A body without a head.

“The director gives you advice? The director is never here,” said Esther, one of my students, in our Girls Clubs discussion tonight of how they can accomplish their goal of passing all their classes this semester.

“In the attendance notebook, it says, ‘Director, classes abandoned’” she continued, referencing how we document students who have quit coming  in the documentation of students’ attendance at school.

While it was one of the first blatantly disrespectful statement of someone in authority that I’ve heard here, Esther is not misrepresenting the current situation at my school. 

About three months ago, the director of my middle school was transferred to another middle school. Since then, we have been stuck in this limbo while we wait for the new director to arrive. 

Administration being transferred is not uncommon. Waiting this long for someone else is. As a complete outsider to the academic culture here, it would have been nice to have someone to tell me what I should be doing, but I’ve been getting by on the advice of others. 

I’ve talked about this situation with several of my colleagues. Until today, what I didn’t know was that we weren’t the only ones who had noticed.