Professionalism.

I avoided a run-in with our union leader today.

I bit my tongue because I knew that to stoop to that sort of verbal defensiveness solves nothing and sets a bad example (kind of ironic coming from the untenured rookie). I can only imagine how she makes her students feel sometimes. Aren't teachers supposed to be advocates for their kids? Aren't union leaders supposed to be advocates for teachers?

Take your job(s) seriously before you criticize how I take mine.

I have developed a pretty good sense of the multiple fronts that exist in a public school. There's the legendary clash between teacher and student. There's the clash between administrators and teachers. There's the clash between the parents and the teachers. There's the clash between the students and the administrators. There's the clash between administrators and parents. There's the clash between students and administrators. There's the clash between parents and students, which we don't always observe. And let's not forget the clash within these groups.

The whole social dynamic in a public school is ridiculous. It's places like this that suck people in and after a while chew them up and spit them out unrecognizable from when they first entered.

Though my tolerance for this sort of social interaction has grown, I still live by the dogma that if I have nothing but the best of intentions for the school and for my students, then there's really nothing to worry about (which is bureaucratically impractical). It's an ideal that's probably taken advantage of by administrators, but I'm okay with that.

Apparently, our union leader seems to think that the school using me in certain ways demonstrates some gullibility on my part. Honestly, I like being taken advantage of, it demonstrates that I am needed in some capacity (to me it's kind of flattering). I guess some people find it offensive to be taken advantage of (like why me?). Well if working for your school and your students is gullible, then I'm very gullible.

I suppose her little verbal slip just demonstrates a lack of perspective on her part, which is understandable. I am well aware of what the roles are of people and the sort of nonsense they have to put up with so I don't really lash out at the secretaries and the staff because it only adds to that clutter of BS we must experience in the work place.

It's interesting though that there are such rivalries within a group of faculty and staff. It's like teachers are out gunning for staff members and administrators are out gunning for teachers. It's a vicious cycle of witch-hunts that are really unproductive and they leave students wondering what the hell the school is doing for them.