested, by an administrator, that we should “even consider driving around the neighborhood the night before trash pickup and see if anyone is throwing away any books”. So apparently, dumpster-diving has been slipped into our list of professional responsibilities while we weren’t looking!

Now let me be clear – I have, on occasion, found books at yard sales, gotten free books from friends with kids, and otherwise come upon books that I have added to my classroom library, most of which were lost, vandalized, stolen, or loaned to students who did not return them. What I resent, however, is the expectation that I will spend my free time on this, and do this to the extent that I MUST DUMPSTER-DIVE the ENTIRE classroom library and not just supplement what I am given as the opportunity arises. In the absence of even the Teacher’s Choice pittance being taken away and the fact that I am expected to spend my own money on this and to just expect that the books will be stolen and need to be replenished, I am appalled and indignant. On top of the dumpster-diving suggestion, we without libraries were basically fed the “NO EXCUSES!!” line – you are accountable for your students reading a book from the classroom library you do not have, and that’s just how it is.

Little did I know that the extent of the irony here would reveal itself hours later in a most unexpected way.

That afternoon at my kids’ dance studio, I took a walk with another parent to get a latte. Her son graduated last year from a closing middle school less than ten minutes from my current school. Her younger children still attend the elementary school on the same campus as the closing school, and she spends a lot of time volunteering there in between her shifts at work. She told me that she was leaving the elementary school after a meeting and decided to cut through the middle school yard on the way to her car. She was shocked by what she saw.

There were people from the new schools in the building who were literally slicing open cartons of brand-new books that were obviously delivered to the building recently – the boxes included textbooks, workbooks, trade (library) books, etc. They were then taking the bundles of NEW books in the cartons and THROWING THEM IN THE DUMPSTER! Brand new books, still in their shrink-wrap! So my friend went over and asked them why they were throwing out CARTONS of BRAND-NEW BOOKS. Their response was that these books had been delivered to the OLD school, the one that is phasing out, and were stored in THEIR closets and storage rooms. They said they were with the NEW schools and really didn’t need or want anything that was from the old school, especially since they “Have enough money that we don’t have to take other people’s leftovers”. They went on to say that they needed to throw the books out because they had “truckloads” of new books and supplies that were coming and the needed the space to put it all.

Apparently the shiny new schools that have Tweed’s Seal of Approval are swimming in cash to the point where they can afford to throw away pallets of new books just because they were ordered by someone else.

I, however, work in an old-fashioned district school in a low-income area, and therefore, am reduced to dumpster-diving.

It truly is the best of times, and the worst of times. A seven minute drive changes everything.

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