Horrors of the Noble Profession

I just found your website, and was shocked to hear my entire teaching career described on your website. I have been through the mill several times, and been written up so many times I don't think I could count them. All fall under the categories of lies, exaggeration, petty or ridiculous. You've probably heard them all, but here are some you may find new: - Written up for having a bookshelf on the wrong side of the room. - Accused of teaching witchcraft! (A spiritual impossibility, by the way.) Principal refused to hear my side of the story. Just like the Puritan days in Salem. - Enthusiastically welcomed a team of evaluators testing students for a new gifted program when they came to my class. They branded me as "rude." I have been unemployed since May due to injustices, and spent seven months working through various channels to get justice, and was finally able to convince them to issue a new, positive recommendation to replace a negative one I received in May. They agreed to provide a positive reference at the inquiry of employers, but due to what I have experienced over the last 20 years, I have no idea what they will say behind my back. I agree with your statement, without reservation, that teaching is a disgrace. I would love to find a job, even at teacher pay, where I could work toward "getting" the sleazes that run our schools. Below is my story:

I was raised in a time when teachers were respected, and generally held them in high regard. Due to a snafu in college advisement, I found it necessary to change plans as to selection of a career, and chose to go into education. I was totally unprepared for the hate, bullying, intolerance, and general lack of concern for students in a situation where setting a good example for them is of utmost importance. Nearly 30 years after my first contacts with the public schools, things have not improved.

Cibecue, AZ (Bureau of Indian Affairs school):

This being my first job, I was eager to accept. Due to a local shortage, housing was provided, and I was told that it was furnished. This, and the fact that rent was deducted from paychecks, appeared to be a convenient arrangement for a first-year teacher right out of college and short on funds. Problems began as soon as I arrived; housing was NOT furnished. There were a dresser and a table only. The woman who told me it was furnished simply said, “Sorry I fibbed to you.” (They finally got a child’s bed for me from a nearby boarding school.) I had to get an extra chair from the school just to be able to sit at the table.

When I went into my classroom (a portable), I found squirrel droppings everywhere. My aide told my students that I was too young to be a teacher, causing them to lose respect for me. A coworker seemed to enjoy yelling at me, and frequently did so in the presence of students. At one point the principal wrote me up twice the same day – for not being at a meeting, and for not picking up mouth rinse from the nurse. I was not at either place due to the fact that I was on recess duty at the time. She literally required me to be in three places at exactly the same time. The fact that missing recess duty would have left the students unsupervised, and the school negligent, made no difference. Getting paid was a nightmare. Checks frequently came 2-5 weeks late, without ever an explanation. Due to this, twice I was within $11 of being flat broke.

Cashion, AZ:

This was by far the worst job of my life, and my worst supervisor ever. The female principal had a reputation for getting rid of a male teacher every year, and her wrath knew no bounds. I found out later on that the administration had been writing me up and keeping a secret file on me since as early as the fourth day of school. Attacks came at me from all sides, at any time they felt like it, and there was no way of appeasing them. One day I ate with my class at lunch, and the principal scolded me for it, saying that if I didn't want to eat with the teachers, I could take my lunch outside and eat in the parking lot. During a parent conference, she called me to the office. When I explained that I was conferring, she told me to end the conference “now,” and get over there immediately. The teacher next door yelled at me in the immediate presence of her class and mine. Teachers and aides regularly went to the principal about me behind my back over any issue that suited their whims.

The attacks and expectations ranged from petty to outrageous. I was observed weekly, notes were taken each time, and there was a continual stream of administrators in and out of my classroom. I was written up for having my bookshelf on the wrong side of the room, having the wrong shape of table, trying a new instructional technique, standing where a tree would block the wind while on recess duty on a cool day, for my aide’s desk being in the wrong place, and more. Since I didn't use all my allotment of copy paper automatically issued to teachers, I would put the rest aside until I needed it, resulting in my being accused of hoarding. They gave me numerous “recommendations,” yet every time I “corrected” one to their satisfaction, they gave me another list of 5-6 recommendations. This pattern continued throughout the semester. On another occasion it was raining at lunchtime. Teachers and students had only 20 minutes to eat, and we were required to take our students back to the classroom for the remaining 10 minutes. I asked an administrator who was nearby if she would keep an eye on the class so I could use the restroom. She agreed, and when I returned a few minutes later I thanked her. For this, she wrote me up for leaving my class! To use the restroom!

