Conspiracy

There's talk here by some that the exposé in the newspaper will reveal the atrocious acts the city is guilty of, in its mistreatment of employees. A lady here was thinking that it might begin making people wonder whether other agencies have such hidden agendas; such as the police and fire departments, or sanitation and transportation departments. Is there a room where those unfortunate train operators who struck the two MTA maintenance workers, are expelled.

There was also conversation of how the Department of Education could easily have a cache of "phantom" teachers for whom payrolls are collected and boats are bought.

Now, about logistics here in the rubber-room; what happens if somebody has a stomach ache or worse and occupies the bathroom for an extended time?

The conversations here certainly revolve around different events that it seems was the case at work. People are cordial enough as they ask about the weekends spent.

After two days away it was again nerve-wracking to return.

My body is tired, my mind is fatigued. I never thought it would be so difficult to simply sit. I ache. I close my eyes but cannot escape. Respite, refuge, please come take me. I feel I am weakening here.

Something else somebody else in the hallway today said is that we are put here to tire us down, to silence us and hide us away. The guilty along wit the semi-guilty and the incriminated, and the innocent.

I'm Afraid of Americans, I'm afraid of the world.

Americans are a peculiar people. Is it incorrect for me to have the folks I sit with in the detention center represent America to me? I think it's fairly accurate to gauge America through their "lenses." Two of them were flossing their teeth today, right there in the room, in front of everybody present. First, just one of them was flossing, then the other saw and thought he would do the same. How is it that they have learned social graces to act in this manner while I have learned otherwise. Am I mistaken to think that it's not polite to floss one's teeth in front of others, or am I exhibiting excessive social restraint due to a strict background.

Of course, I am the same person who enjoys sitting with my feet up on the sofa or extended out onto the coffee table, which to me is much more comfortable and not rude, but my friends think it is. So am I living selfishly in comfort? Am I disturbing others? Perhaps I make for a decent American.

Today I heard somebody had walked in on someone else in the bathroom because it was unlocked, and the occupant said that they were just too scared to lock it.

I can't even begin to comprehend what that is all about.

I'm too scared to lock it also.

I'm too scared to use it.

I'm scared of being scared.

I'm scared that I'll be scarred.

Dismay

Yesterday, Madge looked nice. She dressed up for her appointment at the regional office.

Today, Madge was crying when I came in. She looked disheveled. Tim just shook his head. As it turned out, Madge was told at the appointment yesterday that she was being fired. She went there with so much hope and anticipation; she returned, instead, defeated and deflated. So she was sent here to await a decision on her case, and now she must continue to sit here after it seems her case has been decided. She will try to appeal, but her heart is crushed. She sits with a different face than the one I've grown accustomed to in my short time here so far. Her graying hair at the temples of her head appear to have increased overnight. She is fortunate to not be alone at home as she has somebody there to offer her support and encouragement. I, too, and so fortunate to have somebody in my life to support and encourage me at this time of great desperation of mine.

Just today somebody brought in a newspaper article this week, on "teacher-jail" here in NYC (see below). It's fairly accurate. I also found out today that the teacher mentioned at the end of the article, who died while serving time in the detention center, was assigned to our facility. Who's fate is worse; his or Madge? I wonder what my fate will be, and how much of a hand I have in playing my own destiny.

Read an article about the way teachers are punished in NYC.
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Class Dismissed - by Mara Altman, April 24th, 2007 11:53 AM
Lousy teachers or just political victims: there's got to be a better way to settle teacher disputes than New York's rubber rooms.

Imagine that your boss wants you to sign a document accusing you of something you don't believe you did—a fireable offense like assaulting someone at work, for example—and your response is not only to refuse to sign, but to let loose a damning accusation that your boss was making up the allegation.

And, for good measure, you call your boss "fat."

Now, in just about any industry you can think of, this would not bode well for your continued employment. But in this case, we're not talking about just any kind of workplace, but perhaps the most dysfunctional employee-employer interface in the history of paychecks.

In other words, the New York City public school system.

When, three years ago, Georgia Argyris, a teacher, was presented with a letter accusing her of yanking the arm of a kindergartner at P.S. 50 in East Harlem, she let loose with a stream of accusations at her principal, Rebekah Mitchell, and added some unkind words about Mitchell's weight.

At another kind of job, Argyris might have called on a union representative to help her fend off what she considered baseless claims (she was denied one). Or she might have been immediately terminated after calling attention to her boss's waistline (she wasn't). Or at the least, the allegations against her, and her counterclaims, might have been reviewed in a timely manner by an impartial third party, someone who wasn't the recipient of Argyris's unwise outburst.

But no, this is the public school system, and there's only one way New York knows how to deal with teachers accused of bad behavior: send them off to a Kafkaesque holding pen, where taxpayers continue to pay their salaries for months as they wait for the glacial pace of what passes for justice, meted out by a sluggish school district and intransigent union.

Argyris, not formally charged with any wrongdoing, would spend the next year and a half in this limbo, paid by taxpayers to sit in a childless classroom with other teachers awaiting their own hearings.

It's not hard to see why teachers call this place the "rubber room," where they spend months—and even years, some simply waiting to see what they've been charged with.

The Department of Education, naturally, says that teachers end up for long periods in rubber rooms because their union—the United Federation of Teachers—has made it so difficult to fire lousy teachers.

The UFT, on the other hand, says that it's the DOE that abuses rubber rooms, sending teachers there that principals consider troublemakers. In other words, the union tends to see the rubber room system as the Guantánamo Bay of the school world, where political prisoners are sent by dictatorial principals. (Not surprisingly, the teachers doing time in rubber rooms we spoke to tended to agree with this view.)

Meanwhile, as teachers spend month after month reporting to mind-numbingly boring rooms waiting to be found incompetent (in some cases), or fit to return to teaching (in others), you pay. And pay.

