Kafkaesque: complicated, confusing, and
threatening
Kafka. For the characters in Kafka’s novels, the world seems mysterious and
unfriendly, and it becomes very difficult to achieve things.
— Macmillan Online Dictionary http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/Kafkaesque
Complicated: Public Schools are under the auspices of more rules, regulations, directives, standards. laws, legalities, legislative hopes and dreams, committees, school board, convocations. There is so much to keep track of. And the leadership at schools can change on a yearly basis, or worse. Teachers may come and go in the course of one year, or even one semester. The whole mess can be very dizzying, to say the least.
Teachers must field through state and federal standards. The must answer to parents, teachers, principals, school district officials, parents once again. The conflicting element of who is in charge, who dictates what, can be very a heady mix of troubles and trials.
The teacher works with a large and growing number of students in a classroom. Students who are arranged along a grand and incalculable spectrum of reading, writing, and mathematical skill. Some students are recent arrivals to the country. Some students did not learn one damn thing from their previous teachers. How many times the teacher next-door to me had wished that she could strangle the elementary school teachers that apparently did not teach the high school students anything.
Confusing: At my student-teaching school, I could make kids pick up trash or sweep the floor as a consequence. I could take pictures of the class for a class album. At the high school I worked at next, I was not allowed to take pictures. I could not force students to pick up trash. I could not even make kids stay after school for any infraction.
Threatening: Parents! The parents seemed destined, employed to harass or harry teachers who were doing the best they could. Administrators would write a teacher up for the most arbitrary of reasons. One assistant principal scolded me for telling a student to "Shut up!" when it was my first day at the school. I had not had enough time to meet anyone. Then there were the students who did not think that they had to listen to me. Then there were the students who pushed me, who threw things at me, who lied about me to their parents or administrators.
Of course, I also remember that one awful principal who yelled at me for ten minutes straight, I think it was because of a line of parents — actually, just two — who were making trumped-up charges about me being a Nazi or a race-baiter, at least that's what their oversmart yet immoral daughter was telling them.
I psyched myself up for the worst, too, so it seemed. I was threatened by the chaotic nature of the classroom. Anything could happen. Lights would go off all of a sudden. Students would take over the loudspeaker for the school. Students would come in late, would threaten to call their parents. . .I remember suffering as a substitute teacher, when one student threatened to get me in trouble, then pushing me aside as I was hoping to get all the students to clean up after themselves before they stormed off (they did not stay behind, to say the least.
Complicated, Confusing, Threatening: three words collapsed into one:? Kafkaesque — and there you have the public school.