Lily's Story Before and After

…Before and After the Bloomborg attacked me, that is. 

This is why I have returned to blogging.  Five years after being sent to the Rubber Room, I am going to have to admit to myself that I am a different person after suffering at the hands of Principal ShTey, and I’m not going to just “get over it” and bounce back to the way I was before.  Finally I have to accept that there are parts of me that will never be recovered.  I now only have memories of preBloomborg Moriah.  Before they too fade away, I would like to try to recapture who I was.  It’s a little like trying to recover an old photograph that has been damaged by Hurricane Sandy.  It’s worth retrieving, but the damage will now also be a part of the photographic record.

What does Lily’s story mean to me today? 

When Lily told me her story, I didn’t know what it meant to try my hardest to accomplish something, to actually succeed, and to then be treated as if I had done nothing of any value at all.  I didn’t know that in the beginning, injustice could create the fire of anger, and with that fire, I could spur myself on to even greater achievements.  I didn’t know that sustained injustice can turn the fire into smoldering embers of hatred that suck out all the oxygen needed for thought and action.  In this reduced state, everything slows down.  Bones seem to turn to water.  Memory becomes sketchy and undependable.  Thoughts slow down and become repetitive.  It’s hard to start a job, and hard to finish it, because everything will ultimately be labeled Unsatisfactory.  Nothing matters.

Before Bloomberg, I sympathized with Lily and wanted to help prevent further injustices from happening.  However,  my sympathy was cerebral.  After Bloomberg,  I had an understanding that came directly from the gut. Empathy.  Identity.  It had happened to me.

Perverted Testing

She failed the test.  In fact they hadn't seen test scores this bad for some time.  The child was obviously mentally deficient, and needed to be referred to the Special Education Department.  Upon arrival,  her teacher noted that she had difficulty following instructions.  No matter how slowly and clearly the teacher spoke, no matter how much she broke down the information into simple steps, the child just couldn't follow along.  She also had difficulty with speech.  She could barely formulate the most simple requests and preferred to nod or point or just stay silent as if in a world of her own.  She loved to sit with a book and pretend to read.  It was quite sad, really, because the child did not have the mental capacity to decode even the simplest of words.  However, she was sweet and quiet,  she never bothered anyone, so they left her alone most of the time and allowed her to pretend to read her books, occasionally turning a page as she had seen her teachers do.

Lily sat staring at the paper and pencil in front of her.  She knew that they expected her to take a test, but she couldn't understand what she was seeing.  She had just arrived from her country, Colombia, and could only speak and read in Spanish.  They showed her how to fill in the little dots with her pencil, so she filled them in randomly.  After a few days, they sent her to meet her new teacher.  She was very nice and spoke sweetly and slowly.  In the beginning, Lily couldn't understand what she was saying, but after a while she began to figure it out.  They wanted her to do baby stuff that was boring.  She picked up a book and began to try to match the words to the new sounds she was hearing. It took her a few months to teach herself to read in English.  She found that if she sat in a corner very quietly her teachers would forget about her and leave her alone.  She read a lot of books during the next few years.

This is the story that my friend Lily told me about her experience in the New York City public school system.  After several years, someone realized that she could actually read English.  She was retested and found to be exceptionally intelligent.  They quietly transferred her to a regular class.

Lily became my unofficial mentor when I started teaching in a New York City middle school in the early eighties.  We officially belonged to two departments:  the Science Department because we taught science, and the Bilingual Department because we taught our subject area in Spanish.  Our jobs were a result of the Aspira Consent Decree in which the Board of Education settled a lawsuit brought by the Puerto Rican Community precisely because of situations like the one Lily had suffered.  In order to avoid such travesties, Spanish-speaking children would be evaluated in their native language and then assigned to bilingual classrooms where they would continue their education in Spanish while receiving English as a Second Language instruction.

Mr. Pervert was in the same Bilingual Department and would serve as an unofficial mentor of an entirely nature.