The UFT and the DOE each claim no knowledge of the origin of rubber rooms. One longtime employee says they have existed since at least the late 1960s, but in a different form.

Teachers at that time who were accused of wrongdoing were reassigned to their district office where they were put to work—filing, typing up reports, and organizing data.

Today, teachers simply rot.

When Argyris reported to 333 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan , one of 13 rubber rooms the district euphemistically refers to as Reassignment Centers, she soon realized that her "job" now consisted of joining about 70 other reassigned teachers in daylong sessions of staring at a wall.

"I felt like a vegetable in a chair," she says.

Rubber room hours match that of a typical school day—Argyris would sign in at 8:30 a.m. and be released at 3:20 in the afternoon, with a 50-minute lunch break. Like something out of a dystopian fairy tale, however, this school had no children, just a few cafeteria workers, social workers, and custodians who shared the same lot.

In 2000, there were 385 teachers assigned to rubber rooms. Last month, that number had climbed to 662. Argyris, while she sat and stared at a wall, was paid $62,646 a year. The DOE pays about $33 million a year just in salaries to the teachers in rubber rooms—an amount that doesn't include the salaries of investigators working on the cases of rubber room teachers, the upkeep of the reassignment centers, or the substitute teachers who replace employees like Argyris.

Because teachers in rubber rooms are awaiting their cases to be heard, they aren't technically being punished. But they are restricted from numerous activities—they can't use MP3 players, telephones, or laptop computers. (Most flout those rules, however, and use various devices openly.)

Teachers say they soon learn that their peers are territorial and often cranky. One young teacher serving his fifth month tells the Voice the first thing he was told by a supervisor was not to sit in seats claimed by others. Fights have broken out over less, he was told.

"It's high school on steroids," he says. "Or maybe a mixture between a minimum security prison and a senior home."

To keep occupied, teachers read, play games like Scrabble or chess, or work on their screenplays. Art teachers work on paintings. Masters degrees get completed. Last year at the Seventh Avenue rubber room, a group of teachers taught each other to knit. Exercise is a popular activity.

Jeremy Garrett, a former teacher, has spent the last two years producing a film about rubber rooms by sneaking in cameras. He says he's known some teachers who actually didn't mind spending years doing little more than showing up every day for a paycheck. "There are people on the inside who are milking the system," Garrett says. "You'd have to expect that, though."

After a recent day of staring at walls, five teachers currently serving time at a rubber room met at a nearby coffee shop. For the benefit of a reporter, they had prepared freshly printed handouts and an agenda, activities they obviously missed. They gave a bullet-point outline, summarizing the reasons they had been reassigned. Each, not surprisingly, claimed to be in the rubber room on trivial or inflated charges.

The DOE, however, says that teachers are only sent to rubber rooms for serious reasons. Some teachers, the DOE says, need to be separated from children because they've been accused of harmful behavior, like sex offenses. Others are awaiting discipline after investigators have confirmed allegations of incompetence or misconduct. And others are in rubber rooms because they've been accused of crimes by outside agencies.

But Argyris, as she sat in the rubber room in 2004, had been given no official reason why she'd been sent there. Previous principals had given her high praise for her work with kindergartners. Lyle Walford, an interim principal who worked with Argyris, says that she was a "great teacher," but also assertive. "She's outspoken," Walford tells the Voice. "She doesn't take any guff from anyone."

A former model, Argyris looked young for her age. She claims that from the first day of Mitchell's arrival, the new principal disliked Argyris for some reason, and the accusations of yanking a child's arm was just part of a strategy to get rid of her. The district counters that Argyris had a record of poor attendance, was often late to class, and that Mitchell found herself having to cover for the kindergarten teacher.

Late into the second month of the 2004 school year, a mother of one of the kindergartners said that her daughter's coat was missing and that her arm had been pulled. The student was on Argyris's roster. Argyris maintains she was absent the day of the incident and that the student in question was in another teacher's class. The district, however, countered in a hearing that the records were clear—on the date of the incident, the student was in Argyris's class. Mitchell interviewed some children and concluded that Argyris had mishandled the child. But Jeff Huart, a UFT investigator, tells the Voice that the investigation wasn't so clear-cut. "All I do know is that a bona fide eyewitness said the kid was not hit," he says. "The mother and two other kids came back and said Argyris did not hit the kid."

Argyris had never been charged with misconduct before. "She was a well-respected kindergarten teacher and all of a sudden she is an evil person that deserves to be booted from the school?" says a veteran teacher with more than a decade experience at the school. "It doesn't make sense."

Mitchell asked Argyris to sign a letter admitting to roughing up the child, Argyris refused to sign, and that's when she made her outburst about the principal's size. The principal then reported the incident to the regional superintendent, and Argyris was reassigned to the Seventh Avenue rubber room. "She lunged toward me when I gave her the letter," Mitchell tells the Voice. "It's a serious allegation and it warranted her being reassigned." But before she left, Argyris secretly made an audiotape of a conversation she had with assistant principal Angela Camiolo, who, in a transcript of the tape, appears to express some sympathy for her.

Argyris went to the rubber room confused and upset. She says she constantly had the urge to cry. Every 10 minutes, she says, she'd get up and go to the bathroom. She composed a letter to Chancellor Joel Klein that was never answered. She called the union frequently and rarely got through.

Two months later, still awaiting formal charges, Argyris was scheduled for a grievance hearing over her allegations that she'd been falsely accused. Perhaps naively, she believed she could play her secretly recorded tape of the assistant principal expressing sympathy for her and then get to return to her kindergarten classroom. "That didn't happen," she says.

When Argyris revealed the presence of the tape, the meeting was immediately adjourned. (Mitchell later gave Camiolo a poor rating, and Camiolo has been demoted to a teaching job at another elementary school.)

