Watch where you walk

What a day today. The kids were more challenging than usual but I can deal with that. What I can't stand is the politics, tattling and back stabbing that goes on among adults.

Why would someone go to the extreme to trash a person, to make them look bad, make false statements and ruin their career? Because she voiced her opinion and it didn't agree with yours? Because she stuck up for a student she was having success with and you weren't? You can't say you did it for the sake of the children. She's been lobbying to get additional help for a student that you didn't want to take on because of their behavior, how it would affect your program's success rate and ultimately how it would make you look. Yes, we know you couldn't handle it so this was your way of dealing with it. I see how you talked others into your point of view.

The shit is hitting the fan and it's everywhere. I work intimately with this teacher everyday and while she has some things to work on, she is wonderful with the students. I see how hard she works on her job, the hours that she spends after school preparing. They are learning new things everyday and have already met the benchmarks of the grade level curriculum. It's amazing what people will believe if enough people say it. How they will let people poison their mind about another. Why bother to check the facts and let the data and the numbers do the talking.

In all honesty this teacher can be annoying. I've complained about her myself to another collegue but it was superficial stuff. Her empathy for children is admirable, she clearly wants the best for them. She did not deserve to be denied tenure and let go. I say let go, that's not really true. They are keeping her on for the remaining 3 months of the school year so they don't have to find a sub and go through all that crap.

I would like to think that the person who started all this didn't really mean for this to be the outcome of their campaign. If this teacher was yelling at the students all the time, making them feel bad about themselves, not teaching them, not meeting expectations then maybe this final action would be appropriate but to go for two and a half years with out any issues and glowing evaluations then bam, thrown under the bus... Something's rotten in Denmark.

Then I come home from school and am greeted by the news that another nut has lost it, gunning down 12 people then taking the chicken way out and killing himself. Binghamton is a small city where my oldest son went to college. Nursing homes, churches, schools, parties and now this. Is anyone safe anywhere? I spoke with my son who is going out to dinner tonight in Manhattan. I always tell him to be careful since he lives in the nut capital of the world but it's everywhere now. My heart aches for these victims and their families.