Prep Hour

After lunch, Schultz and I went back to the classroom where she had me look through the textbook to recommend a poem or two from the Harlem Renaissance.

That was kind of tricky. It was hard for me to recommend things because I didn't feel like I was any kind of authority on the the subject, but I guess that when you come right down to it, I am. I am a reader and an English major and that sets me apart from most people. I guess that I've become sort of insulated in my little world of English majors and books and forgotten that I have the skills to pay the bills (sort of).

Schultz and I also talked a lot about school & education politics and stuff like that. I guess as a 'masculine' (her word, not mine) male interested in teaching, I would be given very high priority when applying.

I'm still not clear if Schultz thinks that this is a good thing or not. She said that the more 'femmy' male teachers have trouble connecting with students, especially the guys. However, Schultz also talked about back in the days when she worked for Donny back at JFK. She seemed to resent him for telling her to hire dudes no matter what. I guess you just need to be the right qualified dude. She told me an anecdote about some guy she interviewed at Kennedy who brought a guitar to the interview and said, "I don't really go for traditional/formal interviews, so I'm just going to sing you a song." Seriously.

Schultz also told me about her move from Kennedy to Jefferson. in 2001 or 2002 Steve Hill, then the assistant principal at Kennedy became head principal at Jefferson. Two or Three years later, he asked Schultz to fill an opening at Jefferson. She said that after she got the job she had to distance herself from Hill because some other teachers might think that she was 'brought over' from Kennedy by Hill and they wanted to escape that stigma.

Towards the end of this prep hour, after I told Schultz about my suggestions for the Harlem Renaissance, she told me about the frustrations and that come from teaching English lit for a person who loves books and reading. She told me that it can be extremely frustrating for a person to teach a book that they love, say To Kill a Mockingbird, and have a third of the class hate it because they refuse to give it a chance because they are crappy students that don't give a crap about their educations. She also said that getting any member of the 1/3 that doesn't give a shit to give a shit about anything can be extremely rewarding.