After the aborted hearing, Argyris went back to the rubber room, where her mental state deteriorated. A therapist prescribed her antidepressants.

"I became a worthless lump that didn't do anything anymore," she says.

On a recent visit to 25 Chapel Street in Brooklyn, a Reassignment Center opened in 2005 and housing at least 100 occupants, a Voice reporter found teachers sitting on either side of a long room, just about wide enough for two Cadillacs to park side by side. The teachers looked sedated, like passengers after a cross-country flight, and the room was stuffy with a musty smell, as if the ventilation system hadn't been working right.

A food-delivery boy soon slipped through the door with a bag that smelled like greasy stir-fry. One woman wore a sweat suit, read a magazine, and had her feet up on a chair. Some were sleeping, their heads lulling against the wall, while others played chess and dominos or kept to themselves.

After a room supervisor discovered the intrusion, the reporter was forced out of the room into a hall, where several teachers were power-walking for exercise, but others soon gathered, anxious to speak about their experiences. "You can't use my name," one teacher said pleadingly. "There's a history of retribution. I have to pay my bills, pay for my child and for rent. This is the only job I've had my whole adult life and this is all happening before I'm proven guilty. We're all guilty, but did nothing wrong."

After about an hour, two suit-clad DOE employees arrived. "The head of human resources," one teacher murmured to the next. The crowd scattered. A few moments later, a guard came into the hall and asked the unapproved visitors to leave. When asked why, the guard just shrugged.

Most press mentions of the teachers exiled to the rubber room involve extreme cases that tend to inflame the tabloids. The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI), an independent body headed by Richard Condon and designed to investigate wrongdoings in the DOE, posts press releases of teachers found guilty on its website, where they make for tab fodder.

On March 7, the SCI made public the case of 30-year-old Marcia Amsterdam, who engaged in sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old boy from her school. In another widely reported case, a teacher's lewd e-mails to a 16-year-old student produced six years of litigation (during which the teacher received $300,000 in compensation).

But out of 592 SCI investigations completed in 2006, only 259 were substantiated. The majority of cases are investigated by the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which is part of the DOE and handles misdemeanor cases like incompetence and corporal punishment. "Before I was there, I thought this place was filled with thieves and molesters," one teacher tells the Voice. "There are people with quirks, but we're not all bad."

Even though many inside are still awaiting decisions, the rubber room has become synonymous with guilt. Some teachers are too embarrassed to tell close family members about their reassignment. One teacher, who has been inside for more than six months, tells the Voice he's managed to keep the truth from his wife.

Teacher advocates say the investigation process wouldn't be so mentally damaging if it could only be handled more quickly. The Voice spoke to teachers who had been serving time in rubber rooms from two months to three years. The DOE says it can't produce an average length of stay, because the district only started keeping track in 2005. According to their contract, teachers must be formally charged within six months of being reassigned or be returned to the classroom. But being charged can then add many more months as a case slowly works its way through a complicated process.

"The length of the process depends on the complexity of allegations and case," DOE spokeswoman Melody Meyer says. "Some investigations take days, others take months."

There are currently only 18 hearing officers handling misconduct cases. Each officer is contracted to meet only five times a month. The backlog of cases is immense.

"We have been saying for years that we want these people out of these places much more quickly," UFT president Randi Weingarten says. "There is no reason for them to be sitting six months or longer without charges being filed."

Hearing officers are chosen jointly by the DOE and the UFT, but are paid for by the New York State Education Department. With New York City officers making up to $1,900 a day, it's a lucrative part-time job, which some critics say leads these officers to overly compromising opinions. "You make a lot of money," says Julia Cohen, a lawyer who specializes in education law. "You want to satisfy both sides."

By July 2005, Argyris still hadn't heard any decisions from the December grievance hearing and the names and faces of her students grew vague in her mind. She had been transferred to a Livingston Street rubber room where she said one man routinely ate crumbs off the floor and where she saw a woman attack a man with a cane.

The Livingston Street rubber room was soon closed and Argyris was transferred to the Chapel Street facility, where the teachers had formed tight cliques. A daily spectacle, she says, was a young couple who had met during their reassignment and had converted a corner of the room into a small love nest, complete with air mattress, sleeping bags, small fridge, and a portable DVD player.

Argyris says that she found a companion too. But it didn't dawn on her, she says, that a teacher accused of telling a student he was going to throw the boy from a window might not make the best boyfriend.

In January 2006, Argyris filed a restraining order after her rubber room boyfriend beat her up. Photographs show that the whites of her eyes were stained red with blood. Black and blue marks ran the circumference of her neck.

Meanwhile, she passed her sixth-month mark in the rubber room without charges, but that milestone didn't, as her contract promised, put her back in a classroom. Instead, the UFT told her to keep showing up. But that was becoming more difficult. She started attending less frequently. And then, in February, she finally received formal charges—for her rubber room absences.

Because of Argyris's numerous absences (65 over the 18-month period), the DOE told her it planned to dock nine months of her salary. If she didn't agree, she would be fired. Instead, she hired a private attorney who drew up another settlement. She agreed to pay $2,500 and stipulated that if she accumulated another 55 minutes in tardiness, she would be automatically terminated.
The UFT was unhappy that Argyris had signed a private settlement with the district, but it's common for teachers to seek such agreements after they spend months in reassignment. The rubber rooms, in other words, wear them down. (In such settlements, the district collected $310,000 in fines last year.)

Edward Wolf, a lawyer, has made a living for almost two decades defending teachers. He says settling can be dangerous, because the teacher's name will never be cleared. "You're leaving your client with a dirty reputation," he says. "The teacher's got a rap sheet now and it's easy just to bump him off."

