Friday of Labor day weekend.  The school is pretty empty, a few teachers are here.  And, of course, Citizen Schools is here, bravely working away on the last weekday workday before school starts.  I'm not really clear why we had to be here today... We have free work time from 8-12.  I could have free worked at home, and been much more comfortable.  Nonetheless, as I was trying to get to sleep last night, I had the insane idea that I would finish painting the doors in the upstairs hallway at school.

A little background, Monday 8/23, there was a big school beautification day.  Everyone from Citizen Schools was there, about 40 people from Trinity church, and fewer than 10 teachers.  I don't even believe that anyone from City Year or Tenacity participated.  We got a lot done.  The Trinity volunteers spent all day, in three shifts, painting lockers.  Many of us from Citizen Schools were working on clearing and painting bulletin boards, and painting the fire doors in all the hallways and stairways.  It was a huge success.  The difference in appearance from Monday morning to Tuesday morning was really palpable.  But, I have to admit, I was very surprised at the lack of teacher turnout, though I am very pleased to say that two teachers from my team did participate, my mentor and Science dept head Kris Grymonpre, and David Hershey, our team leader in the 7/8 looping group.  The only problem is that we never made it up to the second floor in our door painting activities. It took us all day to finish what we did on the first floor.

So I came in today as Derek was walking up to the school, and mentioned that I had brought my painting clothes, and did he think it would be worthwhile to do a little more painting.  Derek is an all-in kinda guy, and thought it was a great idea, and sent me on my merry way.  After helping Thomas, the head of the custodian group, with a few tasks, I gathered all my materials and got to work.

As I was painting, a few teachers started working their way into the building, getting some last minute prep done, and almost every one of them tried to sympathize with me about being assigned to paint the doors.  It does cross my mind that they were simply trying to be gracious, but didn't know a more appropriate way to say so, nonetheless, I shared with most of them that I had volunteered to paint a few doors this morning.

Which gets me, finally, to my point.  How are more teachers not involved in trying to make the school a more beautiful, better place for learning.  When a school is run down and tattered, should we be surprised when kids treat it poorly?  Maybe it doesn't matter.  I mean, do kids learn better in a clean and organized environment?  I think so, but I have no data to support this claim.  Still, I wonder if the admin team was embarrassed to have so many volunteers show up on the cleanup day, while so few teachers bothered to do so.  I suspect the volunteers would have liked to see more teachers be present, if for no other reason than to acknowledge the investment of time on the part of the Trinity volunteers.  

I don't have the answers, but I do have an opinion:  

If some people show up to help you paint your house, then show up to help them.  

I think many teachers here are waiting for someone else to make the change that will cause this school to turn around.  We must all be the change we want.  I will continue to do what I can, when I can, to help make this school a better place.