Ugh. Shifting

Weeding is done, and within the timeframe I set for myself. Wheeee! I've spent yesterday and most of today shifting the non-fiction collection. Now that it's been pared down a bit, I should be able to make room to display my biography collection a little better.

For non-librarians, shifting is where you move books around on the shelves to make room elsewhere, or to consolidate after a weeding leaves big blanks on the shelves (as in my case). Sounds easy, right? Riiiight. This is how it goes.

Pick up a handful of books; move them to where they go. Repeat. Individually, the handfuls of books weigh somewhere between half a pound and three pounds, roughly. Not so bad, right? But you do it again, and again, and again. And the books aren't just moving laterally. They're moving from above your head to down around your ankles, or vice versa. They're moving around corners.

And the moving them isn't even the tricky bit. The tricky bit is holding on to the books you've just placed while you reach for the new handful. If the books you've just placed fall down, they can slip out of order, get lost in the back of the shelves (my shelves are not "real" library shelves; they're about two and a half times as deep as they need to be. Stuff gets lost back there), fall off the shelves onto the floor (or your toe). But you also have to be careful when taking the new handful of books, because the shelf you take from can have all those things happen to it, too, if the books there fall down. And when the shelves are right above one another, it's not so bad, but when they're in completely different bookcases...well, it's a nightmare of Herculean proportions.

And then, I neared the end of the shifting, and saw that I hadn't quite done enough to free up the shelf space that I needed. So I went back to the beginning, and shifted again, and got almost to the end, and saw that I was still going to end up with about 20 books that still needed a home. I started to do just a bit more shifting, but eventually I threw up my hands and said a great big "screw it!" My shoulders hurt, my arms hurt, my neck hurts. I feel like someone's been pounding on my upper body with a big stick. I am going to vegetate at my computer for the last half-hour of school today, because, by God, it's Friday. I am going to spend the weekend lazily reading the new books I picked up yesterday, plus the ones waiting for me at the library. And I am going to do my best to not think about the fact that I have to start inventory and textbook check-in next week.

More Weeding Quotes

• "The first construction crew would arrive on the moon sometime during the period 2000-2005. By the year 2010, the base would be able to support 30 human beings for months at a time."
• "President-elect George Bush, President Ronald Reagan, and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev take a break for sightseeing during the Soviet leader's visit to New York in December 1988. Recent advances between the two superpowers in the reduction of nuclear arms have contributed to a thawing of the Cold War."
• "Political changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which have started a movement toward greater personal freedom and the development of market-based economies, could profoundly alter political and economic relationships between the Communist world and the West."
• Referring to National Guard entrance requirements:
  "The good moral character requirement establishes standards to screen out persons likely to become disciplinary problems. Standards cover court convictions, juvenile delinquency, arrests, drug use, homosexuality, deviant behavior, etc."
• "'We'd also like to ban all smoking on short flights.'"
• "The minimum drinking age in most states is now 21."
• Discussing the future of police work:
  "Patrol cars will be equipped wwith computers so that, while remaining behind the wheel, an officer can instantly call up needed data on a suspicious person or vehicle."
• "Another use of computers is networking. By using modems to link computers through telephone lines, people can make their computers "talk" to one another."
• "A letter of introduction is always handed to you unsealed. It is correct for you to seal it at once in the presence of the author...But the obligation of a written introduction is so strong that only illness or absence can excuse the recipient from asking you to her house--either formally or informally."

And a title:

Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan

Weeding Quote of the Day

"A few years ago, Michael J. Fox starred in a movie entitled Back to the Future..."

For reference, that movie came out 3 years after I was born.

Huh. Suddenly I don't feel so old.

Busy, busy

Yesterday was good, even despite facing it on only 5 hours of sleep. For the curious, I don't recommend spending the weekend doing an 18-hour round trip for a friends wedding, especially not when all the driving takes place between 5 p.m. and 3 a.m. Especially not if you then have to slide back into a routine that requires you to be up at 5 a.m. on Monday. But I didn't snap and kill any kids, nor did I drive off the road from sleep deprivation, so I guess it's all good.

And yeah, yesterday was good. Busy, in the way that makes me feel that I am a useful and productive member of the school. I know a lot of librarians have it rough, but the teachers here are almost pathetically grateful to have someone help them.

The high point was when I explained (to some notable troublemakers) how only half the globe is illuminated so as to demonstrate roughly which half of the world is in daylight at the present time, and how it rotates on its own to keep that illusion. Demonstrating how the axial tilt changes throughout the year, leaving the North and South poles in the dark or light, enthralled them.

It made me feel good. I mean, I'm a nerd, so of course I think the illuminated globe is cool. If these kids, who hate school, can get excited about seeing it too, maybe they have a chance.

Now, armed with sufficient sleep, I'm going to weed like my life depends on it. I've got less than two weeks before I have to start the year-end inventory. God help us all.

