Last year, about this time, the superintendent came to the school where I taught and read the staff the riot act. There were many thinly veiled threats to our jobs if our students didn't do well on the upcoming state standardized tests. The possibility of the state coming in and taking over the school was discussed... but the superintendent made sure we knew that he wasn't worried about HIS job; he said, "I have three board members in my pocket. You think I'm worried? YOU should be worried!" I kid you not - that is exactly what he said. And in a raised voice and none too pleasant tone.
The result of this badgering session was a lot of anger and frustration on the part of some of the staff. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. In the end, things went on as they had before, and the students did about as well as we all expected. The state didn't come in and take over the school, but the principal was reassigned somewhere else in the district, and many of the newer teachers, including myself, were laid off.
Yesterday, somebody from the district office came in and read the staff at my current school the riot act. I wasn't listening when the principal said his title. I don't know or care who he was. I know he is a higher-up - it was obvious from his arrogant demeanor and the disrespectful delivery of his message.
When he finished telling all of us what a shitty job we were collectively doing, and how a panel from the district office would be observing next week, and how we were going to go through a "solutions team" process so that we could stop doing a shitty job, he graciously took questions from the audience. I mean, the staff.
The reaction we gave him was very similar to the one the superintendent got last year from my former co-workers. Some of the staff was hurt, angry, and upset. Hands were raised and teachers were defending themselves, having been put on the defensive by the tone of his message. He didn't interrupt anyone, he made eye contact with whomever was speaking, and he nodded periodically to show that he was listening. However, there was no emotional reaction whatsoever. No body language, no facial expression, nothing to indicate that what he was hearing was at all of concern to him. And of course, it wasn't. He had come to do a job, and he had done it. The question-and-answer session was merely a courtesy to the staff.
I felt hurt and betrayed, and devalued and demoralized, and everything that I felt last year at this time. This year, however, there was a nagging little voice in the back of my head that was making some sense. This voice asked me a few questions:
"Who do you see getting angry and defensive and speaking up?"
"Who do you see just sitting there?"
Herein lies the problem with trying to defend the teaching profession. Those who spend time and energy defending the job they are doing and explaining why it is so difficult to be successful are the ones who do not need to defend their teaching. They are good teachers.
Those who just sit there are the ones who always sit there. They sit there during class time. They sit there during meetings. They sit in the room in which the district or principal requires them to be, and they sit there.
Those are the teachers that the asshats from the district are talking to.
There's a problem with this: Those teachers won't respond. They don't care.
They know there is a small chance they will lose their jobs. They know that this will only happen if the state actually does take over, which they won't, because the funding for that program was cut last year and it pretty much doesn't exist anymore.
They are union members. They are shitty teachers. They just sit there.
The same thing is happening in Wisconsin. The teachers protesting at the capital are the last ones that should be there. They deserve to keep their jobs and their benefits, because they are good teachers. They care. If they didn't, they wouldn't be protesting in the first place.
The unions need to go away. The collective bargaining needs to go away. It is only then that the asshats will be free to say to a teacher who is just sitting there, "You are part of the problem in this school. You aren't getting a contract next year." As things stand right now, they don't have the power to do that. They know that they will never be able to prove the level of incompetence that is required in order to fire a teacher. Nor do they have the time and the resources to gather the materials that would be necessary for such a thing.
My bottom line is this: I am a teacher. I go to work every day to teach. From now on, in those meetings, I am going to be one of the ones that just sits there. But it won't be because I don't care. It will be because I DO care, and I am saving my energy for my students.
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