What is "The Rubber Room?" Simply put, "The Rubber Room" is a room where hundreds and hundreds of New York City schoolteachers presently sit, being paid full salary to do absolutely nothing. But, like so many things, it's not quite so simple... What Happens? Each year in New York City hundreds of schoolteachers are suspended. Their teaching privileges are temporarily, but indefinitely, revoked. Accused of a wide range and varying degrees of misconduct, these teachers are no longer allowed in the classroom. Instead, while awaiting a lengthy adjudication process, they are compelled to report to an off-campus location commonly referred to as The Rubber Room.
Read this newspaper article about it. Look at the trailer for a documentary film about the rubber-room. Look at the film's website. Listen to the radio broadcast on NPR's This American Life.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Redemption Song

With my response in Ms. Papaliberios' hand, I suspect that she is deliberating my pending future with the department of education. I can only hope that she makes the correct decision and that I am prepared to receive it. Today there are odd happenings in the Reassignment Center. New people come in and former ones just don't seem to leave. I wonder how this all started. How many were there in the beginning? How long will the number serving sentences here continue to increase? I can recall the time I spent in the school's in-house principal's suspension room for the students, where I had to report for duty for one period a day, ad did other teachers for other periods of the day in that room. The students were disillusioned, often confused and angry - at why they were there and also for how it was they were sent to be there. Their spirits were crushed. Similarly, there are many teachers here who are disillusioned with the proceedings that led them to be here. They are certainly confused and angry here. I, too, find myself oscillating between being confused and angry. On other days, I am sad. We are all sad. We don't understand why so many of us are here. Is it only a bureaucracy? How can such wrongness take place? The thing I couldn't imagine before I now experience myself; I didn't know how the minds of the students in the in-house suspension room were handling their predicament. Now I am experiencing what they must surely experience; feeling completely unheard and misunderstood, and so terribly lonely - especially amidst the company of peers.

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