Overheard in the library #4

Teacher: "I see a lot of Fs in this class"

Student: "Why you puttin' us down?"

Teacher: "You don't do any work, what do you think you're gonna get? A magical grade?"

Student: "Yeah, I'm gonna get a rainbow"

P.S. The Con Artist is still mad.

Oh, No! He's Mad at Me!

There is a student who I will refer to as The Con Artist. He has not stopped trying to con me since the first time I saw him. He always has a perfectly reasonable explanation for why it was all right for him to be doing whatever it was. If he manages to get an education, I would not be surprised to see him running for public office some day.

My first meeting with The Con Artist was in the morning, when the students go to breakfast before classes. Coming back from breakfast, he was talking with one of his little friends. When I stopped them to take points for talking in line, out came the plausible explanation

Con Artist: "He's my cousin, and our aunt just died, and I was asking him when the funeral was."

Me: "That's very sad, now I need to see your point sheet."

The second time was when I caught him accessing Bebo in the library. This is not only strictly against the district rules, but you have to access a proxy site to even get there, as it is blocked by our filter. Out he goes, referral is written. Later in the day, he comes to see me.

Con Artist: "I just wanted to apologize for getting on Bebo, it won't happen again."

Me: "Look, this is not my rule, this is the district's rule. I don't personally care, I just have to enforce the rule."

CA: "I guess you already wrote the referral, huh?"

Me: "Yes, it's been turned in."

CA: "Since I got taken to the office, can I come in this hour to work on my project?"

Me: "If your teacher says it's okay."

Teacher approves, The Con Artist comes in and gets on a computer. A few minutes later, I look up, and he's accessing Bebo again.

Me: "You need to log off the computer and go back to your class."

CA: "Oh, I thought since you said you didn't care, it was okay if I got on."

Me: "A: even though I don't personally care what site you get on, it is the district's policy and I am going to enforce it. B: you told me you were going to work on your project."

CA: "I will, I will"

I think, but cannot prove, that he got on Bebo a third time that day. After this day, I decided that I was tired of him trying to con me, and now, when he comes into the library, I let his teachers know that I am not allowing him on the computers. However, he still comes in, with the rest of his class. Yesterday, he left a book in the library; this was the second book I found yesterday that belonged to other school libraries in The District. When he asked me about it this morning, I told him that I had found it, and that he could get it when his class came in to the library today.

However, knowing The Con Artist as I have come to, I decided to do some checking in The District's union catalog (for non-librarians, we can see the books the other schools have, too). Lo and behold, the book had not been checked out from its home library. It must have just walked off the shelf. I phoned the librarian to let her know and put the book in interdepartmental mail to go back to its home.

When I told The Con Artist, he was furious that I had done anything with "his book" which he had been planning to return to the library himself. I enumerated for him the fact that it was not his book, it was the library's book, he had not checked it out, which would give him some small claim on it, and that he was not legally allowed on the campus of his old school while enrolled at The Alternative School (indeed, they could arrest him for doing so).

But logic failed to avert the wrath of The Con Artist. This is the first time I've seen him other than calm. He wandered around the library for the rest of the hour usually as close to me as possible, so I could overhear as he complained to his fellow students of the great injustice I had done to him. During the course of this, he mentioned that he had gotten the book "at his ex-girlfriend's house last weekend." So it might not be him that walked out of the library with the book; of course, this is The Con Artist, so there's really no telling.

So he's mad at me. He's going to tell the principal on me. Somehow, I think I'll survive.

Belated Overheard in the library #3

This happened at some point last week, when middle school students were working on their big, end-of-semester project on human body systems for Science.

Female Middle School Student #1: "Girls have testicles, too!"

Male Middle School Student: "No they don't!"

Female Middle School Student #2: "Yeah, they do!"

Me: "Uh, no, boys have testicles, girls have ovaries. They are both gonads, though...."

Seriously. You can't make this stuff up.

There, but for the grace of God....

When I was first accepted to The Alternative School, I wasn't sure what to expect. My confidence was eroded by the fact that, whenever I told anyone which school I was going to work at, they made The Face. You know, The Face that tries simultaneously to say "You're doing what?" "Do you know what that place is like?" and "I'm sure it can't be as bad as they say."

Although I've heard horror stories about what it was like last year, so far (and I say this with 29 days of school left) the lid has stayed on. Yes, there have been fights, yes, sometimes I'm scared when I tell the students who are two feet taller than me what to do. But overall, the system works.

That being said, I can imagine what it would be like if the principal and assistant principal weren't willing to back up the rules with consequences. Sure, they'll give the kids a second chance (and often a third, fourth, fifth, etc.) but there are some lines that cannot be crossed, and they will, often regretfully, expell a student if the situation calls for it.

