Being Proactive Does NOT Mean Telling People What To Do!

Being Proactive Does Not Mean Telling People What To Do!

[A is for Apple, B is for Bastard.]

I say this because it reminds me of one of my former supervisors, or as he put it, “Your Superior."

  This is how I always saw Art, as a red-eyed, evil being, mostly because of how he presented himself and behaved.  It was as though I could see right through his seemingly rose exterior into his soul.  Pure evil.

And how exactly does one who is superior to you, make you feel?  Well, inferior at every turn.  Nothing you do is right.  He will always question your decisions.  He will get in your face about how to tie your shoes correctly; tell you when to go and how to wipe your bottom afterwards.

Art was such supervisor.  He ran our school as though he were the Headmaster of the Little House on the Prairie, one-room schoolhouse.  He insisted on micromanaging everything, from seating arrangements to who played with whom, to how to speak to parents, to misspellings in our lesson plans.  Everything.  He had what would be called a major case of, “Little Man Syndrome”.  He stood a whopping 5 foot 2, at best.

Oh, and don’t let the cheesy moustached smile fool you.  He was a bastard.

Sadly, it was only a select group of us that daily felt his wrath, and well, I was one of those lucky ones.  Or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it.  He wasn’t happy unless you were miserable.  That’s just how he rolled.

He had his favorites, for sure.  Sherri, the young, bright-eyed first grade teacher he’d “personally” hired.  She was the princess.  Rob, the handsome, suave, debonair fifth grade teacher whose sexuality was always a topic for discussion. And a few of the “old timers” that had tenure/seniority in the district: Mary, JoAnne, Robin, Chris, Erin, Andi, Karen, and the majority of the Classified staff.

I was “lucky/fortunate” enough to have not one, not two, but three run-ins with his royal-shortness during his time at our school.  A few of my friends were only involved in one such incident.  Once a year for three years, old sourpuss tried and tried to “get rid of you, one way or another.”  Those are his words.

Am I trying to “tarnish” his good image?  HA!  You have to have a good image before it can be tarnished.  Just sayin’.

What kind of a Superior/Principal/Supervisor takes the word of an outsider over one of his own Teachers/Subordinates?  And no, that’s not a rhetorical question.  What kind?  The worst kind.  Routinely, Arthur would seek out information from the parents of my students, inquiring about any little tiny thing that they, the parents, didn’t like, or that smelled bad, just whatever.  Oh, and he got his wish. 

Parents came forward in droves, wanting to be the first in their neighborhood to “expose this awful person for what he’s doing to ‘our’ children.”  Again, those are the parents’ words.  And sadly, ‘our’ weren’t even their kids; it was someone else’s little ones for the most part.

I suppose I should say, at this point, that during my 20 years with the district, I never had any issues with students.  Why would I?  Kids are very resilient.  They bounce back.  The challenge was always helping Mommy and Daddy, i.e., Mom + Dad, see that it’s okay for Johnny, or Janey, to fall down.  I will be there to pick him/her up and dust him/her off.  Maybe not immediately, since being a Duty Teacher was on a rotating schedule, but eventually.  And at that time, if he needs comforting, sure, I’m available for hugs, wiping away tears, snot, just whatever comes out.  Sadly, I drew the line at projectile vomiting.

Stephanie Brookshire.  She was a very nice, sweet little girl; somewhat quiet, reserved, but overall, yes, very nice.  A pretty typical first grader…except for one little thing.  She apparently had a very weak bladder.  When she said, “I need to go NOW,” she meant 5 minutes ago.  I found this out the hard way one afternoon.  Oh, and way too sensitive.

It was right after lunch recess, a time when most grade school teachers help their students settle down by reading to them and discussing what was read.  I’d just finished reading, and set the book down when, up popped Stephanie’s hand.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” 

And without blinking I said, “Okay.”  Now at this point, the boys and girls knew they needed to get the Bathroom Pass and then go to the Restroom to do their business.  Stephanie didn’t make it that far.  She no sooner stood up, when, and I kid you not, a yellow stream shot down her leg and onto the carpet.  And I did what any teacher would do:  Got some paper towels to try and soak up some of the urine, while helping Stephanie get dried off as best I could before sending her to the Office to call home and get some clean, dry clothes.

Somewhere between leaving the classroom and arriving home that afternoon, something very traumatic happened, which, to this day, I have no idea what it was.  No sooner than getting off of the school bus, about 15 minutes after the buses pulled out of the parking lot, I was called to Art’s office.

“Tell me about Stephanie Brookshire.”

“Pretty average little girl.  Has a few friends she plays with.  Good student, somewhat quiet.”

“I see. And what happened to her today?” Implying that she was somehow a victim, and that I’d done something to her.

