As most of you know, I changed jobs this school year. I moved from an elementary school of approximately 550 kids to a high school with over 2000 kids. I went from "Mrs. Chun, will you please read to me?" and "Can I hold your hand all the way back to class" to "I don't care that it is a fire drill, I don't want to go outside" and "I need an AP Calculus textbook." It has been a big change.
I knew moving to a high school things would obviously be different. I have taught at a high school before; it was just a long time ago. Cell phones were used to call people, textbooks were passed out by the teacher and PowerPoint was the "it" thing for presentations. Now cell phones are used for anything but calling someone, the textbooks are in a Textbook Depository and there are a million presentation programs online for free.
My friend, Pam, had told me my first few weeks would be all about textbooks. She wasn't joking. I have picked up, moved, taped, scanned, carted, rolled, delivered about 13,289 text books. Okay, I may be exaggerating. I do have an amazing clerk who probably managed 7,429 of those books. It is a lot of books. Big books. Algebra II, Chemistry, AP Statistics, World History... you know, all the classes you loved in high school. Surprisingly so, textbook checkout goes really smoothly. The kids are trained well. They get in a big line, grab a book, get out their ID card, we scan and scan and they go on their way. It is actually kinda fun. Kinda.
The last three days has been an entirely new challenge. Password reset. Our students log in using an ID number and their birthday as a password. They are then prompted to change their passwords. Well, wouldn't you know... they get locked out. Some never get the prompt to change it. Some forget their new password. Either way it is consuming my time as apparently I am not trustworthy enough to be allowed access to reset student passwords on the computer. Not really. They haven't gotten around to installing that feature on my computer. I am hoping it happens tomorrow. Scratch that. Tonight.
Here is the scenario:
I am working at my desk. I'm creating a presentation for my classes next week (a PowerPoint because I am old school cool), reading e-mail, planning testing coming up and Student A comes up.
Me: "Can I help you?" said the librarian in a cheerful, friendly tone
Student A: "Yes! I need my password reset," said in a nice high school way
Me: "I can't reset it. However, I can send an e-mail to ask for it to be reset," said the librarian in a cheerful, helpful tone
Student A: " Okay! How long will it take?" said Student A in a nice but almost discouraged voice
Me: "It could be five minutes or five hours. It depends on when our tech department can get to it," said the librarian in a cheerful, friendly, "I'm new here" tone
Student A: "Man! Really?? Why? I have stuff to do!! Is there anything you can do??" said the student in an annoyed, eye rolling, hands on hip kinda way.
Me: "Yeah. I am really sorry. I am hoping to have access to reset passwords tomorrow," said the librarian in a hopeful tone.
Student A: Walks away.
End scene.
This is my life. Times 26. Yes, 27 times today I had to email the tech department. This is not an exaggeration. Some of those e-mails included three or four student names/numbers. It is exhausting. Almost all the kids are great and understanding but I am hoping the password reset fairy visits my computer soon and installs whatever I need so I can just happily click and keep my patrons happy. I am new here and this glitch is not helping me make friends.
It really has been a great move. The students are really fun and nice. I think I will love it at Skyview even if the kids don't ask to hold my hand. And I'll really love it once I can click "Password Reset."