I cannot imagine working in a school (or a district) where stuff like this can happen. And it seems that this has been going on for a long time. I feel for the teachers who filed the class-action suit. No one should have to work in conditions like that. I know many do, and for that, I applaud them. Me, if I get beaten up by one of these kids, either the kid goes, or I do. That's it, that's all she wrote. I will not come back to a workplace where someone who assaulted me will be. And yet, they were asking these teachers to do so.

I know we're America's figurative punching bags for a lot of things; let's not make it literal, huh?

Very Minor Updates

All quiet on the western front today. (How much of a nerd am I that I considered my school's geographical location in the city before going with that phrase? Although technically, the library is at the south end of the school...southwestern front? Nah.)

Only one of the classes scheduled in the library has come in so far. Of course, it was during that class that I was called out to the AP's office to explain to the parents/guardians of the second girl in this post that, yes, I did see the offending child sitting in the vicinity of a computer with Bebo open on it. She decided to go the plausible deniability route. The boy who logged her on was the one who went to the proxy site and opened Bebo. She didn't report it because she figured he would get in trouble since it was his login. Gritted my teeth when she claimed that she wasn't actually sitting in front of the computer, just nearby. I would not be quite willing to stake my immortal soul on it, but I'm about 98.6% sure that, not only was she sitting in front of the computer, she was actually doing things on it. But I'm sticking to my ethics and not going to contradict her if I can't remember for sure.

Got to stand in the office for several awkward moments while the guardian-type-people pleaded for another chance for their Darling Offspring, since she's never been in trouble before. (Yeah, she's never been in trouble before. That's what got her suspended/expelled from her actual school and sent to The Alternative School.) The poor AP was looking rather worn. They could pay me enough to be an administrator, but there's not a district in the country that would.

The STF has apparently decided to accept my groveling of yesterday and act as if she were never upset with me, and also to tell me that since she is hosting some District-wide forum on school violence, I get to babysit two of her classes next Tuesday. Should be interesting.

Caught in the Middle, or Things That Wouldn't Make Me Cry on Any Other Day

As previously mentioned, we have had issues with students logging in for other students. This is partly because the students are lazy, partly because they don't see anything wrong with it, partly because they don't want to do stuff they're not supposed to do when logged in under their own name, and a little bit because we have had some non-working logins and some new students who didn't have their own logins for a few days. (Wow, my grandmother would kill me for writing that sentence. Good thing she doesn't read this.)

We used to be able to log on to the generic "new teacher" login for the kids, so they could at least do their work, but the generics were canceled because somebody or somebodies (don't know who, it's a generic login) were using the generic to visit sites which did not strictly apply to their job. Which is a big no-no here in The District. So who suffers? Well, technically it's the children, but really it's me, because I get to tell them that they can't login, and then their friends log them in, and I get to tell them that they shouldn't do that, and then decide whether or not to kick them off the computers. I hate to do that when they're really trying to do their work.

So, thinking that I could solve at least the not having logins problem. I think about going to the school tech facilitator about it. Then I recal that the STF and I had previously discussed this problem, and she had said something about wanting some generic student logins for new students, but the tech people had never gotten back to her.

Like the helpful person I am, I fire off an email to my district library supervisor asking if this can happen. No response until after lunch, when all hell breaks loose upon my head.

The STF comes down to the library and lets me have it, both barrels. We don't want generic logins, because then we will not be able to tell what student did a bad thing (not when, but if; because obviously watching the students has gone out of style). I explain to her that I must have misunderstood our previous conversation, and I apologize. But that doesn't stop her from repeating her reasoning on why we don't want generic logins at least four more times, and complaining about getting the email forwarded from my supervisor (which I also apologized for) because once, ONCE, at the beginning of the year when I didn't know she was the STF, I went to my district library supervisor with a question and she got an email from said supervisor asking why she wasn't helping me. She has never let this go. She thought she was helping me. Doesn't she help me? And she wouldn't put up with this noise around the computers that the other teacher allows; she'd kick them all out of the library.

Etc., etc., etc. I apologized until I was blue in the face and started to get mad. I nearly lost it when a short-term student who never got a login got an attitude with me about not being able to log in. I wrote an email to my library supervisor explaining that it was a misunderstanding and retracting my request, but she's already moving forward, and she's going to make generic logins, even though the STF does not want them. Which is just going to piss the STF off more. And guess who gets caught in the middle? Oh, yeah, that's me.

I'm now going to manufacture an excuse to visit the bathroom, let myself cry for a little bit, and tell myself that one annoyed person does not negate the fact that almost everyone else thinks I'm doing a good job.

Names

This is one of my BIG Pet Peeves. I understand wanting a unique name for your child; I went through a brief, brief phase where I wanted to name my first daughter Scheherezade. Fortunately, I got over it, and turned to fantasy role-playing games to indulge my penchant for (some more than others) unique and original names.

