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Garden City Teachers Association Reflecting Quality Education
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Breeding Cynicism October 2007 On a recent morning, several teachers joined a group of students at the high school to protest the latest government crackdown in Burma. The situation called to mind a time that, while only several months in the past, seems much more distant. In fact, it was only last spring that GCTA members found themselves braving cold weather and at times even colder stares, in our effort to secure an equitable contract. As all will remember, the central point of dispute was the District’s insistence upon additional “professional” periods at the high school and middle school, and an extension of the day for the primary and elementary schools. So, now that they have secured this additional obligation from us, how has it been used? Given the vigor with which the District fought for this time, one might have assumed that they would have been equally vigilant in devising educationally valuable uses for it. Unfortunately, as many predicted, this does not appear to be the case. Instead, teachers have simply been handed a form and told to record student contacts outside of their instructional periods. That’s it. No new programs. No coordinated efforts. No nothing. Just keep doing what we’ve always been doing, just write it down, and have it signed off on by our coordinators, and put into a file somewhere. While few of us are complaining about what has turned out to be little more than a minor clerical burden, many are wondering how it was that this could have prevented us from concluding a contract for almost an entire year! Regrettably, the discrepancy between how the District presented this program and how they’ve actually made use of it, and more importantly, their willingness to toy with our livelihoods over a matter which, based on their subsequent actions, they actually cared very little about, has left many of us feeling more than a little disillusioned. For many, in fact, it just serves to reinforce a cynicism that has been building for some time now. Indeed, to many of us, this is just the latest example of a more troubling trend. Whether “professional” periods or “Staff Development”, the guiding principle seems to be, demand additional obligations, bill them as educationally vital (thus implying that opponents are opposed to progress), and then let these initiatives fall into a state of virtual uselessness. Whether intentional or not, such a cavalier approach to our most closely guarded commodity, namely our time, is more than off-putting. It actually sends a very telling message, i.e. don’t take anything we say too seriously because, in the end, very little will come of it. In short, be cynical. This is not an argument for more oversight, but instead for greater forthrightness. Don’t burden us with trivia and call it “accountability”. Instead, if our time must be commandeered, at least use it wisely. To do otherwise is to only reinforce the ever-increasing feeling of cynicism the has cast its shadow over us all.
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