Teacher Abuse

 



She is a good teacher.  She knows how to get the material across to her students.  She is caring and goes the extra mile necessary to help them succeed.  She gives many hours of her free time tutoring.  She spends lots of money buying them treats to reward good work and to encourage them.  Parents love her because of the extra effort she puts into helping their children. 

Her AP does not appreciate her.  He looks finds fault with everything she does.  He both publicly and privately goes out of his way to humiliate her.   He dislikes her for some personal reason and there is nothing she can do to change this.  He is making her life a living hell.  This AP is lucky I'm not around.  I would know exactly how to not only stand down, but ti buckle under.

I'm not saying this teacher is perfect, no one is.  The AP has been caught in many missteps, both administratively and in his subject matter.  This teacher gets good results and cares.  She inspires.  The school should be thrilled to have a teacher of this caliber and should not be pushing her out the door.

Getting Rid Of The Old



A friend, not a teacher, wanted to understand how teachers, with tenure and good reputations could be forced out of a job.  It made no sense to her.

We started talking about a mutual friend, a woman who went into teaching later in life, when her first job was done away with.  She works in an elementary school in the Bronx and has always done extremely well with the students and the parents.  All of a sudden things are getting rough for her.  The fifth grade class she always taught was taken from her and she was given fourth grade.  All her previous work was useless and she had to start the year from scratch.  She was unfamiliar with the fourth grade curriculum and had to spend hours becoming acquainted with it. 

The school couldn't get rid of this teacher by U-rating her because she was good.  The administration also had no desire to bring in the union so the contract was strictly kept to.  But, the admin was smart.  They made her school life hard and uncomfortable to the point where they hoped she would leave voluntarily.  She is rethinking her options and it is a good bet they might win.

This same tactic was used on me.  My old AP gave me a program a year ago that included three classes, two which were on my preference sheet (not as first choices), subjects that I either never taught or haven't taught in years.  The goal was to make me leave.  At that time I found an angle and managed to get a different program.  I knew, if I stayed, the same ploy would be used again and this time there would be no way out.  Even when I was given my first choice class (AP calculus) I was always given  low level classes to teach along with it and I was never given the same subject two years in a row so I was constantly writing new lessons.  At first I asked about getting something better, but the answer always was, "I have to be fair.  You have calculus.  Others need good classes too."  Being a union person, I accepted this.  But now that I am gone I see the young woman who took over the AP calculus class is teaching honors pre-calculus along with it (classes she taught for years.)  The AP stat teacher is teaching trig classes (classes she has been teaching for years.)  No one wants these two women to leave, so they are being catered to.

Don't be fooled when you hear the words "quality teacher in every class" because what that really means is young teacher in every class.  Even older teachers that are cheap aren't wanted because they won't jump through hoops to keep everyone happy.