Someday I will dust off the draft post with the "I can't believe they named their kid that" list. All I can say is, bonus points for the parents who actually made up something semi-original. Minus points for just adding prefixes or suffixes (or both) to an existing name, extra double super minus points for choosing an existing word and using it as a name (Okay, fine, Chastity has been a traditional name since Puritan times, but where do you get off naming a child Passion? Really!?!).

Anyway, ran across this (long, long list) while reading through the Educat's archives, and it made me snicker. A lot. Go forth, and enjoy.

They caught the Porn Bandit!

Yes, you see, the coaches were mystified as to why they would come in to work in the morning and the printer in their classroom would be out of paper. Until, one day, they plugged in paper, and porn, well, scantily clad pictures, came pouring out. Lots of it.

Today, they finally caught the young perpetrator in the act. Of course, he says he didn't do it. And the coach who caught him said our young Porn Bandit was logged in under the coach's username, which might lead to some dicey times for the coach, as downloading and printing inappropriate materials is a firing offense in The District.

In other news, I have written up not one, but two students today for accessing Bebo instead of doing her project. Not sure what happened to the first student; the second one is being expelled. I feel a little guilty over that, but I'm not the person who chose to expell her (that was the Assistant Principal) and I'm not the one who chose to violate the behavior compact she signed when she came here (that was all her). I suspect, if this hadn't landed on the AP's desk when he was dealing with the porn bandit, she might have gotten a more lenient response...

Oh, wait, what's this? An announcement for the first student to come to the office? Apparently equal punishment is being meted out for equal offenses. Wahoo!

I should just be grateful I have an AP who believes in consequences. And who told me, after bringing him the second referral of the day, while he was still dealing with the Porn Bandit, "Thank you, you're doing your job."

Pet Peeves, elaborated

When I began this job, in September of last year, I began collecting useful online resources for teachers. Since I had no idea how one went about creating an official library web site, I collected links to these sites, with appropriate annotations, on a wiki. I also added an interactive library calendar, where teachers could use a password I gave them to schedule their classes in the library if no one else had scheduled that time. I was rather proud of my little wiki. I put it in the library newsletter so everyone would know about it.

Well, The District doesn't like wikis. They have grudgingly left a few wiki providers unblocked by the All Powerful Filter, but despite the professional development workshop I attended (provided by The District, no less) on how to use blogs and wikis in the classroom, I am apparently not allowed to have a library wiki. They want me to take it down and put up all that stuff on an official library website, on the official school site. I am given the name of the teacher who is in charge of the website. I talk to him about coming down to the library to help me set it up.

Weeks pass. Eventually he makes his way down to the library (I'm not blaming him. He is a busy teacher, and almost certainly has better things to do with his planning hour than walk me through making a website). So we copy and paste my preformatted content into the Official Template. He says he will look it over before publishing it to the web, as he is responsible for everything that goes up. Seems reasonable.

He comes back and says my information on where to go for wikis and blogs has to go. We can't talk about wikis and blogs on an Official School Website. Because then maybe people might know that they exist? Fine. Whatever. We can remove that information. We do so.

Now we're ready to publish it to the web. Publish it! Aaaaandd....nothing. It doesn't show up. It's just not there. Doing the same thing over and over, surprisingly enough, produces the same results.

There are 6 weeks left in our school year (34 days, after today, but who's counting?) and I still don't have a website. Now, I could blame this on technology not working as it should, or the limited knowledge of the teacher who's in charge of the website. However, I choose to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of The District for their paranoia and control-freak-ness when it comes to all things Internet and technology.

You see, I know a little something about websites. The software that The District requires us to use for the Official School Websites is not the most asinine piece of drek I've ever seen created for this purpose, but it may very well come in second. I understand that, with no way to guarantee a level of technology knowledge, you need something that ANYBODY can use, given training. Or, and this is just a thought, maybe take a little money and hire someone who actually knows what they're doing when it comes to websites, whose responsibility would be to create and maintain said websites? Huh? What's that you say? We need that money to pay for the bloated beauracracy that causes you to not get paid for months after you're hired? Oh, okay, then.

Bitter? Me? Nah....

Highs and Lows

This week, the first back after our much-needed Spring Break, has been interesting. I guess I should say these four days, since I was out sick on Monday, not desiring to spread my fever to my colleagues (she said virtuously).

Fun times with a teacher on Wednesday who sent a student with a note saying "I need books on:" and listing five topics, none of which we had books on. In fairness to her, we probably should have books on a couple of them. Note to self for next book order. I wrote a note back offering to find articles on the subjects. Student comes back saying "She wants encyclopedias."

"Which ones?"

Shrug

Based on the list of topics from earlier, I select the A, N/O, and S encyclopedias and check them out to the teacher. Later conversations with the teacher reveal that, yes, she was aware that it was a last-minute request, and that at least one of the encyclopedias were useful. Count that one as a triumph over too little information.