But the alternative—waiting for the hearing process to conclude—is increasingly a crapshoot. Last year, 200 teachers were charged with wrongdoing, but only eight were exonerated. Wolf said that five years ago it was common to win several consecutive cases, but now wins are rarer.

After her settlement, Argyris was still stuck in a rubber room. In March 2006, the UFT filed a special complaint on her behalf, charging that principal Mitchell had created a harassing work environment which had led to Argyris being reassigned. An arbitrator ultimately ruled against Argyris, saying that Mitchell had not harassed her.

But during preparations for the grievance hearing, to everyone's surprise, it was found that principal Mitchell had written a letter about a year and a half earlier—in January 2005—rescinding her original allegations that Argyris had yanked a child's arm.

"There was a document exonerating her," UFT investigator Huart says. "I was flabbergasted that this document even existed."

After 18 months in purgatory, Argyris was suddenly released from the rubber room. The teacher was told she could immediately return to her old school, as if nothing had ever been wrong.

Stunned and emotionally spent, Argyris was overwhelmed.

Just thinking of returning to school after so long an absence made Argyris dizzy.

Garrett, the documentary filmmaker, says he's seen several teachers come out of rubber rooms and experience difficulty assimilating to classrooms. "The amount of time you're away from your school indicates something bad to your colleagues," he said. "But really it's the inefficiency of the system."

Argyris shuddered at the idea of being under the supervision of the same woman who accused her of wrongdoing in the first place. "Why would they send me back to the school with that woman?" asked Argyris. "It's like they were setting me up to fail."

The first few days, Argyris failed to show up, which she attributes to feelings of intense anxiety. When she finally came to school, she was offered a third grade class instead of kindergarten, the grade she'd always taught. Argyris asked the union to provide an aide to accompany her in the room; she wanted a witness so that she couldn't be accused of corporal punishment again. The aide was denied, as was a transfer to a kindergarten classroom. Mitchell says Argyris's return was a disaster. "She usually spent the day sleeping in the teachers' lounge or went out in the neighborhood. I was often asked by parents who was the person screaming into the phone or lying in the teachers' lounge." A doctor recommended medical leave for Argyris, but as her medical issues were being resolved, Argyris surpassed the 55-minute tardy stipulation in her settlement agreement. She was terminated a little more than one month after returning to her school.

Her case won't die, however. The UFT and DOE continue to battle over the original allegations made against her. The DOE seemed incensed that the Voice was interested in the Argyris matter; it sent over records of a nine-year-old accusation that Argyris had made racially insensitive remarks to a district employee. Argyris denies the allegation, and was never disciplined for the incident. Repeatedly, DOE officials warned the Voice not to write about any aspect of the Argyris case.

Many teachers don't return to school after the rubber room—some retire; one woman the Voice talked to vowed to go to private schools; one young man said that when he was cleared he hoped to get a job in another state; another young teacher gave up after a few months in the rubber room and took up nursing.

But the DOE says that the numbers of teachers involved is small. "We're talking about 662 people out of a workforce of 80,000 teachers and roughly 6,000 administrators," Meyer says. "The vast majority is not affected."

The union, meanwhile, says that the rubber room system is preferable to the alternative: suspending teachers without pay until their cases were adjudicated. "There would be even more delays. Cases would drag on forever," Weingarten says. "We want these cases dealt with as soon as possible and not delayed for months and months . . . More than three years ago, I proposed creating a super-arbitrator system to clear the backlog of cases. The DOE rejected that."

Meanwhile, stuck with the rubber room system, life—or something like it—goes on in the city's reassignment centers. Jeremy Garrett, the former teacher who was sneaking into rubber rooms with videocameras to make his film, was arrested on April 18 when teachers objected to his presence. He was charged with criminal trespass.

And also last week, one teacher the Voice talked to, Ronald Mortensen Jr., a physical education teacher who worked with special education students, was run over and killed by a car on his lunch break. He was serving his second stint in the rubber room.D

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Misdirection

I don't know for what to aspire while confined in here. I don't know whether I should hope to be reinstated or accept my fate. What if this is a test, a test from the universe - a test of my strength and will, to see what I can tolerate and handle. To prepare me for greater battle.

Or it may be a test to see whether I can discern what I ought to tolerate and handle. At what point, then, do I assert myself and no longer accept abuse? Shall I give up? How shall I end the pain? Shall I withdraw? Shall I yield? Shall I succumb?

My supervisor has crossed boundaries, which is unacceptable. There are certain things that one does not joke about, and he has irreverently invaded my boundaries. I did not strike back as I could have. I chose not to become defensive. I forgave and accepted, even though I do not understand why I am verbally attacked and intimidated. Perhaps it is his coping strategy for lacking some social graces. There is so much artificiality surrounding his interactions and expressions.

I remember one of the best jobs I ever had, our boss would personally invite each of the staff members for a monthly audience with him for about 20 minutes or so, to simply listen to us and hear how were were doing, sincerely, and not to tell us anything prepared or unpleasant to bear. It was such a supportive and loving environment. I truly felt appreciated by that boss of mine then in that former place of employment. It was a happy and wholesome environment, with a very positive mood, tone, and attitude. I felt most welcome and valued there. At my job now, there's rarely personal contact initiated by the supervisors, which isn't negative and hurtful. I'd like to have a boss treat me kindly. I'd like to be shown that I'm important and significant. I'd like to be cared about.

Milestone

"Aaaaahhh! Hey, hey!"

I hear shouting and what I describe as 'growling,' as well as some yelling and hear screams. I don't know why. Is this to be expected? Is this normalcy here? I cannot comprehend the range of emotions that people here must be experiencing. What must be the mood, tone, and attitude, if this detention center were the subject matter of a story.

