SPECIAL MESSAGE TO TEACHERS

Teacher abuse is a calculated scheme that assures that parents will not have a true voice in the education of their children. In addition to being wrong because it seriously harms our colleagues, it is wrong because parents - taxpayers - are the consumers. Although most parents are not qualified to carry out the work of professionals who study child development and best teaching methods, their feedback about the outcome of the service provided by our schools should be what drives our schools. When we protect our superiors through silence, we are responsible for the dismal state of many of our schools.

Teacher abuse is a calculated scheme that deprives us of being professional. We give up our decision-making in exchange for protection against abuse. Thus, we are denigrated by our society because they believe we are the people who are making inappropriate decisions and denying their children of the education to which they are entitled. They see no reason to pay us appropriate salaries, or to respect us, and rightly so, based on the outcomes our schools are providing. The hard work and dedication we put forth is often to protect our superiors, rather than serve the true masters - the taxpayers and students. The terror that accompanies the abuse has assured the administrators that their method of silencing teachers will never be revealed.

Although there is a hierarchy in any job, and we are obligated to follow the directions of our superiors, insubordination is the refusal to follow reasonable orders. It is not reasonable to harm our children, lie to the consumers of our schools, and conduct ourselves as oppressed slaves rather than dignified professionals. Many of us remain in this profession believing we are fulfilling a calling, when in reality we are enabling our superiors to cheat our children out of their entitlement to a good education. We need to realize that we do more harm remaining in our positions, carrying out the evil deeds of our superiors, than if we were to boycott our schools by saying, "No, I will not participate in what has become institutionalized child abuse." Our refusal to do what we know is wrong, would be the beginning of forcing accountability in our schools.

Teacher abuse forces us to alienate parents by:

• Keeping us from advocating for our students just because it is not acceptable to our superiors' self serving agendas.



• Misleading and even lying to parents.



• Burdening us with workloads that are ridiculously unfair and often ludicrous, so that they take us away from doing the work our students need and parents want.



• Telling them the truth only off the record then asking them to promise they will never tell we said it, thus taking away their power to advocate for their children, leaving us angry and thereby sometimes passing the abuse on to our students or others.



• Leaving us bitter and distant, turning what we came to as a calling into our own moral downfall.



• Teaching in ways we know are unsuitable for our students.



• Forcing us to serve as accomplices to violating federal laws that protect special education students.



• Putting our survival in front of what is right for our students and colleagues.



• Aiding administrators in flogging good teachers to drive them out, if our administrators desire us to do so, by making false statements, not supporting our colleagues, and even mistreating our colleagues.



• Pretending to agree with policies and decisions we know are wrong for our students.



• Forcing us to distance ourselves from parents who desire an appropriate education's for their children so as not to be abused.



• Aligning only with the parents who are part of the "inner political circle", even though we know that these parents are parents who use their power for favors and not for the good of the community.



• Losing the respect of our students, who as a result treat us with disrespect, leaving parents even more disgusted that we cannot earn their children's respect.

The only power that can hold our dysfunctional schools together is the power we give our school boards and administrators when we blindly obey their improper orders; enlightenment can and will give us the power to become the real teachers we set out to be. Doing nothing while watching our colleagues being flogged has to chip away at our spirits. We know it isn't fair but become imprisoned by our fear. Our masters trick us into thinking our colleagues are deserving of this flogging.

How do we get to the point where we think flogging in a democratic country is okay? Could it be okay even if that person were truly causing the trouble attributed to him? WE DO NOT THINK SO!

A Fourteenth Century Chinese parable by Liu-Ji, describes how political power turns us into fools unless we use our brains to see the truth:

The "Monkey Master" Fable

In the feudal state of Chu an old man survived by keeping monkeys in his service. The people of Chu called him "ju gong" (monkey master).

Each morning, the old man would assemble the monkeys in his courtyard, and order the eldest one to lead the others to the mountains to gather fruits from bushes and trees. It was the rule that each monkey had to give one tenth of his collection to the old man. Those who failed to do so would be ruthlessly flogged. All the monkeys suffered bitterly, but dared not complain.

One day, a small monkey asked the other monkeys: "Did the old man plant all the fruit trees and bushes?" The others said: "No, they grew naturally." The small monkey further asked: "Can't we take the fruits without the old man's permission?" The others replied: "Yes, we all can." The small monkey continued: "Then, why should we depend on the old man; why must we all serve him?"

Before the small monkey was able to finish his statement, all the monkeys suddenly became enlightened and awakened.