A Pervert By Any Other Name...

A teenager who posts her cutest picture on Facebook may unwittingly invite a couple of sexual predator "friends" into her social network if she isn't careful.  However, no matter how cautious she is, she can't avoid having all her data and the data of her friends and the data of their friends swept up and stored into an NSA computer from hell.

But this is just Metadata, right?  They're just looking at the "big picture".  A forty-year-old pervert's data is going to stick out like a sore thumb among all the teenagers' data.  The NSA/FBI protectors (not predators) can then go to work tracking said predator.  In the process they will gather additional evidence by hacking into his computer and tracking him as he trolls the underworld of internet child porn.  Perhaps they discover a whole network of pervert friends and eventually take them all down.  Just think of the NSA as a Big Brother who looks something like Clint Eastwood who is valiantly trying to protect innocent citizens from the bad guys who keep whining about their Constitutional Rights.

Come to think of it, considering the capabilities they had after 9/11,  they would have caught Mr. Pervert if he had been doing anything the least little bit perverted.  The target on his back was faithfully painted and repainted as the years passed by.  I saw his picture in the newspaper three times.  The first was the day he got arrested in the early eighties.  Many teachers were upset about the way the press had treated him that day.  The DOE and/or the NYPD had notified reporters as to when he would be arrested and they took full advantage of the opportunity to photograph him as he was led away.  

The second time I saw his picture was in the New York Post right around 9/11--either just before or just after, I can't remember which.  He was on the front page and a huge headline branded him as the Teflon Teacher (charges against him couldn't be made to stick).  This time he hadn't been arrested.  That means that whatever he did was not a crime or there wasn't enough evidence to tie him to a crime.    As far as I know, he spent the next eight or nine years in some form of Rubber Room until I saw him shortly after my arrival.  

The third time I saw his picture was in February of 2010.  I can pinpoint the time because I wrote about it on this blog in a post called "Yellow Journalism" .  Six Rubber Room teachers were targeted and he was one of them.  It was revealed that The Pervert had impregnated a former student in the mid '70's.  They actually called his daughter who lived in another state and tried to interview her over the phone.  Now, remember:  this is FORTY YEARS later.  They could not have published the story based on gossip and hearsay without fear of a lawsuit.  It would have been necessary to find DOE records to confirm that the girl was a former student of the Pervert; medical records to confirm the age of the girl when impregnated and the outcome of the pregnancy;  civil records to identify the name and birthdate of the baby.   That was a lot of work for a forty-year-old story, and that means to me that they had nothing else on him.

So should I stop calling him the Pervert?  Maybe.  I have a gut feeling that he got a little too close to a couple of little girls, but a gut feeling isn't evidence and evidence is all that counts when condemning a man to public shame.  For me there are a lot of perverts in my story.  The children who lied.  The principals and investigators who encouraged the children to lie.  Teachers who protected a friend rather than a child.  The so-called journalists who wrote stories based on nothing but gossip without taking the trouble to check the facts.  The mayor who dismantled a school system so that he and his rich friends could get richer.  Wall street bankers who threw the whole world into financial chaos.  Presidents who signed unconstitutional bills into law.  They are all perverts.    

MetaData

Thanks to Edward Snowden, the whole world knows that the NSA is collecting and storing everybody's data:  Telephone records, credit card records, medical records--if it's stored in a computer, they also have it stored in a big huge computer storage thingy from hell.

How can they do that?  The technological capabilities that they must have for pulling something like that off are mind boggling to anyone who doesn't have an in depth knowledge of computers.  It just doesn't seem possible.  Clue to Obama Co:  Instead of looking like naughty little boys caught with your fingers stuck in the cookie jar and calling Edward Snowden a "traitor"and forcing presidential planes to land for lack of fuel, you should have laughed and said "That's technologically impossible".  Most people would have believed you.  Too late now, assholes.

