When Someone Poops in the Closet: A Teacher's Tale
Laurel Sturt taught for eleven years in the Bronx. Her new book, Davonte's Inferno, Ten Years in the New York Public School Gulag, shares in close detail her experience working in a high poverty school under the Bloomberg regime. Here is an excerpt:
As ever, there was never a dull moment. One afternoon I arrived to teach a large third grade "inclusion" class (consisting of some regular and some special ed students) who were returning from lunch; while I was handing out materials I noticed a faint acrid aroma. I remarked to a couple kids that it smelled kind of like burning leaves. But anyway, it could not be burning leaves because it was not autumn, plus the windows were closed. I did not think any more about it because the kids got to work on a project we had started the previous week.
I was going from desk to desk checking their work when all of a sudden a girl screamed, "Look, doodoo!" She was looking into the wall-length closet with open sliding doors which extended down one side of the room. Inside the closet were hooks with the students' jackets and backpacks hanging from them. Her scream inspired three kids sitting next to the closet to jump up from their seats and peer into the closet as well. "Look, look!" they cried, beside themselves with excitement. The entire class, twenty-eight children, rushed towards the closet.
My heart pounded. This was the scenario from my worst nightmare: a huge, out-of-control class.
"Eeeeeew!" they exclaimed in unison.
Using my best impression of a drill sergeant I boomed, "Sit down!" and half of them did.
The other half required my fist pounding on a table, plus an even louder command, to get back in their seats. I looked in the closet and there, on the floor behind one of the open sliding doors, was a