Today I overheard people complaining that the doorknob in the bathroom broke off and now there's no way to open the "pull" door from inside, and that the people waiting next in line outside need to push the door open for the occupants inside, once they finish and call out for release. Where am I? Waiting in line for a bathroom? I didn't grow up with so many family members which would have had me accustomed to waiting for the bathroom. I suppose I come from a privileged background. I'm not ungrateful that my mother sister and I had to share a bed until I was ten years old, in our studio-apartment in Hong Kong that didn't have running hot water in the faucets in the public housing buildings in which we lived.

I still haven't used the toilet here. One week now.

Once more, all I can think is that I'm grateful I'm not behind high fences, with only a bucket for my toilet-use while guards beat us. Amazing...my comparison is that of being glad I'm not being physically hit. Emotional torment? I'm sure that is suffered greater in more severe confinement. Is this training for further restriction in my life? I enjoyed too many freedoms to be caged. My mind, especially. Now I can appreciate how and why some political prisoners abroad have resorted to writing in miniature script in the margins of books they were permitted to have while imprisoned, which they glued together with mixtures of rice-water. I thought those were just stories to express extreme circumstances.

My Master's Degree did not prepare me for this.

My NYCTF interview did not ready me for this.

My school-placement job interview did not brace me for this.

My childhood, however, did introduce me to similar experiences of displeasure and angst, but I never dreamed that all my hard work and effort would lead me here one day. I wonder where else I'll wind up, notwithstanding my ambitions and energies exerted.

I suppose some of our dreams don't come true.

I suppose some of what comes true, we don't ever dream...or dream in nightmare and hope doesn't come true. And so if we dream for that nightmare to not take place and it does, then it's still a dream that doesn't come true.

I wonder if anybody dreams to wind up in jail, and then are glad they got what they wanted? Certainly nobody is glad to wind up in jail, even if they suspected that they might end up there. No, I don't think so. Nobody wold resign themselves to such a dream.

Amnesia

Just when I think that I've survived a week here and it doesn't seem as bad as the first day, now that I've had some time served behind me, I come in and feel like I don't know where I am or what to do, or that I'll be here forever, and won't last much longer here.

Shota came in to say hello and offered some words of encouragement.

"Don't worry about it, man. They'll forget about you in here and you can just relax. Don't let it get to you. This place ain't that bad."

Just when I think that I can find some peace and solace in this place, I hear what I presume is somebody joking around with others, only it doesn't sound so humorous, as I hear somebody shouting loudly as they bang on the closed door of another room nearby, "Police! Open the door!" Why does this happened? I know that friends of mine and I have played such games on one another in college, but not in situations where we might cause disturbance to others. Again, I feel this is not a professional place. I wonder whether that's because of its inhabitants. I also wonder about other places and whether conditions there are a result of it's inhabitants or whether it attracts certain inhabitants because of its conditions.

I wonder about Bronx and why it's not very clean.

I wonder about why I work where I work.

I wonder about the classrooms of my colleagues and I, and why they're not clean.

I wonder why our supervisors yell at us for our classrooms not being clean.

I wonder why Bob the janitor smiles at me when I wave goodnight to him.

I wonder why I wonder why.

Insomnia

I suffer from it. I wonder why.

Maybe some answers lie within here;

An independent documentary-film about the way teachers are punished in NYC is in production.

Take a look at their website here. The trailer for the film can also be viewed here. An NPR radio broadcast on This American Life also covers the rubber-room, which you can listen to here (click on the icon to listen to the whole show, which is an hour long, episode # 350 "Human Resources", originally aired on 29 February, 2008, the part that discusses NYC teachers begins 7 minutes into the broadcast, and runs to about the thirtieth minute).

Chapter One Closes

Day five does arrive.
It's the end of the week.
Staying calm is what I strive.
So that I don't end up weak.

Chuck says, "So we live another day."
Just like they say in the mob.
Is there any escape, any other way?
Each day I spend here is another one they rob.

I look forward to the weekend.
I've endured a lot in the recent past.
It'll be time for me to heal and mend.
I hope my days off don't go by too fast.

I'll focus on good things to which I can look forward
Such as respite and rest
And new goals I make which I can begin moving toward.
And keep making myself the best.

The Aftermath

Day four arrives. I am feeling strongly disillusioned.

I am feeling disillusioned with the people whom I respected and in whom I held trust and respect. I cannot understand why and how my supervisors could betray me in such a cold manner. If I was unwanted, I could simply have been told and I would have left quietly. Instead I am attacked. I have to restrain from reacting. I must discipline myself to remain calm. I gain power and reverence from my warrior background and summon the strength of my generations to do the right thing in this new age of battle, and not strike a fist of fury. The war that is raged here is one of honor and dignity. Mine is being stripped away and I must fight to keep it.

I am disillusioned at work for not being appreciated for what I do. I am hurt for being compared to my colleagues. Of course I will not be as good as everybody else, but I am as good as I can be, and certainly I am better than myself in the past. Yet, try as hard as I do, it is not enough. I am a human being and the work that I do is tasking. Even one of my supervisors admitted that it is exhausting. The only ones who understand this are a few handful of my friends at work who support me and encourage me. They offer me praise and they thank me, instead of the cruel criticisms I am so accustomed to hearing from some supervisors, that I forget how misguided and false they are. I even appreciate and respect those who have neither anything good to say or who maintain minimal essential contact. Even these relationships are, at least, not painful. But the ones who ought to be providing support are the ones who cut down and hurt. It would be somewhat bearable if it were a neutral position due to an absence of both support and condescension. Save but for the grace of my supportive colleagues I would not have the strength to counter all the negativity that is poured upon my soul.

