The gums of August

Alluding to the title of Barbara Tuchman’s definitive narrative on the Great War (before it was renamed World War I) is a slip that reveals my generation. The allusion is however, used advisedly today, for across the Public School System of the CNMI commences the perennial war with students defiantly armed with the ever accessible and ever present Western icon, the bubble gum.

Teachers who labored getting their classrooms ready this week almost invariably spent considerable time scrapping gums stuck underneath chairs and tables, or tucked at the edges of hallways and passageways. I encountered the goo spattered against the wall, or the gunk used to hold a poster project up.

A favorite past time among the chronically bored last year was the unscrewing of the bolt that hold table legs upright. In one instance, a bolt was replaced with a freshly chewed bubble gum, with electrical tape wrapped around the leg joint. Amazingly, the table that had this minor mechanical surgery withstood the pressure of weighty use and abuse. Chalk it up as a off-curricular science experiment.

The most irritating practice though is the deliberate act of placing a mouthful just below the driver’s side of one’s vehicle at the paved parking lot. After the midday sun, the hurried teacher steps into one of these and spreads it liberally on the car carpet, or worst, back on the classroom floor.

Chewing gum in the classroom and in the school yard is an island wide No-No but various teachers have been known to exhibit varying degrees of tolerance. It finally does not matter what the teachers and school officials say. The bubble gum is as American as apple pie, and for as long as there are checkout counters at the grocery store, or gum dispensers by the cashier’s till everywhere, the chewing will reign supreme.

Ah, excuse me, but there’s a gum on my shoe! Now, that’s not the only sticky issue this first day of school. Perhaps, there is no war involved, but a skirmish at BOE has obviously spilled over.

Over the summer, the Board of Education adopted the PRAXIS test, a national standardized teacher’s test, now being proposed to meet the proof of a teacher’s core knowledge, one of three key requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act of the federal government. A recipient of some $10 million federal grants, often delayed due to compliance requirements, the PSS is eager to comply.

Putting the spin not only on the necessity of the test but on its desirability, PSS Commissioner Rita Inos was quoted as rhetorically asking, “Since we test our student’s knowledge on all core subjects on a regular basis, isn’t it only logical that we test our teacher’s knowledge of the subject matter that they are teaching to our students?”

Passing the test will provide evidence of teacher’s competency, which can only benefit the teacher and the school system. Dr. Inos added, “It will also help the PSS better target professional development and in-service training for teachers.”

This Daily reported that principals and teachers were informed earlier of a teacher entrance exam that would be required of all new teachers wishing to teach in the CNMI Public School System. This test would be a condition of renewal for all teachers currently teaching in the PSS. PRAXIS will now be that test.

Whoa, not so fast, might be one way of reading BOE Teacher’s Rep Ambrose Bennett’s response. He objected to the seemingly island heavy-handed matriarchal (my term) method of arriving at the decision. Not only is he taking exception to the decision itself, but more so, on the manner the decision was made. He is concerned over what he sees as lack of respect for teachers’ and the BOE Teacher Rep’s input, the total cost being placed on teachers, the test requirement not being linked to present teachers’ contracts, and the lack of real support offered by PSS in the implementation process. Now, there’s a gum in someone’s polished shoes.

OK. So teachers have a year to pass this test. But what if for the last five years, a teacher has been evaluated to be a competent teacher? Is that rating to naught? Teacher Reps have some airing out of views this Thursday afternoon as they try to put their heads together over this testing issue, and perhaps, over other substantive matters affecting the teacher’s role in the public school system. More importantly, one wishes that this would generate a wide discussion among teachers that would result in the corporate assent towards cooperatively dealing systematically and structurally with common interests. In short, Teach, get connected!

Enough for now. Thursday’s Teacher Reps tete-a-tete, here I come, that is, if I can get this *#@%& gum off my shoe!