The Day We Fight Back Against NSA Surveillance

iSpy

Before continuing my story about Mr. Pervert and the Coven, I would like to dwell on the concept of spying and its implications for people who have been targeted by the DOE -- especially those who have spent time in the Rubber Room.

In my last post I fantasized about being an undercover agent for the authorities in order to monitor Mr. Pervert's actions over time and eventually catch him in the act.  I dismissed my fantasy as being unrealistic and even dishonorable.  Unfortunately for all of us, today there are government agencies that have the funding and the mandate to fulfill the fantasy that I rejected. It is my position that their spyware was used by the New York City Department of Education under Mayor Bloomberg against New York City teachers.

Under the Bloomberg Administration, principals were trained and pressured to get rid of teachers by charging them under section 3020a of the NYS Education Law.  This was part of a three-fold plan:  to save money, to weaken the teachers' union (UFT) and to privatize the educational system.

The principals were basically given a list of charges and told to go in search of defendants.

1. Pedagogical Incompetence

2. Physical or Mental Disability

3. Lack of Certification

4. Absence from Work

5. Insubordination

6. Corporal Punishment and Use of Excessive Physical Force

7. Improper Remarks, Physical Contact and Relationships with Students

8. Endangerment of Student Safety

9. Other Types of Chargeable Misconduct

I sensed that I was being spied on when I was in the Rubber Room, but I thought that they had planted spycams and microphones the old-fashioned way in light fixtures and behind the woodwork.  Little did I know that everyone's phone and computer was potentially an open mic or an open camera.  And consider this--these devices might have stayed on after we went home.

 If you need to be convinced that it is technologically possible that they were spying on us 24/7,  you might want to check out this article.  There has been a lot of talk about iphones being NSA friendly, but it's really every phone and every carrier.

You may have trouble believing that they were using their technology to spy on teachers--more than anything because it is such a ridiculous waste of money and resources.   However, consider that we were in New York, the city of 9/11, on constant terrorist alert, and with an astronomical Homeland Security budget.  You don't think that Bloomberg used his spy toys on his favorite project of targeting and eliminating teachers?  

That's why I think that my text referring to "the Pervert" was definitely picked up and stored away. Heck, there were eight or more people at every table, and everyone had a phone and a computer in front of them.  I always thought that it was a strange coincidence that a New York Post article came out with a story about the Pervert that was very similar to the one I had told in confidence to one of my Rubber Room colleagues.  Was my colleague a spy?  More likely the spy was on the other end of one or both of our phones.

Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda

Telling the Pervert's friend that I would not support him resulted in immediate isolation from from his community (the Coven) and from all information about the case.

What would have happened if I had taken out a five dollar bill, smiled sweetly, and said that I hoped everything would turn out ok?

For one thing, I would have found out a lot sooner that one of the charges against him was taking nude pictures of a student.  I could have corroborated that there was in fact a nude picture, but I couldn't have supplied evidence about who took it or where it was taken.

I would have been in a better position to pick up information about the girl he had impregnated and then married.  I could have supplied this information to the prosecution.  However, I don't know if it would have been admissible.

I could have attended his trial and gotten a much better idea of the charges and evidence against him.  When his conviction was overturned he had all records about the case expunged.

I could have been a fly on the wall, eavesdropping on conversations with him and about him.  This may or may not have lead to information about other incidents.  He fought his charges for almost ten years.  In all that time outside the classroom he would have found another way to be in contact with prepubescent girls if he were really a pervert.

In short, I could have been a spy.

This would have made for a great novel or screenplay, but I'm glad I didn't make it into my life's story.  In the end, I expressed myself honestly.  Everyone knew where I stood.  I think the path I took was more honorable.

But isolation from the community is never good and has consequences of its own.