They wrote me up weekly for lesson plans not being up to their standards six weeks in a row. At one point they gave me a lesson plan pad twice the size of the regular plan book issued to all other teachers, which I was expected to fill out weekly. After six times, since they were never clear about their expectations, I simply gave up, and did my plans the way I wanted. Finally they did accept it, but interestingly, this was the same way I had done them the second time through, and was written up for. One of these times I was required to give my revised plans to the principal in person. When I laid them on her desk, she wrote me up, accusing me of throwing them at her.

At one point my room was broken into, and the classroom was vandalized. The reason: the windows didn't lock. Their excuse for not fixing it: the building was to be torn down when a new building would open the following year. (The building I was in at the time dated back to the 1920's, and well overdue for replacement.) The sheriff investigating the incident scolded the assistant principal for not having it fixed, resulting in the administration persecuting me even more intensely.

At midyear, I was offered the option to resign. It was pretty obvious that they would eventually fire me if I didn't. Consultation with my NEA rep. was useless in getting the outrages stopped. After I left, knowing that things always seem worse while you're going through them, I decided to be objective about it, and count how many things they had written me up for. Certainly there couldn't be any more than fifty, I thought. I was wrong. They had written me up for ninety-five alleged concerns – and I had only been there for 91 days! When I left, they had compiled them into a 50-page document, and gave me a copy. Not so much as one of my rebuttals was included. They told me that they were left out for being late, yet not so much as once did they give me a deadline for any of them, and the fact that there were so many rebuttals to write made no difference.

Progreso, TX:

If you love paperwork, this is the place to be. I worked longer hours at this job than anywhere else in my life. I would go in at 8:00 AM, stay until 7:00 PM, go home, have a quick supper, and continue the paperwork, usually not finishing until at least 1:00 AM. It was also necessary to work on paperwork on Saturdays just to keep up. Working an 80-hour workweek was common, and signing in daily was simply the start of the paperwork.

They threw out the standard lesson plan book, and new requirements involved submitting nine pages of plans per week. Every space had to be filled in. Keeping a grade book was just as bad. Every space had to be filled in on every page. They had six-week grading periods, so instead of going through this four times a year, we had to go through it six times. We were not permitted to use pencils in them at any time, even to be able to correct mistakes. We were told to throw away all our blue ink pens, as only black ink was permitted, and teachers were written up for using anything other than black ink. Correction fluid was forbidden. Corrections were to be made by crossing out an error with one line – not two – and every correction had to be initialed. At the end of every grading period, grade books were collected from all teachers, and administrators went through them with a fine-toothed comb. Any error or omission earned a sticky note at the edge of the page, with orders to fix it. It was very common for grade books to be returned with sticky notes attached to pages all the way around the edge of the grade book. Grade books weren't returned until three weeks later, requiring us to keep records elsewhere, and spend more time entering all the data into the grade book for the time we had been without. She also banned the use of red pens to grade papers, saying that seeing “all those red marks” would hurt the students’ feelings.

At one point the principal called me into the office, where she scolded me for an hour for not getting my work done, in spite of the fact that she was already aware of how much time I was putting in. There were also other issues at the school – teachers yelling at teachers, regardless of who was present; having a pep rally for the standardized test (thus wasting instructional time); and an administrator not qualified to do so evaluating teachers. Early on, the principal earned herself the nickname of “Mrs. Write-You-Up,” and her favorite threat at teachers’ meetings indeed was, “I will write you up!” Among other petty issues, she wrote me up for raising my voice to the class, saying that she didn't want the students to be afraid. I explained to her that the class had been noisy, that it was necessary to do so to be heard, and that the students were not afraid, but that made no difference to her. I was not singled out – she treated all staff this way. The atmosphere of the school was such that they had a 33% staff turnover every year.

