Where to start?
Rebel Girl teaches Thursday evenings 7:00 - 9:50. She almost always has for the last twenty years or so.
The class meets once a week and is populated by students who are happy to be there and who often are on campus only on that evening. Rebel Girl generally makes herself available after class to talk to students about their work—and she does this in the classroom in which she teaches for obvious reasons: there they are, after all and usually by the time 10:00 has been reached, the A-200 building is already locked down—or sometimes is simply too far across an increasingly dark and deserted campus—especially when, upon arrival, it is locked down. At most, this time after class is 15-20 minutes.
Dissent readers have long endured Rebel Girl plaintive wails about the lack of oversight and resources in the evening at the college. How classes ending early rather than being the exception are the norm. How the place—which should be buzzing until ten and shortly after—is often deserted shortly after 9:00. She's brought it up in department meetings, school meetings—and even, in the distant past, senate meetings. There are issues here related to good teaching practices, curriculum, compensation, safety and liability.
So, since Rebel Girl has already complained ad nauseum about this—why is she at it again?
Here's why.
Increasingly this semester, the building she teaches in becomes empty much, much earlier than 9:50. For example, the classroom next to Rebel Girl's, B-110, regularly empties out at 8:30—about the time when her class is returning from break to prepare for the next hour and twenty minutes of state-mandated instruction. Rebel Girl and her students meet the students and the teacher leaving as they return. That class is supposed to meet until 8:50.
She knows, she knows, what is 20 minutes?
But the other classrooms also empty out early. How early? Early enough for all the classrooms and the hallway to be clean by 9:50—if not earlier.
Since the other classes empty out early rather than later, this allows the single custodian assigned to clean the building to do just that—increasingly more quickly and earlier so that he is waiting, hovering—in the hallway, often noisily because of the nature of his work—for the class to finish and as soon as the first few students do leave, he enters and begins his work before, frankly, their work is fully done. Rebel Girl has tried to talk to him—but he has a job to do. That's what is important to him. She understands this.
But she can no longer talk to or answer student questions as she wishes to do and as they need her to do. The situation has grown increasingly uncomfortable and distracting. Last week most of the class was aware that by talking longer (and they were having an important discussion regarding a very moving student story) they were keeping the custodian from his work. His presence right outside our door was clear as was his repeated and impatient looks inside the door windows which interrupted discussion. This was unfortunate as the subject matter needed special attention and care.
She knows she could complain about him but the real issue that allows this situation to occur is the simple fact that evening classes all too often end early. How else to explain an entire building of clean, dark classrooms at 9:50?
Indeed, as the class leave, the other classrooms are dark, with tied-up trash bags waiting outside the building's doors. Clearly everyone else has been gone for a long, long time—enough time for the custodian to clean every classroom in the building (interior classroom and exterior ones) except Rebel Girl's.
So, since Rebel Girl has already complained ad nauseum about this—why is she at it again?
Here's why.
Increasingly this semester, the building she teaches in becomes empty much, much earlier than 9:50. For example, the classroom next to Rebel Girl's, B-110, regularly empties out at 8:30—about the time when her class is returning from break to prepare for the next hour and twenty minutes of state-mandated instruction. Rebel Girl and her students meet the students and the teacher leaving as they return. That class is supposed to meet until 8:50.
She knows, she knows, what is 20 minutes?
Since the other classes empty out early rather than later, this allows the single custodian assigned to clean the building to do just that—increasingly more quickly and earlier so that he is waiting, hovering—in the hallway, often noisily because of the nature of his work—for the class to finish and as soon as the first few students do leave, he enters and begins his work before, frankly, their work is fully done. Rebel Girl has tried to talk to him—but he has a job to do. That's what is important to him. She understands this.
But she can no longer talk to or answer student questions as she wishes to do and as they need her to do. The situation has grown increasingly uncomfortable and distracting. Last week most of the class was aware that by talking longer (and they were having an important discussion regarding a very moving student story) they were keeping the custodian from his work. His presence right outside our door was clear as was his repeated and impatient looks inside the door windows which interrupted discussion. This was unfortunate as the subject matter needed special attention and care.
She knows she could complain about him but the real issue that allows this situation to occur is the simple fact that evening classes all too often end early. How else to explain an entire building of clean, dark classrooms at 9:50?
Indeed, as the class leave, the other classrooms are dark, with tied-up trash bags waiting outside the building's doors. Clearly everyone else has been gone for a long, long time—enough time for the custodian to clean every classroom in the building (interior classroom and exterior ones) except Rebel Girl's.
At least a couple other classes should be present until 9:50—but they are not. And haven't been.
So—there's her problem.
As she encountered students from that class this week, she queried them. Their answers were uniform: they feel pressure to leave; they feel their classroom is not theirs. One student (a top student by the way, an award-winning student involved in other campus activities whose name appears in various college press releases) said that she has had problems for weeks after the class is over because the restroom is locked up—and she must track down the custodian to open it, which he does not want to do. She makes him do it.
Again, Rebel Girl thinks the custodian is just doing his job—but the real underlying problem is that enough people are not doing theirs. (For the record, Rebel Girl thinks this is a campus-wide issue—not a specific building issue, not an over-eager custodian issue—but a systemic issue.)
As Rebel Girl taught her day-time classes this week, she asked them about their evening classes: in your experience, do your classes get out early?
The responses suggested a popular pattern.
How early do your 7-10 classes get out?
8:30, 9:00, 9:15, 9:30.
There was discussion of the 50 minute "hour" and what that means or doesn't mean.
There was acknowledgement that both teachers and students liked these "brief" classes. Some said they took evening classes because they knew the classes ended early.
One student said the teacher told them that he taught so well and they were so smart they didn't need to have that "extra" time.
Ouch.
Why should we care?
As she encountered students from that class this week, she queried them. Their answers were uniform: they feel pressure to leave; they feel their classroom is not theirs. One student (a top student by the way, an award-winning student involved in other campus activities whose name appears in various college press releases) said that she has had problems for weeks after the class is over because the restroom is locked up—and she must track down the custodian to open it, which he does not want to do. She makes him do it.
As Rebel Girl taught her day-time classes this week, she asked them about their evening classes: in your experience, do your classes get out early?
The responses suggested a popular pattern.
How early do your 7-10 classes get out?
8:30, 9:00, 9:15, 9:30.
There was discussion of the 50 minute "hour" and what that means or doesn't mean.
There was acknowledgement that both teachers and students liked these "brief" classes. Some said they took evening classes because they knew the classes ended early.
One student said the teacher told them that he taught so well and they were so smart they didn't need to have that "extra" time. Ouch.
Why should we care?
Let Rebel Girl count the reasons (she thinks she did so above)—but perhaps the college might consider the bottom line issue of liability. Some of these evening students are part of our specially recruited sector—high school students. What do they do during the 30 minutes, hour, hour and a half when the instructor lets the class out—and their parents pick them up? Who knows?
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