Five Dollars

"We're collecting for Mr. Pervert's defense.  Could you spare five dollars?"
"I'll give you ten dollars toward psychological treatment, but I won't give toward his defense because I think he's guilty."
"Why do you think he's guilty?  Kids lie all the time."
"I heard that he had a relationship with a former student and got her pregnant while she was still under age.  Is that true?
Mr. Pervert's supporter turned and left without a word.
So they did know, and they let him get away with it until he did it again and got caught.


I realize that I could have spoken with more compassion and diplomacy and with less judgement and censure.  If I could go back in time, I would give the five dollars and shut up...  On second thought, I  would probably say exactly the same thing.  My whole blog is a reflection of what could be seen as the fatal character flaw of someone who speaks her mind with little regard for the consequences.

So what were the consequences?

Of Polaroids and Perverts

She was a pale child and quiet.  She seemed very sweet and innocent.  That's why I was shocked to find her surrounded by some of the seventh grade boys in homeroom as she showed them a polaroid picture of herself, naked from the waist up with her back to the camera.  I chased the boys away and pulled her aside for a little talk after her classmates had moved to their first period class.  I asked her if this was a picture of herself (it obviously was).  Then I asked who took it.

Now comes the hard part of trying to tell a story that is thirty years old.  It was the early eighties--let's say 1984 for mathematical convenience.  After this much time, there are hard memories (things I'm absolutely sure of), soft memories, (things I'm somewhat sure of) and fillers (I can't remember, but it makes sense that it happened that way).

I know for a fact that she did not tell me that the Pervert took the picture.  I don't remember what she said, but somehow I got the impression that she had taken it of herself by delaying the shutter release.  I do remember what I wanted to communicate to her:  There's nothing wrong, in my opinion, with the human body.  Artists have celebrated the nude figure in paintings, statues, and photographs.  There is nothing wrong with taking a nude picture of yourself.  However, it is inappropriate to bring a picture like this to school and show it to just anybody.  Your body is a temple, blah blah blah.

I made the decision to not tell anybody.  This was based on my assessment that this was a healthy exploration of her changing body, and to make a big deal out of it would scare her, shame her, make her feel insecure, and in the end do more harm than good.

Years and years later, after the Pervert had beaten the charges against him, I was told that she had accused him of taking her home with him and photographing her in the nude.  This was in addition to another girl saying that he had fondled her.  In the end, they had only charged him with fondling because there weren't any photographs to offer into evidence against him.

She was twelve when that photograph was taken.  That would make her around forty-two now.  I wouldn't recognize her in the street.  I think about her sometimes and wonder what became of her.  I hope life has treated her well.

Madelene was twelve when she accused me of calling her a slut five years ago today.  That would make her seventeen now.  I wouldn't recognize her in the street either.  I don't give a damn what happens to her.

The funny thing is that I still think the Pervert is a pervert.  I believe that the photograph that my seventh-grade student showed me on that long-ago morning was taken by the Pervert.  But after what Madelene and the others did to me, I would never deprive a person of life, liberty, property or a job based on a child's testimony.

Of Perverts and Sluts

I had been in the Rubber Room for less than a week when I saw him.  It came as quite a shock.  I took out my phone and texted a friend, "The Pervert is here"!

I didn't need to elaborate.  My whole circle of family and friends knew who the Pervert was.

Early in my career a twelve-year-old girl had accused a teacher of fondling her.  He was arrested, tried, convicted, and then had the conviction reversed on appeal.  Approximately ten years after his arrest, he walked back into the school in triumph.  His friends threw him a welcome back party.  I didn't attend.  I wasn't his friend.

I was sure he was guilty and couldn't hide my feelings.  Everyone else seemed to like him, but he really creeped me out.  I couldn't stay in the same school with him and what I came to call his "Coven", so I asked for a transfer.  A couple of years later, I read in the Daily News that he had been relieved of his duties pending the investigation of yet another harassment charge.  I was filled with righteous indignation and told-you-so pride, but more than anything else I was relieved  Maybe now the charges would stick and he wouldn't be able to prey on anymore prepubescent girls--at least not in the public school system.  His kind would always find a victim somewhere.

