Blessing in Disguise

Today began the new contract mandated 37.5 minute after school period to be taught by all teachers in New York City. If this sounds crazy to you (who would schedule a half minute in any school!?), it is a bit strange. To understand all these changes I must give you a brief history of the New York City Department of Education and United Federation of Teachers labor dispute (ongoing for three plus years). Back in October, the UFT finally decided to sign a contract for New York City teachers (who had been working without one for three years) which stipulated an acceptable pay increase in the union leaders' eyes. With that increase in pay came the mandate that all teachers would teach an additional 150 minutes per week as interventions for struggling students (150/4 days - Monday through Thursday - = 37.5 minutes per day). Well this was all scheduled to begin today and I heard much groaning from my colleagues at school as well as other Teach For America members with whom I had the pleasure of spending all of last Saturday at Pace University.
This morning when I arrived at school (at 7:05 am - I saw the sunrise walking east from Amsterdam Ave to school - it was gorgeous), I found a list of all the students assigned to me for the additional period. Fortunately, they are all already my students. Unfortunately, these nine kids exhibit, without a doubt, the most challenging behavior of all the students I teach. Still, when I announced to my beginning ESL class who would be in my group, the nine kids cheered and several others moaned that they had not be selected to spend an extra 37.5 minutes with Ms. Petersen.
As soon as the bell rang at 2:35, signaling the end of regular school and the start of the intervention period, the students in beginning ESL began chatting loudly and, as usual, pushing each other around. Soon their home room teacher, Mr. De La Rosa, walked in and yelled a few things in Spanish (only half of which I actually understood). All of the sudden even the most difficult kids were sitting up straight and paying attention. It was like I had entered a different classroom. With Mr. De La Rosa's management assistance, I taught a successful ESL lesson on math vocabulary (totally winging it, of course). The students actually listened, even where I was speaking English - amazing! Mr. De La Rosa mentioned that he would have to return to the closet classroom now every day after school and, being that I usually teach this class for one of the last periods of the day, I can now use the threat of his imminent arrival to cast fear into the hearts of these sixth graders.
So, in spite of all the complaints from other teachers, the prophecies that these extra minutes would cause chaos in the school, and the news reports on what a waste of money and resources these minutes are for the city of New York, I'm actually glad to have them. Perhaps things will get better in room 331M, all the way in the back of the school, cut off from everything else, with students desperate to be acknowledged and reluctant to embrace a new language with effort.