Yesterday and today, Mr. Middle School Science Teacher has had his students in here to work on their Big Deal End-of-Semester project on human body systems. Yesterday, for two of the six class periods his students were in the library, he sent half his class to the library, and kept half of them in the classroom. Did this, in fact, mean that I had the privilege of riding herd on his Middle School Brats From Hell (MSBFH)? Yes, yes it did. Including the special ed student that he didn't send but who came anyway, the student whose name is a byword at the school, the student who, when he said that he wouldn't come to school today, the reaction from the guidance counselor was "Thank you, Jesus"? That student? Yes, yes it did. And did I, in fact, catch one of the MSBFH looking at various pictures of scantily clad females instead of working on his project and have to write him up and print off a list of the sites he visited? Yes, yes I did. Yesterday was a LONG day. There was fast food for dinner, as I felt in need of some comfort carbs.

Today, so far at least, has been better. There are, as always, highs and lows. Lows would be having to persuade the (approximately) 15- or 16-year-old middle school students that the female reproductive system is different from pictures of nekkid women. Highs would be when not one, but two students asking "Do you have any books we could use for this project?" Maybe, just maybe, they'll actually learn something from this project, instead of just copying and pasting the entire Wikipedia article. Maybe.

Overheard at dismissal yesterday #2

(Note: the child saying this was definitely of African-American descent)

"White power! White power!"

No, I don't know why.

Dear Mr. Reading Teacher,

I'm glad that you bring your class to the library. I like that you have your students create so many projects and learn about so many things. I'm very appreciative that you've stopped telling them "All you have to do is copy and paste from the website into your presentation."

I really wish, however, that you would not just wander out of the library, leaving me alone with your 10-25 middle school brats from hell. I understand sometimes you have to talk to a student outside, or take care of important school paperwork. But the least you could do is let me know before you step out (as I do for you) so I can be aware that I have no backup when dealing with the MSBFH. And so I can tell people, when they need me to do my job, which sometimes requires *gasp* leaving the library, that I can't leave right now, because I'm trying (and failing) to keep your little darlings from visiting Bebo or printing their project seven times because it didn't immediately spit out of the printer when they pressed the button.

kthanxbai

P.S. Suxxor

Overheard in the library #1

"Benjamin Franklin is black!"

I am a softie

There is a particular special ed student who is often a problem. He has to be told several times to do things; he will deliberately act up or break rules in order to get sent to "boot camp" where his favorite teacher works.

He came in to the library today to give me a hug, then he went to his class with no complaints. My heart just melted.

Sometimes I forget how starved these kids are for any kind of positive attention.

I hate testing....

....so much.

That is all.

Librarian superpowers

Saw this comic and it got me thinking about a discussion Tori and I once had, about experiences I'm pretty sure are common to all librarians. What inevitably happens is, we will be out among the shelves, away from our computer with the catalog on it, or even elsewhere in the building, and people will ask us "Do you have any books about (Catholicism, electricity, Europe)?" or "Where are the books about (drawing, dogs, cancer)?" Now granted, librarians should know their collection, but my collection is pushing 3,000 volumes (yeah, I know, it's a paltry number, but even that few are hard to keep up with). I can't remember every single title we own. This is why we invented cataloging. Unfortunately, when I'm, say, out in the main room of the library or even *gasp* outside of the library altogether, I don't have the catalog at my fingertips, and I have to say "Let me go look that up for you."

It's like they expect me to say, "Oh yes. One green book, call number 315.23 (randomly generated), located on the fourth bookcase to the right, second shelf down, first book on the shelf." Like I can turn on my LibrarianVision(tm) and see the book they're looking for glow, or wave at me, or do a little dance.

My librarian sense is tingling!

These not workin'?

Shortly after taking this job (last September), I noticed a problem with one of the computers. The monitor would spontaneously go into hibernation at random times, although the computer was still turned on. I connected another monitor to the computer; same problem. A work order was put in, and the District tech who eventually came to look at it confirmed that the problem was with the computer, not the monitor. Apparently, the video card (which was an onboard one integrated into the motherboard) only sends signals intermittently; also apparently, this problem is a common one among the computers who received motherboards from that "batch." This becomes evident when two other computers begin showing the same symptoms. Work orders were duly put in the system for them as well.

Last week, someone finally came to take the computers away for repairs. As the original one finally refused to be finangled into any semblance of working order, I had gotten a replacement for it, so I'm only down by two computers. However, in the absence of those two, I have noticed an alarming trend.

Students will sit down in the chair, in front of the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, which are not hooked up to anything. Some can take a hint, based on the fact that the monitors are not turned on, unlike the monitors around them which happen to be actually attached to actual, working computers. Some take it upon themselves to turn on the monitors before realizing their mistake. Still more, after going through the previous steps, will turn to me, and, in affronted tones, ask the dreaded question.