Now I, who had been right about him, was relieved of duties and assigned to the Rubber Room while his enabling friends remained in the classroom.  Principal ShTey had been trying to make a case for dismissing me for years.  ShTey finally got what she needed on February 6, 2009 when one of my students, a girl named Madelene, accused me of calling her a slut.  That was my last day in the classroom--exactly five years ago tomorrow.

Child Abuse

Asking a child to sit in one of these infernal contraptions for six hours a day, five days a week, ten months out of the year, for 12 years, is child abuse.  I don't care how you arrange the desks--groups, circles, whatever, each child is still confined to a constricted amount of space amounting to approximately one cubic meter for a significant part of his/her childhood.  

"Oh, it's not that bad", you might say.  With the right teacher who knows how to "engage the children" it can be quite fun to sit in a chair all day.

But thanks to the special glasses I received while in the Rubber Room, when you see this...

I see this instead.

The World Will Never Look The Same Again

"They Live" Written and Directed by John Carpenter

I came out of the Rubber Room a different person.  It has taken a while for me to get to know that person.  The world will never look the same to me again.

Torture

The Rubber Room is a form of torture.

Because there is no physical pain,--Actually, there IS physical pain, so let me begin again.  Because there is no physical pain comparable to the many horrors that people have been subjected to throughout the ages, you might think that this is an outrageous exaggeration, but it is not.

There are many forms of torture.  The Rubber Room and the workplace mobbing that precedes it might be on the low end of the scale compared to processes like the one in this picture, but they result from the same cause and serve the same end.

The cause is that a social hierarchy is in trouble.  The people who are on top are getting worried that they can't maintain their position, so they start terrorizing the people at the bottom--and if they become really worried, they attack the people in the middle as well.  The more torture you find in a society, the less secure the power structure is.  That is of little comfort to the people who are being tortured.

The Rubber Room opened my eyes to the many forms of torture used in this society to keep people in line.  The prison system is an important part of it.  So is war.

After reading the latest posts on South Bronx School, I am sad to see that torture continues to be the preferred method of controlling teachers and children in the New York City Department of Education.

The King is Dead, Long Live The... ?

Yes, Bloomberg, the man who assassinated (notice the two asses) my career and the careers of hundreds if not thousands of teachers, will not be Emperor/King/CEO/Dictator/Fuhrur/Tyrant of New York much longer.  I would be more hopeful that NYC politics would move toward more democratic principles--but that's the HOPE FOR CHANGE I had when Obama was elected. It didn't happen.

One man does not make a Democracy--but a few very rich and powerful men, can destroy one.

Now, what about Principal Sh _ _ _ _    T _ _ _ y?   Will the principal who lied and got children to lie for her be fired?  Or will the new mayor recognize the advantages of having loyal slaves who do as they are bid, no questions asked.  I'm taking illegal bets.

And yes, I am back.  How could I resist contributing to the METTADATA at a transitional moment such as this?

If They Hadn't Sent Me To The Rubber Room...

...I wouldn't feel this poem the way I do.

Rhinocerous Woman by Assata Shakur

Rhinocerous woman
who nobody wants
and everybody used.
They say you’re crazy
cause you not crazy enough
to kneel when told to kneel.

Hey, big woman -
with scars on the head
and scars on the heart
that never seem to heal -
I saw your light
and it was shining.

You gave them love.
They gave you shit.
You gave them you.
they gave you hollywood.
They purr at you
cause you know how to roar
and back it up with realness.

Rhinocerous woman,
big momma in a little world.
You closed your eyes
and neon spun inside your head
cause it was dark outside.

You read your bible
but god never came.
Your daddy woulda loved you
but what would the neighbors say.

They hate you momma
cause you expose their madness.
And their cruelty.

They can see in your eyes
a thousand nightmares
that they have made come true.

Black woman. Baad woman.
Wear your bigness on your chest like a badge
cause you done earned it.