Chaparral, NM:

The principal at times liked to look for things to be wrong. Staff report time was 7:30 AM, and she would sit outside in front of the school at exactly that time, writing down names of any teacher arriving after that, even starting with those arriving at 7:31, so she could write them up. One time when I was in her office she lifted up her calendar blotter, and under it were many filled-out forms she had used to write people up. I would guess there were over 30 of them.

Once, due to having come directly from a brief meeting with the principal, I arrived five minutes late to pick up my students after lunch. Another teacher scolded me in the immediate presence of my class for being late. Another staff member let me know rudely, in no uncertain terms, that my wanting to participate in preparations for a school presentation for parents was unwelcome.

This school was located at the edge of town, and part of the land, about an acre, was undeveloped. I offered to develop this as an on-campus nature study area – for free. Soon thereafter, half of the area was bulldozed. When I asked why, the said they would be putting a new building on the land. The next year, I brought up the subject to the new principal, and again, shortly thereafter the rest of the land was bulldozed. Again, the claim was made that the land would be used for building. The last time I saw the area, eleven years later, there was not so much as one brick sitting on that land.

Las Cruces, NM:

This principal was, in a word, a liar. One day she sat in her office, and wrote up a full-page list of everything she could think of that could be wrong with my classroom, called me into her office, and of course accused me of all of them. I challenged her on most of them, and in every case, her response was, “You'll have to show me.” Among them, she claimed that the decorations weren't big enough, that I gave my students coloring sheets, and didn't have any fire escape plans posted. From there, I had to go with her directly to my classroom. I had to point out that the coloring sheets she saw were papers students had colored at home and given me of their own free will, that others were in line with the curriculum, and that indeed the fire escape routes were plainly visible, and posted at both doors. One by one, she crossed off most of the things on her list. The rest were petty, and easy to correct. She also put me on a “growth plan” with another list of alleged shortcomings.

She gave almost no support on parent issues. A parent complained to the principal about his son not doing well in my class. She sided with the parent in spite of my explaining that he was not doing his work and my insisting that he do it. Another day, the school secretary, whose daughter was in my class, called me into the office to discuss her report card, furious that I had given her a D. She yelled at me about it right there in the office, in front of all present. Due to her behavior I refused to discuss it without the principal present. When we met I brought my grade book, and showed both all the blanks indicating where the student had not been doing her work. The mother claimed that it was unfair of me to give any child a D, and the principal criticized my recording of grades – in front of the parent.

Before long, I became aware of many parents wanting their children out of my class, specifically, parents of nine students. Eventually I found out that this secretary had been calling parents of all of my students, trying to get them to request that their students be moved out of my class.

On another occasion, a student had gotten in trouble going between classes. This having happened before, I took her to the office. While I was explaining the situation to the principal, the student started crying. The discipline issue was ignored, and the principal scolded me on the spot, in front of the student. A teacher asked for my participation in an activity for Drug Awareness Week, the activity being that if students schoolwide were to meet a certain goal, all the men would come to school wearing dresses for the day. I told him that I would not wear a dress, but didn't have a problem with other activities. The next day, the principal called in her supervisor, and called me into a meeting with them. She had told him that I had refused to support Drug Awareness Week. I explained what had really said, and stated that I would under no circumstances wear women’s clothing for any occasion. Period. He then asked for my resignation; I refused. Later, I found out that, supposedly due to my refusing to participate, the activity was dropped. I never heard any other male staff member talking about the activity. It appears to have been a scheme to trick me into wearing a dress on the appointed day in order to make a spectacle of me, and get me fired.