"These not workin'?"

I have heard this question from both teachers and students, and I am seriously considering printing out large signs to the effect of "Since there is NO COMPUTER anywhere near this monitor, you will NOT be able to magically use it (dumbass)." Probably without the profanity, but you never know. I realize I could remove the keyboards, mice, and/or monitors, but I'd just have to put them back once the computers return. Besides, it's a quick way of sorting out the not so bright from the truly dim.

And it just keeps coming....

Now, instead of musical classrooms, it's musical classes. See, one of our middle school math teachers is going to start teaching between 5-10 eighth grade special ed students all day, all their subjects. So I had to take back her sixth & seventh grade math textbooks and workbooks and get her some eighth grade textbooks for, oh, ALL THE OTHER SUBJECTS. Fortunately for my sanity she only wanted 10 of each for now.

So it looks like the textbooks on my desk are breeding, because what with one thing and the other yesterday, I didn't have any time to work on getting them checked back in.

I spoke too soon....

Once again, we play musical classrooms. The high-school dean was working with the boot camp students, but for some reason one of the middle school reading teachers is now being tapped to cover it. The reading teacher. (very sensibly) doesn't want anything happening to the textbooks she checked out, and is responsible for, while her classroom sits empty. So she decides to bring them to me to be checked back in. I have a brand new cityscape of textbooks and workbooks growing on top of my desk. Can I get workman's comp if I'm injured by a falling pile of textbooks?

Victory!

I have emerged victorious! The enormous, skyline-of-New-York-style piles of textbooks and workbooks have been sorted. Textbooks have been checked in and graffiti has disappeard under erasers and white-out (except for one egregious example which I just gave up on and removed from the catalog. When the profanity is on the cover, there's not much white-out can do). I have sorted through the workbooks, and the ones with writing in (call it two-thirds of the total) have been thrown away.

All that actually remains is to take the untouched workbooks back to the textbook room and divide the written-in ones into two trash bags so the bottom doesn't rip out when the janitor tries to lift it.

I can see the surface of my desk! I can see the door while sitting at my desk! I was beginning to doubt that this day would ever come!

You can't make this stuff up

This came in via e-mail from my friend Tori, who works over at Failing School here in The District.

From a student who is a parent: “And they can be frustrating but you can’t just be beatin’ on ‘em. You gotta talk to them while you beatin’ on ‘em. say *slapping motions* ‘Boy, what you did? Why you doin’ it?’”

Eraser Hell

So I've finished with the textbooks from yesterday, except for the ones with inked-in profanity. Those can wait until I've finished everything else. And I begin checking the workbooks. You see, some of these workbooks have been used, but some of them haven't. Is there any indication of which ones have and haven't been used (except for the one, lonely, shrink-wrapped bundle)? No, no there is not. Does someone have to flip through each and every one to determine which ones have been used and must be discarded and which ones are still pristine and available for use? Yes, yes someone does. Anybody care to hazard a guess who?

But that's not the worst part. Oh, no. The worst part is that some teacher, whom one would presume had at least the intelligence of an amoeba, considering he or she managed to graduate from college, took a book which is not a workbook. Which is designed to be copied by teachers to provide their students with enrichment worksheets. And gave this book to a student to use as a workbook. Then, compounding the iniquitous nature of his/her crime, had the student write in pencil! Now, instead of just writing the book off as a loss, I get to erase the penciled responses on 37 pages....

Now that I flip through, I notice that the Unknown Teacher used pen to check of the student's work on several pages. Maybe this is enough to justify me in discarding this book. Must check with the Textbook Lady for The District...if only I had noticed this before my fingers started cramping from holding the eraser.

Textbook Graffiti day

Thanks to our beginning-of-the-semester teacher shuffling, we have a new middle school reading/ELA teacher. She has decided that she does not like the textbooks in her room; she think's they're too low level for her (ESS) students.

After much travail, last Wednesday I got a set of textbooks checked out for her, put them on a cart, and took them to her room. "Where do you want these?" I said. She asked if I could leave the cart while she found a place for them; she would get it back to me as soon as possible. "Sure," I said.

Shortly thereafter, her aide brought that cart, plus one additional cart, back to the library, piled high with textbooks, workbooks, and other miscellany. Apparently these were in the classroom, and the new teacher does not feel any need to keep them, as she doesn't plan to use them.

So I have spent all day Friday and all day today checking books in and noting the charming statements written in them, some in pencil, some in pen. I've erased the pencil ones, even the ones I didn't think were gang-related, just on the grounds that I'm too naive to be able to tell, and nothing should be written in the textbooks anyway. I need to go talk to one of the clerical staff who supposedly has some magical spray-on white-out that will take care of the ink. I almost wish I had a digital camera or a scanner, just to start a collection of poorly spelled profanity. "F*** all you haters with an a(backwards s here)es d***" is so bad it deserves to be preserved for posterity. Alas, for the low level of technology.

