Bits and pieces of conversations filter across my desk usually when I’m multi-tasking. By multi-tasking I mean answering the phone, pushing the doorbell to let someone in, and possibly also writing out a late pass all at the same time. First thing in the morning and the last half hour before the end of school are the busiest times closely followed by lunch times.
People come and go on a regular basis and it just amazes me what parents are willing to do for their kids today. I think we enable them by letting them use the telephone. I know when I was in school (we’re talking the 60’s and early 70’s), you wouldn’t think to ask to use the phone to call home for something you might have forgotten. Sure, if you got sick, or injured, or had some kind of “accident” the school nurse might reach out to your parents, but there were no phone calls made by students.
Even when my kids were in school (and they’re not yet into their 30’s), the phone was to be used for emergencies only. Not these days. At least not in our school. The students are allowed to call home for just about anything. And they do.
This is why I was extremely annoyed, disturbed, pissed off, last week when we had an emergency early dismissal due to snow and I got reamed out by a parent for not letting her child use the phone in the office.
That day was a continual “multi-tasking” day as the phones hardly stopped ringing and there were drop-in parents that came to pick up their children. I’m surprised I even got to eat most of my lunch.
But rather than vent anymore about that, here is a snippet of a conversation that went on in the office while I was busy with something else –
“Are you into French and Nazi’s?”
Hmmm, maybe I’m glad I missed that one.
2 comments:
I'm in my early twenties and I was never allowed to use the phone. Even if I were, and I called my mom to bring me homework I forgot she would probably respond with something like "Sucks to be you"
When I was in grammar school, we had a phone closet with a pay phone in the hallway. If we had to make a phone call, that was it. We would never have even thought to ask to use the phone in the school office.
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