By the end of the year most of the nonsense subsided, and it seemed that the worst was behind me. It was not to be. When the principal called me in to discuss my evaluation, to my great surprise, she had rated me satisfactory in every area, and included a comment stating that I had successfully completed the growth plan. To my even greater surprise, she fired me! When I asked her why she would fire someone with such a satisfactory evaluation, and considering that all these issues were resolved and now in the past, she said that she didn't want to go through it again the next year. No credit at all for problems solved.

Anthony, NM:

I had 10 supervisors in the nine years I was there. The only one who really cared about the staff, and doing right for them, had mentioned that he had been written up for speaking out in favor of the teachers, and was himself fired after only a year. The rest were unreasonable. One principal regularly scolded teachers in the immediate presence of other staff. Sending students to the office also resulted in the teachers being scolded. Several times she came into my classroom after quitting time and scolded me for up to an hour. She often scolded me directly in front of my students for their own misbehavior, at times while I was in the process of correcting them.

Her favorites were the three Title I teachers. What they wanted, they got, pretty much without exception. One liked a new reading program, and the principal authorized her to teach this new approach to other teachers. She then required all teachers to attend the class for an hour after quitting time weekly, and at times it went on an extra half hour beyond. If desired, teachers could take it for college credit, but all were promised a certificate of completion at the end of the course. To my surprise, she told me the day before that I would not be required to attend the final class. Having a lot to do, I appreciated the extra time. By the end of the year, I had not received the certificate of completion. The following August, I asked her when I would receive it. It turned out that the day she excused me, she was deliberately excluding me while she passed the certificates of completion out to the others. She told me that I would not be getting one, listing many alleged deficiencies. I refuted, with proof, each of her accusations as she brought them up, with only one exception, related to the fact that I had chosen not to take the course for college credit. She also accused me of missing classes, and being 20 minutes late regularly, which were outright lies, as I never missed a session, was usually the first one there, and saw her record my attendance daily. Truth and proof were worthless; I never received the certificate of completion.

The second year I was there, the principal moved me to the classroom closest to the office. A coworker came into my class to observe, who told me later that the principal had sent her in specifically to watch for anything negative she could report. That was a very difficult class, and it was obvious that she had deliberately given me mostly behavior problems, low-performing students, and as many new students as possible in order to set me up for failure. Her frequent scolding's resulted in my finding it necessary to turn off the lights, and close and lock the door at teachers’ dismissal time, in order to be able to finish my work in peace.

There were frequent changes in lesson plan expectations. In one year alone, lesson plan requirements and expectations were changed six times, one of which required teachers to color-code plans with highlighters. Plans, required to be turned in weekly, were frequently returned with criticisms written all over them.

During this principal’s reign of terror, a teacher suffered a nervous breakdown, and was absent the rest of the year to recover. Another staff member was assigned to take her place, and other staff members were asked to help her get the classroom ready for her use. They threw away many personal possessions of the absent teacher, carelessly put the rest of her things in garbage bags, and moved them to the stage, where they sat unsecured all summer.

Another principal delighted in yelling. He frequently yelled at other staff in his office, with the door open, so loud that he could be heard down the hall and in the teacher’s lounge. I was not exempt. When my turn came, he yelled at me in the office, then opened the door, and yelled louder. Yet when I was conducting a lively class debate, he came into the class, looking upset. He called me out in the hall and scolded me for the noise level. I informed him that I was controlling the noise level, had expected it, and for that reason closed the door to not disturb other classes. To no avail though; The Yeller considered the noise level too high. One October, I had put some student work out in the hall, but the following Monday morning, I found them all torn down and placed carelessly on top of the lockers. My students were quite upset, as I was, so I started putting them back up where they had been. Before long, The Yeller walked down the hall, saw what I was doing, and started yelling at me on the spot for doing so. Through his yelling, I gathered that the burglar alarm had been going off all weekend. He claimed that the draft had caused them to move, setting off the burglar alarm, so he came in and tore them down himself to solve the problem. Any movement would have been impossible, however, as I had taped them down securely. No other teachers’ decorations, including paper hanging loosely from the ceiling in the same hall, were touched, even though it was possible for them to move in the slightest draft. He also told me that he would soon require all teachers to take down all hall decorations, yet by the end of the year, he never told any other teacher to take down anything in any hall.

