People who have never been in the Rubber Room might think that it’s a great deal. You get paid for sitting there and doing nothing all day. Of course, anyone with some knowledge of human psychology knows that it’s not a great deal. Take any normal human being, put him in a room by himself with nothing to do, keep him there for days and months on end, and he will eventually go crazy. Paying him doesn’t make it OK. He is being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment.
“But”, say the Butt-Heads who think the Rubber Room is a great deal, “You’re not in a room all by yourself. You have other teachers who are in the same situation. And you are an educated person. Take advantage of the situation: Read, have nice conversations with the people around you, take a nap, play card games… write the Great American Novel. As long as you’re there, you’re getting full pay and benefits, and you’re building up your pension. You could be on the street without a job, unable to meet your mortgage payments, and about to lose your house like so many other people in America right now.”
When reminded of starving people, it’s hard to refuse to eat your liver.
So I’ll eat it, but I’ll still hate it.
For the duration of my time in the Rubber Room, I will not be writing about my experience in the Rubber Room on this blog-- Although, trust me, I am keeping a detailed daily journal. No, this blog will remain true to its original intention, which is to shine light on the incompetent, corrupt, and criminally abusive Bloomberg Department of Education, and the Butt-Heads that keep it alive.
In order to do this, I need more background knowledge. I am researching the topics of “scapegoating”, “mobbing”, “false allegations”, “lynching”, and the “holocaust” to name a few. As I read about these subjects, I will apply the information to the Bloomberg DOE in general, and my situation in particular.
At the moment, I am reading Inaccuracies in Children’s Testimony: Memory, Suggestibility, or Obedience to Authority? By Jon’a F. Meyer published by Haworth Press, Inc. 1997.
8 comments:
The only people who "enjoy" being in the rummber room are the people that belong there. I shed a tear for every word you write, wondering what I have done that has led me to escape your fate.
I know these are only words, but I pray for your release from hell and from the torment you are suffering every day.
There are no words.
I worked for a principal (no union here) who set out to remove me from teaching while rewarding another teacher who did nothing at all except show movies.
I ended up leaving that county (no choice) and going to another.
While I am teaching the kind of kids I wanted to teach, I am not where I wanted to be.
I cannot imagine your situation or how you are keeping your sanity.
Like you, I would need a project, a goal to focus on. I hope and pray that you succeed and return to the classroom.
You are both that you are still teaching in your chosen profession. I hope you will continue to be able to do so within the bounds of your own good consciences. Thanks for your support. It means a lot.
What helped me during my stay in the Rubber Room was to be politically active. Now that I am out and back to my soon to be defunct school I realize that I must continue to be political active as I can be put back anytime they want and for what ever reason they want! That's both scary and infuriating!
I agree about being politically active. We are living in times in which more and more power is being concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. Mayor Mike is an example of this. However no one that I know of has placed their letters to file and their charges on line. No one else has put an OSI interrogation on the blogosphere. I am not asking anyone to do so, but it is important to document this process because it is so often hidden within the pseudolegal system that is being run by the DOE and the UFT.
Write and document. The time will come when written testimony will be used to shut Bloomberg down.
One of my very social friends was in a rubber room for quite some time. He thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and made a lot of new friends there! When this person walks into a room, it lights up! Go figure!
Cudos to your very social friend. I hope he lights up as many rooms as possible while he can, because he has a stigma attached to him as long as Bloomberg is mayor. He has a good chance of winding up right back in the rubber room on some other trumped up charge.
People who are brought up on false charges, social skills nothwithstanding, suffer as a result whether they show it or not. I suppose that if you know that your charges are justified, you may not suffer as much.
Slaves sang as they picked cotton. People in concentration camps put on plays.
One day I will write about how different individuals deal with the rubber room experience, and how it affects them--probably expressed as a work of fiction.
This blog is about the scape-goating process that puts a person in the rubber room. The more I read, the more I see strong similarities with other scapegoating incidents in world history. That is what I will be writing about for now--not social individuals, no matter how room brightening they might be.
Come on, all of you surely know that the objective of the rubber room is much bigger than the teachers in it, so be bigger than yourself then you will not be as miserable.
Yes, It is a very hard situation, but many rise above it, overcome, and move on with their lives. Please, self-absorbing and self pitty will not help here.
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