Strong woman. Amazon.
Wear your scars like jewelry
cause they were bought with blood.

They call you mad.
And almost had you
believing that shit.

They called you ugly.
And you hid yourself
behind yourself
and wallowed in their shame.

Rhinocerous woman -
this world is blind
and slight of mind
and cannot see
how beautiful you are.

I saw your light.
And it was shining

Unattached

http://www.davidtanych.com/unattached.html

 I live in the same neighborhood as the school where I was mobbed by students, administrators, teachers, and parents.  It is inevitable for me to cross paths with them.  I imagine that it must be something like living in Salem after being accused of being a witch.

When I see one of the people who colluded with Liar Principal Sh----T----y., I deal with it by ignoring them.  I walk right past as if they didn't exist.

I have already admitted to hating them.  I have tried not to fuel it by refusing to acknowledge their existence.  I have maintained rigid mind control, and have excised all thoughts about them.  That means that I have had to avoid the topic of education altogether.  I have also avoided this blog.  I haven't returned calls or emails from people I knew in the Rubber Room--the only colleagues that ever call me.  It was necessary because of the intense feelings of hatred and anger I felt every time I thought about what had been done to me.  I had suffered since the early 2000's when Principal Sh----T----y took over.   During that time, my feelings were totally shut down.  I actually marveled at how calmly I took it all. Then all of a sudden, about a year ago, I was flooded with intense anger.  I didn't welcome it, but it was there anyway.

Then, not long ago, I crossed paths with one of the Slave Brains that helped Principal Sh----T---y. and as usual I turned my head the other way and walked right on past.  But this time was different.  I didn't feel anger.  I didn't feel hatred.  It was a great relief for me.  Those are burdensome feelings, and it takes a great deal of effort to suppress and/or sublimate them.

I hesitated to hope that I was over it all.  Had I just shut down again?  But no.  Somehow, I am no longer attached to that part of my life.  I tried to find an image that would illustrate what had happened to me by Googling the word "Unattached" and I found this picture of a sculpture of a huge screw and wing nut.  It was perfect.  It took years to screw me and years to unscrew me.  

People are still back there screwing each other, but this wing nut is free to fly and will stay that way.

Training in Compassion

Compassion is different from pity.

"Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity. Pity has its roots in fear, and a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of "I'm glad it's not me."  As Steven Levine says:  'When your fear touches someone's pain it becomes pity.  When your love touches someone's pain, it becomes compassion.'  To train in compassion, then, is to know all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honor those who suffer, and to know you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone."  Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Training in compassion: You don't want to start with something you can't handle. 

It is as impossible for me to feel compassion for Principal S. T. as it is for me to lift this barbell.

In the last five years I have felt compassion for holocaust victims, lynching victims, witch trial victims.  I could reach out over a great distance in time and space and say to them, "My situation is no where near as grave as yours was, but I have new insight into what you must have gone through. I'm sorry for your pain." 

It was more difficult to feel compassion for the people in the Rubber Room.  We were not separated by time and space.  We were too near to each other.  Our fear, anger, and pain literally resonated off the walls.  I am sure that someday they will invent a means to see the energy of suffering the way we can see X-rays today.

There was no way to idealize these all too human individuals.  We annoyed each other endlessly.  Some enjoyed pushing others over the edge and then testified about their "unprofessional behavior" at their 3020a hearing.   Others loved to go around bad mouthing teachers and pronouncing the judgement, "And that's why he's here".  Did people act this way to each other in the Nazi concentration camps?  I think that they must have.

It is very difficult to feel compassion for other people who are in the same bad place that you are.  You would think it would be easy, but it's not.

Hatred

Hatred is a poison and it's antidote is compassion, according to the Buddha.   I was raised a Christian, and that is basically what Jesus said too, in different words, but Christianity didn't help me deal with the Bloomborg like Buddhism did.  Meditation, focusing on the breath, living in the moment.  That's what helped and continues to help--but compassion for them?  Not feeling it.  Can't even imagine feeling it.  The best I can do is live in the moment where Principal S.T. and the rest of the Bloomborg do not exist.  They are not here.  I don't have to think about them.