My boundaries at work have been violated, but there is nothing in my contract to protect me against this. It's almost as if the contract disregards that I am a human being. I do not understand how a contract written by humans can supersede the contract written by the universe. I am a human being bound more to the universal principles that exist beyond us than to any contract written by people. I may be required to honor my contract, but I am without doubt held to the universal laws, irrelevant of my own agreement. If I am wronged I will feel hurt. If I am mistaken in thinking I have been wronged, being told I am mistaken will not make me feel better. My friends at work support me by validating my feelings. It reminds me that I am a human being. When my supervisors tell me they don't think that I am unsafe, or that I have been disrespected, which is the same as telling me that they don't think that I am a human being, or that I have feelings, or that I am believable. If I feel unsafe and disrespected, then it is true to me by they existence of my feelings, which is the same as it being true for anybody. That warrants empathy.

I would not disrespect somebody by invalidating them by telling them they should not be feeling what they are feeling. What a horrible thing to do. Does a doctor tell a wounded patient that they are not in pain? Yet my supervisors tell me that I needn't feel unsafe or that I shouldn't feel I've been disrespected. Now I see that they are unconcerned with me. They are only concerned with their own selfish needs. Just like the police officer that shouted at me in front of my colleagues that he would arrest me if I made another 911 call since his 30 days of vacation were in jeopardy. What selfishness. What about my concerns? Was I offered assistance? No. For this I forgive them, but I must not dishonor myself by accepting it and enduring more of it. I am a warrior and must protect my integrity and dignity. I forgive my supervisors for never having experienced anything such as I and therefore being incapable of expressing empathy to me. It hurts, it hurts to not be cared about. But I resolve to be fair to them. If they knew any better or any different, they would not do this to me. As for my supportive colleagues, I see their valiance emerge as they hold me up in my time of crisis. I honor them by doing what is respectful and strengthening myself through their givings. They have made great contributions to my emotional bank account, while my supervisors have callously and coldly made overdrawn withdrawals from my emotional bank account. There's no collections agency. I will suffer and they will continue in their insufferable ways.

Resurrection

Day three of my sentence. I met some more people today. It think my initial reaction was wrong. The people here are humble at the base, but they've been wronged and they're just trying to cope.

The people in my room seem mixed between being cynical and healing. They speak positively notwithstanding negative circumstances. What I prematurely and erroneously judged to be uncouth behavior is simply some of their defensive mechanisms to being here. Of course some are calloused and bitter, while others are bright-eyed and cheerful.

I have come to learn that a lot of the decorations, such as the school posters on the walls, and the books on the bookshelf are the personal effects of people who have been here a long time. It makes sense to try to humanize an otherwise cold and cruel environment. I agree that it could be worse, but that would be so much more unwarranted than is already the case now.

There's a lot of curious personality development present here. I observe some people having close personal conversations, such as talking about pending divorces and mistresses. It makes me wonder why more close personal relationships do not exist in professional settings.

It's amazing to me that this place is as undressed as it is without the additions the reassigned teachers have put here. I'm not surprised to learn, I suppose, that it wasn't in much of a nice condition before. It seems to me that the culture contained within the walls of this place is much like that contained between the borders of this nation. I think I'm beginning to understand why I was developing a sarcastic and cynical attitude when I first moved to this country; because that is what was most prevalent around me and to what people responded most. Since then I've learned that it is a weakness, at least for me, and a lower form of communication, while sincerity as more valuable and demonstrative of personal integrity and authenticity.

Yet I cannot help but feel at a loss when I enter the room quietly in the morning, and am greeted with wait I presume is supposed to be a joke, "Geez, why don't you try to make a little less noise when you come in?" Tim probably said that because I enter silently, in contrast to how chuck enters - with a a burst and lots of chatter. I just act according to what I see; people minding their own business and so I just want to leave it that way and not cause any disturbance. Yet in my effort to not draw any attention to myself, I have done just that. Perhaps that is also what has happened to me at work.

At work I've tried to maintain a quiet disposition, but that was not well-received in my first year. I was told to come out of my shell and join the others. I appreciated the gesture, but I felt uncomfortable and out of place. Why did they leave the foreign teachers alone, but not me? I ought to be grateful for the camaraderie, but I didn't feel so. The foreign teachers understand why I didn't enjoy eating alone or in front of others, as they didn't engage in such practices either. It's not polite or showing good manners. It's part of our upbringing and culture, and our own personal schema. We don't mind that others practice different habits, we just want our own to be equally respected. Instead, I was being told to rewrite my schema. I tried to fit in, to go to the pub with them after work, and join in the socializing, but all to often I didn't feel comfortable in the gossip, and was cajoled for not drinking. I didn't judge others harshly for consuming alcohol, and wasn't desiring for them to change their behaviors. I just wanted to be accepted for my own preferences. However, I'd had sufficient experiences to tell me that people don't understand that I can't drink due to being reminded of how my father used to drink and then beat my mother and sister and I in his inebriation, before my mother was able to successfully divorce him and escape his harmfulness. She didn't win any prize of child-support or alimony, but she did gain freedom and her own self-respect and dignity. The smell of alcohol on my own breath re-surges those terrible times. I don't want to risk that same nature in my own being. I want to always have control over my faculties. I don't want to have to tell stories of foolish and regretful things that I've done because I was careless. Instead, I prefer to emulate the father of one of my best friends, who I've heard say he doesn't live his life with regrets. What a noble and honorable thing to be able to say. I believe that's true not because I think he chooses not to regret certain acts and decisions, but because he hasn't any acts or decisions to regret, having lived a clean life. That's the type of life I want to live, free of shame and guilt.

And that's partly why I'm feeling tortured here, because I'm feeling undue and unjust shame and guilt placed on me.