Unfortunately, even if the room hadn't been in the possession of a completely different teacher last year, there's no way to tell where these works of art have come from. Here at The Alternative School, students are not allowed to check out textbooks, since the administration feels (quite rightly) that any student who earns a trip to Alternative School can't be trusted not to destroy, sell, or just keep a textbook. So the teachers have a class set which each class can use while in the classroom. I guess homework doesn't get assigned out of the book. And I don't get to vent my righteous fury on the defacers of textbooks. *sigh*

Desensitized?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm getting desensitized, but in a good way. When I first came to The Alternative School, I was terrified of confronting the students. I did it, but I was so scared. I would have to go have the shakes in private afterwards. This was not made any easier by the fact that some of our students are perfectly capable of lying to your face about what they just did, even if you were looking right at them while they did it.

Today, I had to take points from a (middle school) student who wouldn't give me his point sheet. He refused, so I took him to the assistant principal, where he finally gave me his sheet. He then called me a nasty racial insult before returning to class (but out of earshot of the assistant principal, of course).

And I was okay. Not happy about being called a nasty name, but I was okay. I didn't shake, I didn't panic, I just reported it to the assistant principal and wrote up the referral.

I guess desensitization can be a good thing, sometimes. And sometimes doing the thing you're scared of really does make it better, less stressful.

Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson

I've been promising book reviews since the beginning. I guess I ought to finally get around to it. So I'm starting with a book I read recently, Enchanted, Inc. by Shanna Swendson.

I loved this book. Loved it, loved it, LOVED IT! I knew from the moment I read the premise that I had to read this book, and it did not disappoint. I plan on owning this book, and all of the sequels.

Katie Chandler is a small-town Texas girl who's drowning in New York City. Her common sense and competence just leave her open to abuse from her boss. And she just can't adjust to all the weird things that she sees, things native New Yorkers don't even blink an eye at.

When Katie gets a job offer from MSI, Inc., she finds out that there is more to life in New York than most people see; magic and magical creatures do exist, and she can see them.

I'm not going to say anything else about the plot because it's just so much fun discovering it. If you really want to know, you can go check out the author's web site or the reviews on Amazon. I will say that this book could easily fit in a high school library. Katie is young enough to resonate with high school girls who are starting to anticipate life on their own. I plan on sharing this book with my sisters who are in high school; I think they'll like it as much as I did.

I hear the whistle blowing....

Yesterday was crazy. I mean full-on, spring madness, why-would-you-do-that crazy.

As may or may not have been previously mentioned, when students walk down the hall here at The Alternative School, they are to walk in a straight line, not talking. This happens with various degrees of success. So yesterday morning, the middle school girls were doing a MARVELOUS job of this. They were behaving so well that I stopped a whole line of them on the way back from breakfast and gave them bonus points for doing so well (more on the points system later).

While I'm doing this, a line of boys goes past on the other side of the hallway. One of them is talking (the fact that it was only one is slightly miraculous). I say what I usually say in these circumstances, "No talking in the halls."

His response: "Well, you shut up your mouth then" or something to that effect.

Now my back was turned, so I didn't see who said it. One of the other staff on morning duty did, however, and she pulled him out of the line. It would have ended there, except he decided to mouth off to her, too, and the principal happened to be passing through at that time. Buddy Boy got sent to boot camp. So he goes (grumpily) and lines up on the wall with the other kids in boot camp. When the teacher in charge of boot camp comes by and talks to them, he tells her "F*** you."

This all happened before school officially started that day. O.o

From what the teachers told me, the kids continued in this vein all day. The assistant principal came on the intercom twice that day, once in the middle of the morning, once in the afternoon before dismissal. In the afternoon he said something along the lines of "We have expelled 8 kids today who didn't think we were serious. Middle school students in the gym, I can hear you from here, I can hear the whistle blowing, and if there's anyone down there who doesn't want to behave properly, we can send you home to think about it for 7 to 11 days."

This morning we had twice as many kids in boot camp as usual. Is there something about this time of year? On the bright side, the kids who aren't in boot camp are keeping their heads down, at least in the halls. We'll just have to see how it goes.

Practice, practice, practice

PE classes at school are always rowdy, especially the classes during 6th and 7th hour. Part of this is because the gym is not a regular classroom; there are no chairs and desks, and this break in routine makes the kids think it's okay to run around. The other problem is that the coaches have to have two PE classes in the gym at the same time; twice as big an audience for these kids as normal.

6th and 7th hour are so bad, the coaches are just despairing by the end of the day. One of them has told me repeatedly "I just can't take it anymore." So today, he did something different.

They came into the gym, scattered widely, talking loudly (two big no-nos; as an alternative school, students are supposed to walk down the hall in single file lines, with no talking). So he made them go out, line up, and come back in quietly. And of course there was talking, so they had to do it again. And again. All hour.

