Getting Goosed at MS 72 in Queens

This comes to us from  the same source at MS 72 that fed us info for our May post about MS 72,
"Animal House Comes to PS 72 in Queens".

This is one wacky House, er, we mean, school. Where is Mandy Pepperidge and Babs Jansen when you need them?

When last The Crack Team checked, Geese are a nuisance that leave doody on golf courses and baseball fields across the Northeast. The destroy greens and tee boxes and worse, if you hit a goose according to USGA Rules of Golf, Rule 27-4...

"if a ball hits a goose in the head the ball can not be cleaned and there will be a one stroke penalty."

Worse, Rule 27-5 states....

"if a ball lands in goose doody, a drop from the point of impact must be from whilst standing on top of the pile, and will be assessed a 2 stroke penalty."

A better idea would have been to have Bluto, Otter, Flounder, D-Day, and Boone and the whole gang from Delta House come over and and give the staff of MS 72 PD.

Instead all they got was Neidermyer and Marmalard. So sad.

More On MS 72 Queens.

Ah, yes, those wonderful staff development days are just around the corner. Which, of course, leads me to  reflect on staff development days in past years.

Ah, MS 72.  Last year, when principal Omotayo Cineus came back to school fresh from an Alpha Kappa Alpha convention (along with half a dozen of her fellow colleagues, er, Kappas), and sought to motivate and encourage us with all of the wisdom she acquired at said convention.

What a meeting that was. 

The meeting began with a series of inside jokes shared among the Kappas, who were all seated at two tables right up front – the equivalent of front and center floor seats at a One Direction concert (though not as cute), while the rest of us tried not to roll our eyes so hard they got stuck that way.  

She began with a motivational speech – you know, where teacher are compared to super heroes, magicians, or saviors. Except, in this case we were compared to …..

GEESE.

Yup.

GEESE.

Yup. However many days at an AKA conference, and the best she could come up with was… GEESE.

It began with an analysis of goose behavior. See, apparently, geese work as a “team” – they HONK. See, they fly in formation and “honk” to encourage the lead goose to stay strong,  keep flying, and don’t give up.  And when the lead goose, in spite of encouraging honks from his/her co-geese, just can’t keep it up, there is another goose ready to take the lead, encouraged by more honking from his/her co-geese.

Now, for the “real world” connection.

Ms. Cineus said that as teachers and colleagues, we are like the geese.  We have to take the lead, and do that through “high quality honking”.  And that we must always ask ourselves, “When I honk, is my honking of high quality? Am I really honking in a positive way, or is my honking less than what it should be?”  She elaborated, saying that if morale in the building is low, it is because we (teachers) are NOT participating in “high quality honking” and are instead “failing to support” our colleagues, who are leading the flock and need “encouraging honking” from us to keep moving forward. She told us that we need to “BE THE GOOSE AND HONK!!!!”

So, along with all the paperwork, violent and disrespectful students, and lack of administrative support in this building, we also have to make sure that we participate only in “HIGH QUALITY HONKING”. Because as teachers, that’s what we do.  We must channel the goose, become one with the goose, and BE  THE GOOSE!!!

Funny,  as a Long Islander, I’ve seen MANY flocks of geese.   I always thought that geese pretty much simply honk, shit, and make more geese. 

Seems like at MS 72, we have two out of three.