Another principal didn't take long to show her true colors. She ordered me to take down a motivational paper that didn't suit her whims. On another occasion, when a teacher had not straightened up her classroom to the principal’s satisfaction, she ordered all other teachers on her grade level team to go in, on their prep time, and clean up for her. A secretary demanded information for an upcoming field trip, and I assured her that as soon as I got it from the other end, I would pass it along to her. The fact that I was having trouble getting the information myself made no difference, and she scolded me very harshly for not having it. When I lost my patience with her for this unreasonable attack, her eyes lit up, she smiled, and went straight to the principal who then called me into the office and also scolded me.

Preparing for this field trip required making a phone call from an office phone by the hall. No other phones were available. As I spoke, another secretary got involved in a conversation with a coworker. Soon they were talking and laughing loudly, making it hard to hear. When I explained to the person at the other end that I was having trouble hearing and asked her to speak louder, the two in the office got even louder, making it almost impossible to hear. The next day, several second grade students commented on the situation to me. I was unaware of their presence during the call, but they told me that they had seen me there. They saw the trouble I was having, and to them, it appeared that the two in the office were being loud deliberately to make it difficult for me to hear. The students’ exact words: “They were doing it on purpose!”

The next school year, this principal was after me right from the beginning. While finishing setting up my classroom, she came in and asked in a very harsh tone of voice if I would be ready for the first day of school – even though this had never been an issue. When I asked for a new table to replace a damaged one, it was replaced with another damaged one. Another day, I was written up for having winked at a second-grade student. The fact that it looked like she had been crying and that I was trying to cheer her up made no difference. Another student was repeatedly defiant, uncooperative, and disruptive. When I took him to the counselor, she yelled at me for doing so in the immediate presence of the student. That same student had been placed in the wrong class to begin with, and when I became aware of it, I brought it to the attention of the other counselor in charge of such things, but she refused to move him. Before long, I was out the door for good.

Intolerance took many forms here. A couple teachers were overheard outside my room ridiculing an assignment I had given and displayed in the hall. A cafeteria cashier rudely demanded exact change from me, claiming that she had no quarters to give as change. Yet a moment later, when another teacher came, she opened the cash register and willingly gave her the change. The cash register was full of quarters! Another teacher started an after-school sports program, and was seeking participants. When I brought several students to him who had just brought their permission slips moments before, he scolded me for their being late and told me to “get them out of here” in the immediate presence of myself and the students. Teachers frequently yelled at teachers in the presence of students, even on field trips. There were many other similar incidents too numerous to mention.

One incident that does bear mentioning is an unusual meeting, called for men only. The female principal had the male assistant principal call all male staff members into his office, where he warned all of them that they had better be careful around students “for their own good,” to prevent accusations or similar complaints from parents or students. No female staff members were present, nor were they ever spoken to in a similar manner.

This being a very low-performing school, standardized testing made life difficult. Most classes scored well below the 40th percentile in all areas, and some as low as the 9th. A new teacher, who had such a strong foreign accent that at times he was difficult to understand, had test scores at the 91st percentile his first year there! No class at the school came anywhere near this level. His “accomplishment” was never investigated or challenged.

One year a new math program was adopted; test scores plummeted, and teachers complained. A couple years later, the program was dropped, and the old program brought back. Test scores promptly rebounded to their previous levels. Then, a couple years after that, the program that was a proven failure was brought back to stay, and test scores again plummeted. Toward the end, the district made major, radical changes to the curriculum, replacing everything in only two years. Students were left entirely without textbooks of any kind. Even books adopted only the year before, still in excellent condition, were removed from all schools. Bilingual teachers were required to teach Spanish to Spanish-speaking students who were already fluent in both English and Spanish. The only guideline given was that it was to be fun. These teachers were told not to speak English to these students. Regular-curriculum teachers, most of whom were not endorsed in teaching English as a second language (ESL), would be required to teach ESL.