On the same night, watching that the old man had fallen asleep, the monkeys tore down all the barricades of the stockade in which they were confined, and destroyed the stockade entirely. They also took the fruits the old man had in storage, brought all with them to the woods, and never returned. The old man finally died of starvation. Yu-li-zi says, "Some men in the world rule their people by tricks and not by righteous principles. Aren't they just like the monkey master? They are not aware of their muddleheadedness. As soon as their people become enlightened, their tricks no longer work."

Tricks, including teacher abuse, would not be needed if our school boards and administrators ran our schools in the best interest of our children. Tricks are a substitute for dedication, hard work, and wisdom. Our administrators and school boards do not own our schools.

Theoretically, the taxpayers do, and our administrators and school boards take a pledge to serve the taxpayers. To the extent they betray the taxpayers, they should lose their power to make decisions. Teacher abuse assures our school boards and administrators that they can do whatever they want and maintain their power. Teachers sell out and don't probe issues or make sure proper programs in place This is wrong. And as accomplices we have become the targets of society's disdain. NAPTA agrees with the parents that teachers are wrong to ignore the evil, but we understand the teachers silence because we know the terror of speaking out. Ignorance is not an excuse for harming others, however. Teachers need to learn how they are being used to harm children and their fellow teachers. Disdain for fellow teachers works both ways. This needs to end.

Full cooperation, obedience, and support increases the sources of power and, consequently empowers the corrupt leadership. Our UNIONS, our other "master", has enslaved us by pretending to have no recourse for teacher abuse so that we will keep blindly obeying our underhanded district masters.

Dictatorial hierarchy doesn't make sense. How is that going to prepare our children to become productive citizens of a democracy when we are modeling a non-democratic system? Children know. Teenagers are the barometers of hypocrisy and their disconnected behavior speaks volumes about what is happening.

Silent teachers lead to drugs, Columbine, and out-of-control behavior due to lack of respect for their role models, their teachers. This leads to a lack of cooperation and cheating, and makes teaching dificult; and all of this is happening because teachers are too terrorized to speak the truth. Go to Darlene Goodman's story link about student abuse. Go to our links on unions. Go to the search on our first page and search Kurt Eichanwald. Why would administrations be shutting out parents if they were doing what they were supposed to be doing? Price fixing = power fixing. Our public trusts that schools are for parents and children, yet we know they are not. Search for "altered letter" and see the missing sentence that proves that Avoca West School was not about what the children needed or the parents wanted, but about what the superintendent wanted. The teachers at this school knew the truth, as did the teachers at all of the schools represented in Teacher Stories on this site, yet they stood silently while the corrupt systems cleansed Karen Horwitz and the other teachers out. Is it any wonder that we have no status when we are willing to operate with such compromised ethics? Teacher abuse, with its unrealistic work loads, leads to stress, lousy moods, sickness, depression, even death and as well as a lack of connection with children. They keep us busy doing waste-of-time work, not allowing us to create empowering plans for children; this makes us look bad to parents and the cycle perpetuates itself.

Refusal to cooperate with tyrannical leaders will diminish, and may sever, the availability of the sources of power on which rulers depend. Without availability of those sources, the rulers' power weakens and finally dissolves. We have the power to return our schools to their rightful heirs by simply speaking out. We are tired of being given Sophie's choice - either sacrifice our students or our careers.

Parents do not respect us and many detest us because they hold us responsible for our dismal schools. This clever plan will only remain in place if we continue to conspire with our corrupt leaders. Teachers can no longer claim innocence due to lack of knowledge of this scheme, nor pretend that our unions have the best interest of our students at heart when they ignore all this teacher abuse. Teachers who read this and know wrongdoing is occurring at their school, are accomplices if they choose to ignore what they can do, and should do, to stop it. Refusing to think about what is going on is not a justification for allowing evil. Teachers are adults and must be held accountable. Any right-thinking school board or administration should be proud to know a teacher joined NAPTA to stop teacher abuse. There is no rational reason for any leader in education to support corruption amongst their fellow leaders. If your board or administration frowns upon your membership, they are admitting their duplicity.

NAPTA teachers have stepped forth from the line of "monkey teachers" who refuse to think about what they are doing to our children, and have aligned themselves with right thinking parents and others to take our schools back. Your membership in NAPTA is your commitment to be true to your calling, to be a REAL TEACHER. If you choose to continue to hide your heads in the sand, know that the line in the sand has been drawn.

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