If I do think about them, I hate them.  I thought with time and distance the hatred would lessen, but it has actually grown.  It has grown to encompass everything related to education. 

I have to stop here to say that I have no plans to do damage to persons or property as a result of my anger and hatred.  Those people aren't worth the effort to do the crime,  much less the pain of doing the time.  I deserve to suffer less, not more.  Therefore, whatever suffering they might find in life, and I hope it's a lot, won't be because of me.  I can't speak for others, but the fact that not one New York City teacher has gone postal after everything they have put us through,  shows that I am not the only one who has been able to deal with negative emotions without resorting to violence.

So let's see, how much do I hate thee?  Let me count the ways.

I hate the word "differentiation".   You never heard that word before the Bloomborg invaded (except in Earth Science class) .  Now people are slipping it into their discourse with smug self-satisfaction as though mouthing the word somehow proves what a good teacher they are.  Slave brains.

I hate everything written about testing and teacher ratings as if it's all about improving the educational system for the dear little children.  That's a big fat lie.  It's about privatizing public education for profit--not for children, but for money.  Emphasize it.  Repeat it.  Money, Greed, Profit. Hedge-funders.  The 1%. 

I hate it when people begin a sentence with, "Of course, we all know teachers who should not be teaching, but....."  Come on, stop it already.  It's been a decade since Bloomberg began to cleanse the profession of "the few" bad teachers.     I don't have access to the data (does anyone?) but I'm willing to bet that they've gotten rid of half the teachers who were teaching when Bloomberg first came into office.  But it's not enough.  The bad teachers are still there--just look at the teacher ratings.  Face it.  If you have tenure, you're a bad teacher and your days are numbered.

I hate the way the UFT treats, as an isolated case,  each teacher up for termination and each school slated for closure.  Once the Bloomborg locks onto its target, the result is inevitable.    Wake up, people, it's death by a thousand cuts.  Stop allowing teachers and schools to disappear without a fight--a unified, citywide fight.

 I hate most of what is written about education and the people who write it.

I hate it when people say they don't hate the person, they hate what the person did.  What does that mean?

I hate what you people did to me, and I hate you for doing it.

Five Year Anniversary

Well, as it turns out, I would have had to resort to something much stronger than aspirin to keep writing about test scores, and it wasn't worth it.  I think I made my point in two or three posts, anyway. 

Why do I keep writing here?  Old time's sake?  No.  I stated the purpose very clearly in my first post.
That was on March 21, 2007, and I just realized that it's been almost exactly five years to the day.

"...I am going to make this a very public shaming, shunning, or what-ever-you-want-to-call-it. This isn't going to happen in some little dark corner of Bloomberg-land. So, if you want to see the step by step destruction of a very long, and, I think, very proud teaching career, then come for a visit.

Why have I chosen to display what could be a very painful process? Well, as a science teacher I have noticed that germs don't grow as well in the light as in the dark. Lies are germs. And truth is light.

This blog is my truth."

 I don't know what my expectations were.  I actually don't remember, so I'll just have to take my own words for it.

 " I am going to make this a very public shaming...." 

It didn't turn out that way.  Not many teachers found their way to my blog.  A few people read what I wrote--I'm sure Principal S.T. did--but despite the fact that Bloomberg stepped up his assault on teachers exponentially with each year that passed,  not many people searched the internet for answers to what was happening to them, their friends, or their loved ones.

They would have found me if they had--and if they hadn't found me, they would have found Education Notes, Chaz's School Daze,  Pissed Off Teacher, and many more.  There should have been thousands of hits on these blogs every day, and I know for a fact that there weren't.  Teachers were suffering in silence, and alone, and they were not using Google to search for answers. 

