(Above is based on a true story as told by a colleague of mine.)
The rantings of a teacher who retired from the classroom but not from education.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Stop The Bullying Week Did Not Help Teachers
(Above is based on a true story as told by a colleague of mine.)
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5 comments:
I also heard a similar story told to me many years ago. It happened to a teacher in another school. When she informed the principal she would be staying home after spending most of the night and wee hours in the emergency room with her baby, her principal scolded her and said she needs to get her priorities straight. Without missing a beat, the mother/teacher said, "I am".
I had a similar situation a few years ago in another district. I had missed three days in a month, two were medically excused due to a case of bronchitis and the third due to my husband and two of my kids (one under 1yr old)having the Noro virus (the one that shut down the cruise ships). Anyway, I was called in and asked about the "unexcused" absence so soon after my bronchitis. When I explained the situation, I was told, "Don't make your kids my problem. I don't care about your kids, and I don't want to hear about your family issues. The only kids you get to talk about in this building are the ones who learn here. Remember that if you want your own kids to keep eating."
i wonder if this administrator has children or for that matter a family that matters to her?
As a matter of fact s/he does and has missed school because this child was sick.
I can take this 1 step further and show how administrators abuse teachers who are sick. This one teacher who I worked with was diagnosed with epilepsy in her adult life. When individuals are diagnosed with epilepsy, it may take a while to regulate the body and find out the appropriate intake for medication. (Also, people with epilepsy who are not properly diagnosed may have personality distortions and see things a bit differently.)
In the beginning of the year, this teacher had many complications with her epilepsy and had seizures all of the time. This caused her to be absent a lot from school. When I say absent, she was missing 1 or 2 days a week for the 4 months of school (I do admit that this teacher did not support each absence with medical documentation which I think is very important when teachers are absent. But lets give her the benefit of the doubt on this one. There is more)
Of course administrator notices there is an absenteeism problem. What does she do about it to handle it appropriately? Speak to the teacher privately and ask what is going on. Even call the teacher when she is sick at home day. I am guessing not. Instead this administrator has to go searching for a problem and harassed the poor teacher with handing her letters for disciplinary meetings and letters to file because of the absenteeism.
Let me explain something else about epilepsy. Seizures are exacerbated by stress and anxiety in the environment. This teacher's condition got worse because she was harassed and picked on because the administrator was so obsessed with finding 1 problem to make a case out of it instead of doing her job the right way.
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