Unfortunately, the rest of the teachers can't get away with doing this. But I have some hope that the PE classes won't be quite as bad after this.

What book are you?

You're The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

by Douglas Adams

Considered by many to be one of the funniest people around, you are
quite an entertainer. You've also traveled to the far reaches of what you deem possible,
often confused and unsure of yourself. Life continues to jostle you around like a marble,
but it's shown you so much of the world that you don't care. Wacky adventures continue to
lie ahead. Your favorite number is 42.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

The Magical 6th-grader

Yesterday, I discovered a 6th-grader with a magical power (who shall hereafter be referred to as Poltergeist Boy). Keyboards and computer mice (mouses? meeces?) come unplugged in his presence, without anyone seeing him touch them. When he is moved away from the computers, somehow it stops...doubtless a previously unexplored poltergeist phenomenon.

The good thing about working in Louisiana? A four day weekend for Mardi Gras. Man, am I ready.

Things that make me smile

Today, one of the hall monitors asked if he could bring a middle school class into the library until the the person who was covering that class could come get them. She never did come get them (I was pretty sure that would happen; I wish they'd just ask me if I'll cover the class, because I really don't mind), but I had the joy of seeing the students poring over some of the new books I bought. Not just reading, but almost fighting over who got to read them, reading them out loud, trading them back and forth.

There were a couple of problems (they tried to con me into letting them go to the bathroom, when they knew they weren't allowed) but still, they've been remarkably well behaved for a 6th hour class. Really, nothing compares to seeing these kids, who patently hate school and can't wait to be gone, reading, and talking to each other about what they read.

Library Way in New York City

I've never felt much of an impulse to visit NYC, but if I ever do, I'll have to check this out.

http://www.grandcentralpartnership.org/what_we_do/beautify_library_way.asp

Pet Peeves, part 1

Why part 1? Because I suspect that this will be an ever-growing list that I will add to many times over the course of my library career.

Things that make me twitchy:

• Teachers who tell their students "just copy and paste from the website into your presentation."
• Teachers who copy workbooks (I'm starting to be of two minds about this. Yes, it's a copyright violation. However, when your school has 10 workbooks for 5 sections of a class, what are teachers supposed to do? Still...makes my little law-abiding soul cringe.)
• Students who claim "I wasn't (insert X forbidden action here)" when they were, I/We saw/heard them do it. Most of the students here are pretty good about just taking their penalty and moving on, but a few will lie right to your face about the thing you just saw them do 2 seconds ago. Usually this is in the vein of "Man, I didn't do nuthin, man, why y'all tryin' to play me, man, this is...."
• Teachers who bring their rowdy middle school class into the library and then wander out to do something unspecified for an unspecified amount of time, leaving me to babysit (usually right around the time I need to go to the office, or the textbook room, or a teacher's classroom, or...)

I know I'm in the right job when...

As previously mentioned, I work at an alternative school. This is where all the students from the district (and it's a large urban district) who are suspended or expelled come. Presumably because of this, the previous librarian was afraid that books would not be returned, so they were not checked out. Can you imagine anything more useless than a big room full of books that no one can check out?

From day one I've been upset by this. The principal said that I could check them out as long as they were kept in a teacher's classroom, i.e., not brought home. I suspect (but don't know) that the teachers have let some of the more responsible students take the books home, but since they always came back, I haven't bothered to check into it. Finally, this month, I sat down and drafted what I thought was a reasonable checkout policy, and the principal approved it.

Today, a middle school class was in the library doing research for a project. One of the students who was finished asked me if we had any "scary books." I showed her a few titles and explained the plots; when I got to Sorcerers of the Nightwing by Geoffrey Huntington, and explained that in the beginning, the main character has demons come out of his closet, she practically grabbed it out of my hand and ran off to one of the tables to start reading. When I told her that she could check it out and take it home, her whole face lit up.

Yeah, some things about my job drive me crazy, but, at the risk of sounding sappy, it's all worth it.

Please allow me to introduce myself....

Today it occurred to me that, rather than inflict my emotional highs and lows on the good folks at LM_NET, I could make a blog. Also, this would give me a place to do book reviews (I'm one of those people who just can't stop recommending books they like. I ended up helping people find children's books in Barnes & Noble over Christmas.)

So, about me. I'm a squeaky new graduate with an M.S. in Library Media, and I'm currently working as a librarian at an alternative middle/high school in Louisiana. I kicked around a bit before deciding to be a librarian, and I love it, love it, love it. This is what I was meant to do with my life. There are some things that get on my nerves (not having much money to buy books comes to mind), but overall, I end most days by thinking about how much I love what I do. I may get over it someday, but don't count on it.

Oh, and I overuse parentheses and long dashes--can't you tell?