Second Coming

The second day of my home-release jail sentence. I must spend my working day schedule here, and can return home in the evenings and for weekends. Although the anxiety of waking up and going to work has dissipated, it is replaced with a new anxiety; of waking up and coming here. It is poisoning my soul, and those close to me are noticing a change in my personality, and that I am becoming darker. This is rather disturbing. A dear colleague of mine, Bernice, suggested that perhaps the universe had something better in store for me and was simply giving me a proverbial swift kick-in-the-seat-of-my-pants to separate me from my present position. My present position being one where I had become so comfortable with the familiarity of the unpleasantness, that I wasn’t sufficiently compelled to leave of my own volition. I consider my remaining in my current condition a sign of dedication and perseverance. Maybe I was wrong.

Today I met Madge. She’s been here several months. I also met Tim, and had to surrender the seat back to him. I sat in another chair by the wall. Chuck arrived again. Then Denise came in. She’s been here for years (or is it four years?). The room is essentially hers, by verdict of seniority and decoration. I am astounded. How did this happen? How does she remain here? Will that happen to me? Is she aware, has she realized? Or did she simply become slowly accustomed to being here everyday, slowly. I wonder if this is what prison is like. This is definitely something of what jail feels like, and jail is just a predecessor of prison. How long will Denise remain here further? Will I become like her? I’m shocked. It’s as though she’s been forgotten. Does she like it here? She’s made the space somewhat comfortable for herself, with magazines on a bookshelf, and a cloth draped across the window as a curtain. She commands a desk in the room, otherwise, there’s only a table, five chairs, and Madge’s camp-chair and TV-dinner tray/table. Denise put up some elementary school poem/song posters on the wall. I’ve read them all. I’m numb to them. There’s no children that will read these.

My mind is so clouded here. I write to empty my thoughts so that I can attend to much more important tasks, such as making a to-do list which includes telephoning my health insurance agency and battling with them to submit payment to the hospital for my emergency room visit in the previous month, which is totaling near the mid-thousands of dollars after all the ultrasounds, sonograms, CT scans, CAT scans, urine tests, prostate examinations, to determine what is the cause of the inflamed cyst that has formed in my groin, on a part of my male reproductive anatomy.

Instead, all I can do is pen these words (to type out later), until the ink runs dry, or my hand tires, or I run out of words, or the day ends, or something else more compelling. There’s not much communication with the outside world from within here. I may use my cell-phone, but there’s no privacy to make a phone call. We didn’t hear about the tragedy at Virginia Tech University until the end of the day yesterday. There are not any computers or internet service. We are prohibited from bringing personal entertainment devices, but I’ve seen some contraband here; a pair of earphones and a travel neck-pillow.

There’s people slouched over tables, or hunched in their chairs, asleep in some rooms. Tim mentioned another room in which he sat the previous year, where folks gambled and fights broke out. Who are these people? What’s happened to them? I’m reminded of those horrible daytime television talk-shows, such as the Maury Povich Show, where a group of children suffering from Turret’s Syndrome are confined together on stage. Is it any wonder then, that those children will instigate one another, and thereby appear worse than they may actually be? What desperate measure leads a person to throw a fist and punch somebody else in the face? There is a lot of tension and negative energy here, just as on those horrible daytime television talk-shows, and it is taking nearly all of my strength to maintain a calm composure under such dire circumstances and duress. Yes, I know that prison is worse, but I am not a prisoner, and shouldn’t be made to feel like one.

There’s no elevator in the building, only a narrow stairway. It’s an old building, and neglected too. The other floors are used to hold hearings for suspended students. I don’t feel much different than them at this point; helpless and uncertain

Madge mentioned that we ought to be provided with counselors and counseling here. I agree. At least the option of workshops or lectures to attend, would be nice, to progress and improve ourselves. Instead, there is nothing here except our own wit and wisdom, which may decrease if not stimulated to increase. I am grateful to sit in a relatively uncrowded room, although the space is tight here, there’s also consequently fewer of us in here, although the room is tiny. Perhaps six feet by fifteen feet.

I hear Madge sharing her weekend’s happenings.

“I had to go to my doctor yesterday, my ‘woman’s’ doctor, y’know. They found several growths down there, and a polyp was removed from my cervix yesterday as well.”

I was not prepared for such a dialogue. I remained quiet, pretending to read. I closed my eyes, wondering what was the polite and right thing to do; listen and engage, remain in silence and ignore, get up and leave? I had no idea, and I didn’t want to be suspect of judgment by my sudden departure, so I did the simplest thing and just sat in the chair, my head bent back, face pointing to the ceiling, with my hands resting on my closed eyes, without exaggeration.

With the limited contact we have with the outside world beyond the fourth floor, it seems peaceful but that is deceiving. It’s is not the type of disassociated tranquility that comes from outdoor wilderness trips. Confined to the building, I didn’t hear of the Virginia Tech University tragedy until the evening. I felt foolish for not knowing what was happening. I’m not alone here but it’s very isolated. It’s rather noisy here, too. I’m sure that there are a lot of people with needs to express themselves here and to be heard, yet with no avenue to appeal to, other than their base functions – such as argument and ranting. Surely this is how aggression and desperation are given birth?

I write to maintain sanity, and I do it quietly to retain dignity. I attempted to go to the bathroom today, but there was quite a long line for it, and a woman entered when somebody exited, and the man waiting next – with whom she was speaking – yelled at her to hurry. Then she shouted something in Spanish, and he in turn shouted to the guard sitting at the front desk by the doorway to the stairwell (our escape). The guard replied back in Spanish, with some exasperation and reached underneath the desk and produced a roll of toilet paper which he threw to the man. The man yelled for the woman to open the bathroom door and take the roll of toilet paper and to let him watch. Egads. I couldn’t find humor in his attempt to be funny and returned to sit in the room, disgusted.

