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Dedicated Teacher Describes Living Hell

Read about a teacher who came to the profession with an open heart, wanting to help her students, and left with health issues and a lawsuit. Note how her administrator enjoyed torturing this teacher, using students to succeed at this. And we can be sure that the local paper never published her story. White Chalk Crime makes sure you don't know what is going on: NAPTA is trying to do the opposite. NAPTA

==> Lynn Beverly Cole

Check out an email this teacher wrote to a new NAPTA member several years after writing this story.

My name is Lynn Cole. I got your contact info from Karen Horwitz. I'm not sure what your story is, but we ALL have one. I'm currently in federal civil court with my former school district, so my story is a doozy. It took me a very long time to get to a place where I feel safely outside of the madness, and I know that still being on the inside sucks. My mom has been teaching for over 30 years, and when I talked to her during this "snow break" she sounded like she had just won the lottery. That's sad...we shouldn't have to pray that inclement weather rescues us.

You have to remember that you don't work for 40 years and then live your life-that's kind of "the dream" we've been sold, but this IS your life and you have to find a way to live it on your terms. The pursuit of happiness isn't a privilege-it's an unalienable right. While searching our legislation for ways to "fight back" I realized how behind our country is with anti-workplace harassment laws. The U.K actually has an "anti-workplace bullying law," while we're still lobbying for the "healthy workplace" bill. This ugly cycle is ruining our health, our careers, and our lives. When we hear about "bullying" it's generally limited to kids at school, but you and I know better don't we?

Because of the violence that has erupted in schools over the last decade or so, the country has been forced to address the issue in schools, but just for the kids...meanwhile, the anti-social adults continue to make life miserable for their targets.

Around the time I had a FULL-SCALE mental breakdown, the "Workplace Bullying Institute" web site really helped me put things in perspective. http://www.workplacebullying.org . Dr's Ruth and Gary Namie have applied a social science to workplace bullying that breaks it down to the who, what, why, and how, and provides resources for pulling yourself out of a rut. It helped me to understand why my co-workers particularly my Principal, Assistant Principal, and members of the "support staff" were behaving the way that they were. Please take a look at it, sometimes understanding is the first step to coping.

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