Our students are bright. Their potential, limitless. But their performance doesn’t always match their potential.
I’m in the library of Brooks College Prep high school on the far south side of Chicago.
About ten minutes into the staff meeting on student engagement and achievement, the band teacher falls asleep.
Head down. Snoring. Like an 11th grade English student disconnected from Shakespeare.
I look at the principal. He seems not to notice and continues to talk.
I scan the staff. Some are paying attention to the principal. Most are staring at their colleague in utter disbelief.
I imagine the conversations they’re having in their head right now, about their sleeping colleague.
I look back at the principal. Still nothing.
Now the band teacher is snoring. I know in this moment I have to step in. If the principal isn’t going to address this, it’s up to me to wrestle my colleague back into consciousness.
When I was in high school and I overslept, my mom would wake me up by spraying me with a water bottle. I consider this for a moment, but I don’t have access to a water bottle and I’m pretty sure the union would not like that choice.
So instead I use the oldest tool in every teacher’s toolbelt. Proximity.
I stand next to my sleeping colleague and gently touch his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” I say.
My colleague answers with shocking candor, “I’m sorry Mr. Bauer. I was up late last night playing Call of Duty.”
“Unbelievable,” I think and it hits me …
Here we are in a staff meeting discussing student engagement and achievement, and we have a sleeping educator.
How can we expect students to be engaged in the campus experience when their educators are this disengaged from it themselves?
And since then I’ve been on a mission to Do School Different.
Deeply thinking about how we re-imagine the project of school, even within a traditional system, so that we create campus experiences worth showing up for.
Keep Making a Ruckus,
Danny
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