Some people were singing in the hallway as I passed by them. I’m still not sure where I am. I feel nervous to move or cause much disturbance, not wanting to draw any undue attention to myself. To tell the truth, although I don’t know anybody here, I’m trying to hide from them, as they must likewise also want to hide from me, a new face t gawk at them in their hour of disgrace.

I wish I wasn’t here.

Armageddon

I'm so dizzy.

Day one of my indentured service. I don't understand this place. I am cast out to another building while I am being processed for termination. Upon entering I felt as though I was twelve years old again, and entering the first year of middle school. That's curious to me because I never had a first day of middle school, since I attended a primary school and then a secondary school.

The desk attendant/security guard was cordial enough, as she took my time-sheet. Right away it was beginning to feel surreal. I felt ashamed and humiliated to have to check-in. It was as though I was registering in an internment camp - very opposite than the feeling one imagines was felt when immigrants arrived on Ellis Island, having their names written in a book, or at least a variation of their names.

Truly, I feel that I am an inmate here. The guard told me that there are one hundred-thirty people presently assigned here, and we must remain on the fourth floor where we cannot leave, and where there is only one single-occupancy restroom. There are six small rooms in which everybody is corralled and crowded.

Sylvia, the desk attendant/security agent told me to go find a space and sit down, and to "entertain myself" since there is "nothing for us to do here."

I passed a room that was full, and peered inside another room from its doorway. A woman sitting near the door snapped at me, as others stared while some were unaware of me, telling me that I had to go somewhere else.

I was so discouraged that I just resigned myself to stand in the hallway. No sooner had I done so, then Juan - another security agent (note: not School Safety Officer/NYPD, but rather an independently hired private agency) - approached me and told me that I couldn't be there and that I had to go in a room.

"I'll be fine here standing," I said.

"No, you can't stand there all day," he retorted.

"I've done it before and I can do it here," I replied.

"You must go to a room," he insisted.

I told him that I had just arrived and there didn't appear to be any space for me. He opened the door to another room near him, in which was sitting a man and some empty chairs and two tables. The security guard ushered me in and to sit down. I promptly did so, feeling very child-like in the treatment I was receiving.

The fellow in the room told me that I was in Tim's seat and that Tim wasn't there, but that I'd have to give him his seat back when he returned again, the next day. I thanked him, and cautiously introduced myself. His name is Chuck. He lives upstate and has been here two years, for an incident outside of work that supposedly compromises his moral character at work.

I was shocked. I hadn't been there 20 minutes and I was already feeling a great deal of anxiety. After hearing Chuck's story and sharing some of my own experience (insubordination for not reporting to duty when I left the building upon advice of my assistant principal, whom I told I didn't feel safe in a classroom where the student who attacked me remained, since my disciplinary referral was not accepted), Chuck then left the room to talk to somebody.

Another man then came in some time afterwards and sat down quietly. It was his second day and he said he was just trying to figure things out, on the floor.

How long had it been? Hours?
No, only forty minutes. Good grief. I'm surrounded by narrow walls, a fogged window, and flickering fluorescent lights. I try to keep myself occupied. I write and I read. I don't use the bathroom. I feel the walls and ceiling descending upon me.

Finally the hour of redemption arrives; dismissal. Then my cell-phone's battery is exhausted and it turns off. My cell-phone also serves as my watch, so now I don't know what time it is, or how much time is passing. I consider how I can keep track of the time while maintaining my sanity and not focus on the time alone.

I wander out into the hallway and see that there's a wall-clock hanging in another room, visible through a partly-open doorway. I step into the hallway to check it periodically, trying not to go too frequently, but not wanting to miss my dismissal time. Upon reflection I realize that I should have noted the time and then seen how many pages I read of my book until the next time-check I made, and could have kept track of the minutes in that manner. I didn't have the concentration to be that creative just then.

What time is it?

When I start reading, I find it difficult to concentrate on the book and disregard thinking about the time. Then as I become engrossed in the book, I am suddenly struck with the realization that I don't know how much time has passed. I rush up to go take a look at the clock again. fifteen minutes remaining. Hopeful with an end in sight, yet such distant minutes all at once.

When I left I felt free, but unclean.
Knowing I had to return again in the morning was defeating. I walked down the street, which was a commonly busy intersection, but I heard no sounds as the deafening sound of my own voice enveloped me. I tried to not look at anything or anybody as I tried to flee from there, as far and as fast as I could. I wasn't running but my heart was pounding. I felt as if everybody was looking at me, watching me, seeing me exit the building.

I didn't know whether to take comfort in walking out with others in my similar predicament, or to distance myself and perhaps escape any association. After all, I don't know if they even are in a similar predicament as I or not. Even though I have no tattoos, I have been branded.

Although I am grateful that I needn't spend sleepless nights in a tent as desert gales dull the sounds of bullets whizzing by my helmet, I can't help but wonder how long ago it was that I was grateful for the goodness in my life. It seems that it takes catastrophes to appreciate the calm.

Of course, I consider the much more dire circumstances I endured while growing up with my elder sister and mother, always having to move apartments and change telephone numbers in order to flee her ex-husband (our so-called "father"), who would track us down to exact revenge because my mother divorced him in Hong Kong, ending their arranged-marriage from India. Now my life is relatively safer. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, my basic needs are met. I have food, shelter, and love. However, because these needs are met, I have the unfortunate luxury of worrying about how I'll pay for my radiation treatments once I am fired and my insurance is discontinued. I wonder if others feel somewhat guilty of the privilege of sitting in a doctor's office, knowing that so many people do not have access to health-care, only to then be treated so indignantly that I no longer appreciate the visit very much.

Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Maybe I don't appreciate my job enough, or my students enough, or haven't expressed sufficient gratitude to my boss. Perhaps the universe has consigned me here in this building of outcasts, to teach me something that I must learn.