"This blog is my truth."

"Nobody cares", was the reaction I got from P.B., my chapter leader when I told him about the blog (which is how I know that Principal S.T. also knew about the blog).  He was right, of course.  But I am very glad that I wrote as much as I did.  I wish I had written more.  The reaction that my mind has had to all those years of suffering has been to blur it over.  I really don't want to think about it.  The book I threatened to write has not been written.  I've had over a year, and I should have gone through the mountains of paper they used to bury my career, but I can't bring myself to touch them.  All I  have is what I wrote in this blog and my responses to the disciplinary letters they wrote.

So I was thinking of closing this blog down.  I've moved on.  I'm Occupying.  :)

However,  the story's not over.  I'm different because of what I went through.  There's a lot of my so-called "truth" that I wish were not true, but it is.  The rage, the hurt, the anger... the hatred.  I wish I could say that I have moved on and don't care, but that is not "my truth".

I have been working through it on my own, and I don't really need to write about the process in this blog.  I mean, why give S.T. the satisfaction of knowing that she still has power over me?  When you hate a person, that is what happens--you give them power over you.  I hate that I hate her, but I do.

If I don't write about it here, I won't write about it at all.  Someday I won't hate her.  No feeling will connect us, and I will be free.

Value-Added Suck-Up

I'm particularly interested in Ms. B's ratings because she let another teacher (not me) take the wrap for something she herself did.

Back in early 2006, Ms. B. was teaching a math class that took place first and second periods.  Liar Principal S.T. had instituted the rule that no student could use the bathrooms first and second period, so Ms. B. dutifully refused to allow a student to go to the bathroom.  At the end of the math class the boy ran to his third period science class taught by my colleague K.N.  This extremely obedient child asked for a pass to the bathroom, but K.N. reminded him that he had to wait 10 minutes because the bathrooms were locked during the first ten minutes of the period (another rule imposed by Liar S.T.).  The boy couldn't wait, so he ran out in search of a bathroom.  However, they were all locked.  He had an accident in his pants, his parents were called to bring him a change of clothes, and someone filed a complaint.  Ms.  B. who had had him for two periods--a total of 90 minutes-- was not charged.  Liar S.T. who ordered the bathrooms to be locked was not charged.  My colleague K.N. was brought up on charges of physical abuse.

I was the only teacher in the building who defended K.N.  

K.N. spent a year in the Rubber Room and eventually left the DOE. Ms. B. is still teaching at the school, and now we can all see her name  in the newspaper.  Despite my feelings to the contrary, I'm willing to admit that not ALL the teachers that appear in the newspapers deserve to be there,  but SOME of them, like Ms. B., deserve that and more.

Ms. B. was Liar S.T.'s best friend.  I'm sure she was useful to S.T. in mounting cases against more than one teacher, including myself.

So let's look at her ratings, shall we?

The 2007-2008 TDR tells us that Ms. B. had 6-10 yrs of teaching experience: That her multi-year score was 21, and her 2008 score was 33.  Wow!  Those scores are really low, Ms. B.  Too bad they couldn't value-add the suck-up factor--or maybe they did.  Maybe that's what value adding is all about--because nobody except the Math and ELA teachers have any idea what it means.

The 2008-2009 TDR tells us that Ms. B. had more than 3 years of teaching experience.  Her multiyear score was 17 and her 2009 score was 6.  Just in case we couldn't figure it out for ourselves, the DOE put big letters next to these numbers "BELOW AVERAGE".  

The 2009-2010 TDR shows that Ms. B. had a much better year.  She was back in double-digits with a 30 for that year.  The DOE calls this an AVERAGE RATING.  The multi-year score is also back in double digits (18), but still BELOW AVERAGE. 

So there you have it:    Other teachers were U-rated out of the school, but Ms. B. survived to teach year after year.  Now you know why.  It's thanks to value-added sucking-up, and the margin of error on that is infinite.