April 15, 2010
(“Bad Poetry and Sour Grapes” would be a good name for an album, BTW.)
I used to work in a large school which will rename nameless, unless you read any of my old blogs where I very prominently and repeatedly named it.
Anyway, the large school was broken down by the CITY (yes, all in caps, like the monolithic leviathan it is) into much smaller schools. They had their reasons, little petty things, like poor graduation rates, violence, silly little stuff really. What NYC school doesn’t have student walk-out protests against the Principal and UFT representatives who “anonymously” feed damning news items to the New York Post? On the other hand we were the only school to provide the students with party pants on the senior trip. So there.
As former faculty I received an invitation to the school’s end term party, which this year is also doubling as the “end of the school” party. In June, after they force out the remaining handful of students the doors will close forever. The kids are leaving under the guise of “graduation.” The remaining kids are there because their academic or probation records are so bad that every other school in the city refused to take them. Yet mysteriously, with the school shutting down, every single one of them has managed to pass every class and meet the requirements for graduation. These are the same kids who, when I was there, majored in setting the bulletin boards on fire and illiteracy. For some reason Mayor Bloomberg loves this system. And the small schools replacing the large school? They’ve already eclipsed the big school in incompetence. Again, thanks Mayor Bloomberg.
So I got the invitation in the mail and it will only cost me $100 to go to a buffet featuring a “Hand Carve Meat Station.”
I must say though, that I was most impressed by the invitation, which featured a poem hand-crafted by one of the school’s long-serving secretaries. It is a beautiful thing, which would be hung proudly on the refrigerator of any fifth-grader who equaled it.
TO EDUCATE THE STUDENTS WAS OUR MISSION
TO SEE THEM SUCCEED WAS OUR VISION
WITH LOVING MEMORIES WE MUST SAY GOOD-BYE
TO OUR WONDERFUL SCHOOL….L*******E HIGH
PLEASE JOIN US AS WE EMBRACE
THE YEARS WE SPENT IN THIS SPECIAL PLACE!!!
WAY TO GO!!! L*******E HIGH
poem by DW
As a former teacher who spent close to nine years there, it really brought a tear to my eye. I cried knowing that this was the best the staff could come up with.
At any rate, I’m sure the party will be a blast. It features an open bar.
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