Which works for me, honestly. The entire beginning of last year, Lina was on my case about “improving my instruction” or whatever. I was all like, “girl, this is P.E., let me just throw a bunch of balls into the gym and let the kids go ham for fifty minutes”, but she wouldn’t get off my case. She insisted there was a “real opportunity for learning” in the gym.
But then Principal Thomas came along, she never stepped foot into the gym, Lina got too busy to coach all forty-something teachers in the building, and now I’m left alone in peace. To throw a bunch of dodgeballs into the middle of the gym and let the kids go ham for fifty minutes.
I really do feel bad for Courtney Thomas, though. She’s young for a principal and is definitely one of those people who got to where she was because she could talk the talk. She’s been talking at us for like forty full minutes now, and itsoundslike she’s very articulate and well-spoken and charming, but if you actually listen, then you realize she isn’t saying anything of substance at all. She’s good at throwing around the educational buzzwords, the ones that make teachers cringe, like “student-centered” and “growth mindset” and “deep dive” and “success criteria” and “data driven” and “small group instruction”, but what’s really fascinating is that she doesn’t actually use them in a meaningful way. She just kind of… randomly drops them into the middle of sentences.
It’s pretty impressive.
“Now,” she’s saying, “grit and perseverance, these are all things we need to have as educators. Our jobs are tough! But wemust, it is ourdutyandourresponsibility,to dowhateverit takes for the good of the students and the community we serve.” She says this as condescendingly as possible, and it translates to: “you all owe me hours of unpaid time, energy, and resources.”
Mia is sitting next to me and nodding seriously, because she is exactly the type of teacher to donate said unpaid time and energy and resources for the good of her students and community.
“What did I tell you about using your own money to buy classroom supplies?” I hiss at her.
“Shhh…” she shoots back, looking straight ahead at Ms. Thomas.
I’ve known Mia for her entire life, her full twenty-nine years, and I can honestly say this is the longest she’s ever gone without making eye contact with me. And I see her every day; we live together, for fuck’s sake. This has been since the Bathroom Incident, which we’ve never once addressed, when her crazy blue eyes on my dick made me come harder than I’ve ever come in my life. This was also when I realized Mia has tits. Really nice ones. They were flushed pink and heaving…Ew.
I mean, it’s all par for the course. When Mia was eight, I walked into the bathroom on the second floor of their house. Mia was in there, her pants were down, and there was bloodeverywhere. I thought she’d been stabbed, or shot, or mauled by a bear, or some other fantastical tragedy only an eleven-year-old could concoct. She yelled at me to go get her mom. I ran down, and I’m pretty sure I was hysterically crying when I screamed, “SOMEONE HELP! MIA’S DYING!” Mia somehow found a way formeto be embarrassed about the whole thing, when it washerfirst period.
I clear my throat.
“—We have to remind ourselves of why we’re here, why we must work so hard, especially at the beginning of this school year,” Thomas is saying, and I know where this is going. “We’re going to break into small groups now, so that we can all share our ‘why’s’ with one another—” She is cut off by a chorus of groans.
“Is there a problem, Ms. Williams?” Principal Thomas shoots at the kindest, sweetest, oldest, most soft-spoken teacher we have in the building, one who most definitely didn’t groan, much less even hear what the principal had said.
“None, Principal Thomas,” she whispers, and my heart breaks a little, and this is exactly why Principal Thomas has made enemies across the school.
“Good,” she sniffs. “Now let’s break up into groups of five?—”
Mia practically sprints away from me to join a group on the other side of the room.
I sigh, rubbing my face. I really don’t want to take part in this garbage, so I mosey my way over to Thomas instead. She stands alone at the front of the room, not participating in her own activity. I dial up the charm to eleven.
“Good morning, Principal Thomas,” I tell her in a voice that’s an octave or two lower than my usual, sliding in sideways and giving her a half smile.
She’s a foot shorter than me, and she’s wearing four-inch heels. The ideal shoe, she probably thinks, to establish dominance. On the first day of work at an elementary school. When everyone else is in sweatpants. She glances up at me. “Oh, hello,” she says to my biceps.
I flex.
“Remind me of your name again,” she purrs, now towards the front of my sweatpants.
“Elias Miller, P.E. teacher,” I tell her cheerfully. “Principal Thomas, I just really wanted you to know…” I wait for her eyes to meet mine. She finally flicks them up, not ashamed in the least. “…that I really appreciated what you said earlier.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“I think what you’re doing for this school is really admirable,” I tell her, oozing charisma from every pore. “What you said earlier about deep diving into a growth mindset, and making sure to have data-driven success criteria, well, I think that was really brilliant. And I think it’s really the right direction this school needs to go in.”
She preens, thrilled. “Thank you, Elias.”
I go on. “And what you said about rigor…” I click my tongue. “I think it’s a really effective andequitableway to hold teachers accountable.”
“I’m impressed Elias. You know, you saying that leads me to believe you are an excellent teacher,” she hums.
Aaand I think I just bought myself a whole observation free school year.I pretend to be humbled. “Wow. Thank you, Principal Thomas, but I think I owe it all to the PD’s you’ve been leading since you’ve gotten here.”
She smiles, looking at me for a moment. “You know, Elias, there’s this huge international education conference coming up in New Orleans. I’d go myself, but—” she inserts a laugh here, “—someone needs to be here to run the school! Lina needs to stay, too—”to actually run the school “—but she doesn’t think we should be spending thousands of dollars of our school budget on something such as this, when we’re still missing core curriculum.”
…And school supplies for the short-term housing kids, and air conditioning in the lobby, and maybe an updated heating system for the winter, oh, and a functional schoolyard and playground would be nice…
