Education Urban Legend

Some urban legends are quite popular such as:

• the man with a hook on Lover’s Lane who loses it on a couple’s door handle,
• the kids who drive without headlights until flashed by another car, and then they follow and beat the person,
• the percentages of HIV positive donated blood,
• babies born in-flight are given free flights forever, and
• sewer gators growing to enormous size in NYC.

One old urban legend handed down in education circles goes something like this:

A small group of girls at a school kept coating bathroom mirrors with lipstick and then pressing their lips to them to make pucker marks. After a week or so, the principal pulled all of the suspected girls in school into the bathroom, so they could see a quick presentation about the extra work the pucker marks cause for the custodians. The principal then instructed one custodian to demonstrate how long it takes to clean the mirrors. He then dipped his squeegee into the toilet and washed off the mirrors in about a minute. There were no more lip prints on the mirrors that year.

Behind Schedule

I got up at 6:30 this morning, packed the car, and headed to the school to start organizing my classroom. Unfortunately, the custodial team is behind schedule and just waxed the floors of our hallway. I guess they were pulled for other duties last week according to one custodian, so now they have to catch up. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Our custodial crew is awesome, by the way. They are courteous, personable, and industrious. The gentleman who is assigned my area asks daily what I need and often asks how his work is; it’s always exemplary! His son was a student of mine about five years ago, and we’ve always been able to chat and help one another out.

I think I need to start the year with a plate of goodies or something for the crew.

If I could offer any new teachers out there some advice: treat the support staff well. You will need their help frequently.