Due to the numerous changes in administration, personalities and expectations varied greatly. Teachers were frequently reprimanded for violating policy or breaking rules, even though no notice had been given that a policy or rule had been changed. I was required to move to a different classroom four times in nine years, the last move being to a 60-year-old building that was being considered for condemnation, and was infested with large roaches. A coworker had been moved six times in six years. The last move, requiring most staff to move to another building, was not announced until the staff’s first day back, allowing only a day and a half to move and get the new classroom set up. No one was permitted to set up early.

Noel, MO:

Due to the nature of my position as ESL teacher, I was to teach only one class of elementary students daily, and then go into several junior high classes to work with students there. The principal told me that my role was to be that of “an aide on teacher’s pay” in the junior high classes, with the regular teacher planning, instructing, and handling discipline. I was to be there simply to reinforce what the regular teacher was teaching for the time. I was never permitted to plan or teach any junior high classes of my own.

Frequently the junior high teachers’ plans and activities precluded my being able to work with students, even though I was present in their classes. There were two entire periods where I had no instructional responsibilities. In addition to prep time before and after school, I had at least three hours daily without any involvement, often more. My frequent requests to the principal for additional work fell on deaf ears.

At one point, the principal told me exactly how to teach my elementary class to the point of micromanaging. He told me that I was to have my students read a selection daily, and then write one sentence about it; any more would be too much for them. I brought up the fact that elsewhere I had second graders writing well-developed paragraphs, and fact that I was already seeing progress with these 5th and 6th graders who were behind in this area, but he still said no.

During a lesson, I had used the word alien. There was a high number of students from other countries at this school, so I included citizen/alien as one of a number of pairs of antonyms, something I had done frequently in previous years without controversy. No questions were raised about individual students’ status, nor was the word wetback used. Yet the principal called me into the office and scolded me for it.,/P>

About mid-February, he called me into the office again, this time to inform me that a parent had accused me of teaching witchcraft! The parent had come and gone before I found out about it. At issue was Jim Stafford’s poem, Swamp Witch, which I was using as the basis for a series of lessons about the swamp environment. Further, no concrete evidence in the poem proves the woman in the poem to be a witch; I was presenting this as an additional lesson on the importance of checking out facts rather than simply listening to rumors. I explained this to the principal, but he unhesitatingly sided with the parent. He said that people from that part of the world are superstitious, and he doesn't want them to be offended. The following Monday, with no advance notice, the principal cancelled my elementary class (which this student was in), telling me I would then have to go into their classes as I had been doing with the junior high classes. By doing so, he in effect had put me under the direct supervision of other teachers every instructional moment of my day.

Conclusion:

Complicating matters is the fact that I have had 23 supervisors in 19 years, including the 10 I had in nine years at one school alone. During these years I have been both blessed and cursed for just about everything I have done. Among them are the following:

• I try a new technique... One says I am innovative; another says, “We don't do it that way here.”
• I eat with students at lunch... One compliments my rapport; another considers it fraternizing.
• I comment on a problem issue... One appreciates my input; another says I’m being negative.
• I contribute to an ethnic project... One compliments my acceptance of diversity; another considers me to be meddling in affairs where I have no business.
• I comfort a crying student or encourage one who is struggling... One appreciates my empathy; another considers it inappropriate.
• I reprimand a class’s unruly behavior... One compliments my being firm; another says I have no control of the class.
• I do something on my own... One appreciates my taking the initiative; another criticizes me for not following protocols.

The emphasis at these sites is not on academics, but include favoritism and hate. Making trivial issues into major ones, twisting the truth, and outright lying are favorite tactics. Anything to make life miserable for well-meaning teachers who really care about the students. Personally, this has resulted at one time or another in my having a variety of stress-related health issues, including gastritis, asthma, insomnia, burnout, and recurrent nightmares, none of which have been issues outside of this “noble” profession.

Disgusted Teacher
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