That'd be greaaaat

Late last academic year I learned in the cafeteria in a one on one conversation from the department chair that I was not going to have a classroom this school year. At that time, I also found out that I was going to have to teach a different class and I wrote about mixed emotions about this news. I was trying to look beyond feeling slighted, tread up on, and get my zen on and just look past it.

I watched management in action happen after I packed all my crap up. That week was an amazingly hellish week not to be duplicated since then, and probably never again (problems at home too, big ugly hairy ones) I had just packed up and was in the classroom with the guy who was going to teach from that room next year when in came an administrator, a gentle man who now I know is incredibly well versed in management.

Our school is incredibly crowded. They are building 20 more classrooms right now and many teachers must teach from carts and go from room to room. Teaching from a cart brings quality of teaching to new lows. For many reasons, trucking around with one's teaching gear basically changes the whole teaching game from winning to barely staying in the game (at the worst). All one can do is make the best of it, really. It's the thing that makes teachers cry, quit, yell, complain and wake up in fits of anxiety or rage.

In trying to get what he wanted, administrator said this (not exact quotes)

"Now this situation is really actually potentially very good, two teachers get off carts, and one teacher moves. You know some teachers have had to move classrooms for 6 and 7 years straight. I think of MH. MH has not had the same classroom since she got here several years ago, but when I talked to her about going to a cart, she just says "J, I will do whatever you need me to do," She has an amazing attitude. She is willing to do whatever it takes to make things work out. She really is the kind of person who simply does what needs to be done and she has an amazingly good outlook about it. So one classroom move in 8 or 9 years is actually a bargain in light of what most of the staff are up against."

I don't think I am even remotely approaching the level of convincing this guy reached as he rambled on in this vain for 45 minutes.

At the time I thought, "I want to be like MH, she is a good person, I like her and I think she has a good attitude"

When I consider how administrator made it seem like if the person who was getting moved even so much as dared complain, they would seem not only like a total ingrate, but also like a selfish person for grousing, I am impressed somehow.

I learned something, he appealed to something he laid odds that we had, a desire to make a positive impression and be valuable contributors, and used that in order to get one of us to light our shorts on fire and be as close to ok with it as possible. He kept 2 of us together, one getting good news (a classroom), the other bad news.

I realized what a very clever man he is. I mean truly, to make people want to do what he wants them to do is very crafty, especially when the thing he wants them to do is akin to lighting ones shorts on fire.

Moving classrooms has never taken me less than three days of unpaid work, one to pack up, two to move and to unpack and reassemble in my new space. Usually there is no one waiting to help you, no one offering to make it a little easier, it's usually more just the teacher hauling all their crap elsewhere. Alone.

Insert violin of pity here. But truly, it is miserable.

SO! How do I get this to work in my life? Can I make my friends do what I want by talking for 45 minutes appealing to some desire deep in peoples heart to be good people to get them to go buy me a pizza? Or give me some money? Or rub my hot sweaty tired feet? Maybe I need to read a book to learn the finer points of this new technique, as I think by the time people realize what's happened, I will have enjoyed a nice foot rub!