Spiders and Nonsense (11/6/09)

I have always said that anyone who chooses teaching as a career had better be ready for plenty of bullshit.

Now, after ending my nearly thirty year career I am still putting up with it!

I was forced into early retirement in 2001 after being diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and then ending up with back problems and arthritis which has really done a job on my hands.

It was pretty devastating to me to have to leave the only career I had ever known though there were many times I wanted to toss in the towel.

It was almost never because I could not teach the kids...that was actually a "gift" that I had. I was a fantastic teacher. It was always about administrators who didn't "get" what I was doing or who targeted me for some reason.

You cannot believe the amount of personal harassment that teachers have to put up with.
I think this is why so many end of leaving or just plain burn out.

Just dealing with the curriculum and the students...all the basic stuff like that , is hard enough.

Toss in the parents and the home issues which can't really be avoided.

Then, you have administrators who are supposed to be there to support you but who end up persecuting you instead.

I really think it's because they don't want to go that extra mile or they are paranoid for themselves.

In reflecting back....I think , for myself, what I did was open up "a can of worms" sometimes that they didn't want opened. I tend to see details that got somehow overlooked and if I asked about these, I now realize that they got worried....

It wasn't me making so many mistakes, it was that I had brought something to their attention and they didn't want to deal with it.

Administrators want to be comfortable, I guess. Make no waves.

Anyway...now that I am retired, I joined a tutoring program called "GO". In theory,it's a great thing for me. I get paid $25 an hour for 2 hours a week to tutor a student or two a week. I got back into what I was good at but avoided the bullshit ...or so I thought. All I had to do was work with the child.

Marty K is the head of this GO program. We both worked at the same school many years ago but I never had any direct dealings with him. To be honest, I kind of have a "creepy" feeling about him....I can't quite put my finger on it but I just never liked him.

Last year he was still teaching a CHts where I was tutoring two girls.
Everything seemed fine...no problems...until the end of the year....He got pissed off because I didn't return a form to him . He called me in for a meeting, "Administrator style"...to chew me out and my "punishment" was that I would no longer have two students...He also labeled me "unprofessional"...something that I can't seem to rid him of.

Now, I am at a different school this year.

I thought things were going just fine.

Two days ago I got a phone call from Marty asking to meet. Naturally,the first thing on my mind was "what now?" I couldn't imagine what this cold be able ...I asked him and he said "a Spider class."

What....I had to think for awhile before it came to me what the hell he was even talking about.

This literally had nothing to do with my tutoring and I couldn't imagine why he was involved.(This "spider class" was an after school enrichment thing that my student went to on Oct. 27)

He asked me to meet him at the library yesterday to "talk" about it.

When I arrived, he had his "co/administrator, Ann, with him...This must be a BIG DEAL if she was with him....

As it happens, I was feeling something coming and here it is:

Let me set the background first:

On that day at the school, after I had finished tutoring my student, she was supposed to go to the classroom next door to participate in a presentation about SPIDERS. My student was making a lot of noise about hating spiders and that she wasn't going in there, etc...(the background about my student is that she can be loud and disruptive if she want to be and sometimes will just leave the room and wander around the building)...also, it wasn't clear that there was any adult in that room and one of the after school people asked if I would "step in that room until the kids got settled" ...so I did. One other child (I think a girl) was over standing by the window...I asked her to come sit down)...

My student was making noise and stating that "Spiders are yucky..."
There was a female college grad student in the room setting up a spider display.
I remained over near my student. Basically, what I was doing was trying to help focus her and settle her down..with the objective of keeping her in the room and (hopefully) trying to make sure she wasn't going to be disruptive. I was in the room maybe 5-7 minutes. My student was still being "vocal" at times and I was trying to re-direct her in a more positive way. There were some boys who seemed interested and one who was pretty much dominating the conversation (as he had a lot of knowledge about spiders).

What Marty had with him (at this meeting) was a copy of some message that this grad student had sent to her Professor about me.

I had NO idea that any of this had ever happened. Nobody at the shcool ever said a word to me when I was there on the 29th. In fact, the After School Program Director had approached me and asked if I might want to work in her program. She had also stopped me in the hallway (as I was on my way out ) that day and asked if I might just go into the "enrichment" group to help a group of Korean students get the group settled because she had some concern about their handling the kids...I told her "sure" if she needed me, I would do that....

So, when Marty laid this one on me, I was shocked.

This student had written ME up...

Her letter said something like (I) "repeatedly used the word Yucky, and incited the kids to do the same. Something about disrupting her presentation and then there was a bit about after I left the kids continued being disruptive and saying "spiders are Yucky." ALL implied that it was MY fault.

This went directly to her professor and then HE contacted the After School Program Director who apparently contacted Mary , who is supposed to be my DIRECT supervisor in that building...

Now...Why SHE or the After SCHOOL person did not just call ME to simply ASK for my version of the story...I don't know.........

But it got to Marty and by then it was a big deal.

He told me the "people in the Enfield building are really upset over this".

My response was....well, so am I.

I told him MY side of the story....and the fact that it was more about PERCEPTION and also that this college student didn't even seek to ask me about it, either. I am a reasonable person and would have gladly explained myself to her.

The larger part of this is that the people IN that building did not handle this correctly and I am pissed.

I really fell I deserve some apology, too.

I am not taking the fall here.

MY own thoughts about this are that this college woman did not have a clue about how 9 & 10 year olds behave. This sort of thing is typical behavior . The "yucking" stuff...She is claiming I am the one who said it....Come on...

I probably did use the word once or twice in the context of trying to re-direct the student : "Maybe you think they are yucky but let's learn more about them..." that sort of thing....Or "I used to think they were yucky, too but I learned they were good for the environment..."...

What those kids did or said AFTER I left is NOT my fault.

Also, if there is a "reflection" being made on the GO program...it could also be a positive one if you turn this around....

I went in to try and assist with one student that I knew might cause a problem...

But, NO....it was all turned ON me...

This is really how teachers get dumped on every day.

It is easy to blame them for everything. Why?

Somehow, we just don't get the respect we deserve in this society. Teachers are automatically GUILTY until proven innocent.

Who wants to go through life like that?

After this meeting, I realized it even more. Now that I am out of it....

I was "TOLD" by Marty not to go to tutor yesterday (technically, I should be paid for that since I was all ready to go out there and HE made that decision at the LAST minute...I could have done something else with that time...I WILL press him for that one day, too)

I am soured on going back there, now.

I really don't need the money so badly that I need the hassle.

In retrospect, I feel that the college student should learn something about doing presentations, too. Also, that rushing to her Professor like this really wasn't the best way to handle this.(though she may have been required to do a write-up and that's it..I don't know how this particular program works) But her facts were not completely accurate ....


Definitely...the way this was handled at the building level was wrong.

I was caught in the middle of this mixup and I will NOT take the fall here.

I was just trying to be helpful and frankly, unless someone acknowledges this, to my face, I am done.

Actually, I think I have decided that I am done, anyway. I don't need the bother.

I do feel badly about leaving my student hanging but she will survive. She likes Sheila and if they have bonded, then I am not worried about her.

I think that school is losing a valuable asset in me...there isn't exactly a crop of people willing to drive out there to tutor kids.

Oh well..........

But, to waste my entire day with such nonsense....it is almost unbelievable. Actually it is silly when you think about it...SPIDERS...and the fact that this college student claimed I was saying YUCKY over and over....Come on...get real.