“Well, as I was finishing up reading to the children, she raised her hand and said she needed to go to the Bathroom.  I told her okay and as soon as she stood up, she had an accident.  I got some paper towels and padded down the carpet, dried off Stephanie as best I could and sent her to the Office to get some dry clothes.”  Okay, so when and how did I mess things up?

“Mrs. Brookshire, Stephanie’s mom, is on the phone right now, furious that you made Stephanie cry.”  Made her cry? Huh??

“Well, of course, I’m very sorry that Stephanie is crying and about her accident, but when she got on the bus here to go home, she was fine.”

“Right, well, I’ll finish up with Mrs. Brookshire, and get back to you, probably tomorrow.  You can go now.”  Great.  Wonderful. 

Next morning right at 8:00 am, Art was at my classroom door,

“You need to come to my office after school.  You’ll want to bring your Union Rep.” 

“What for?”

“I’ll let you know at that time.”

“If you’re not going to tell me why I need a Rep, then there’s no point in meeting.  I have more important things to do.”

“Be there.”  Fine, I’ll be there with a Rep, and lots of paper to write on.

Clearly, Arthur did not like being questioned. He was visibly irritated.

“Mr. Brown, thank you for coming.  Lori (the Union Rep), nice to see you as well.  There was an incident in Mr. Brown’s room yesterday involving one of his First Grade girls.  She had an accident, wet herself, Mr. Brown admonished her and she went home in tears.”

“Well, Art, I’ve known Tom for a few years now, and that just doesn’t sound like something he’d do.  At best, he’d try to keep her calm, and get her cleaned up.”

“No. That is not what happened.”  Now, at this point, if I’d have thought about it, I would have spoken up, because actually, yes, that was how it went down.  Art wasn’t there so he’s going on Mrs. Brookshire’s second hand account.  I digress.

“Okay, so, Art what are you getting at?  What is it you want to have happen here?”

“I want Tom on a Plan of Assistance for the remainder of the school year.  He was shown a great lack of judgment and he needs help to turn that inappropriate behavior around.”  Wow. Really?  All of this just because a little girl wet herself?  Seriously?? 

She was probably more embarrassed than anything else.  And not from anything I did, but because the other kids saw her relieving herself and scooted away so quickly.  It looked a whole lot like dropping a rabid dog into the center of a room full of cats.  That’s how fast those kids scooted away. 

So, what was the real reason Art was doing this?  My theory is that he just didn’t like how well I got along with my students and their parents.  The kids loved me.  Their parents, for the most part, they loved me.  I wasn’t perfect, but pretty darn close.

We’ll/I’ll never know the underlying reason(s) for Art’s behaviors and decisions in this instance, but suffice to say a plan was set up whereby I checked in with him weekly, showing him all occasions during which I needed to discipline my students.  My teaching suffered that year, and for the two subsequent years Art was in my building because, honestly, I didn’t feel as though I could discipline my little ones without Art finding out about it second hand again.  *sigh*

I had a couple of hunches about Stephanie’s “condition”.  First, she may have had a bladder infection that was never fully cured or rectified, and/or second, during her toilet-training days, she never learned to “hold it”, causing her to simply relieve herself just whenever/wherever there was the slightest hint of discomfort down there.  Neither of these was of any use to me at this point.

That was strike one.

Strike two came later that school year in May.  In this case, the strike in question was in the form of a handwritten note from one of the upper grade teachers.  It seems as though some anonymous person had been drinking or was tweaked out and called him quite late on a Friday night.

My guess at that time, and I still believe this, is that the caller had some beef with Rob, and used my name at some point during the phone rant.  And apparently the caller was so pissed at Rob that he called not once, but a total of three times.  Very weird.

His note to me read:

“Tom,

I did not appreciate getting three phone calls early Saturday morning.  That is a disruption to me and my family.  I do not expect to be disrupted like that again.

It does sound like you need to talk to someone about your feelings, however, I am not the person who can help you with your situation.  I strongly suggest you find a counselor or some other person to help you.

I hope this is very clear to you.

Signed,

            Robert Rossio”

I had absolutely no interest in Rob, either talking to him, or working with him, just nothing.  I didn’t dislike him, but, likewise I had zero interest in him, either.  Plus at 3:00 am on a Saturday morning?  Seriously?  Pretty sure I was in bed and asleep.

So, what happened next, well, should not have been a surprise, but it was.  Once again, his Royal Shortness showed up at my classroom door, and he was not happy. 

“We need to talk in my office after school.  It’s about what you did this weekend.”

“And what would that be?”

“We’ll talk later.”

From his tone, I figured out that I was already guilty of something I hadn’t done.

It was a rather short, no pun intended, meeting that afternoon.  Basically, Art reminded me that this was yet another lack of judgment on my part and an inappropriate type of interaction with a fellow teacher.  And, yes, I’d agree if I’d actually done something wrong.

Since I didn’t have any regular interactions with Rob, it was no big deal, and given that he tended to keep to himself, no one aside from me and a few people I shared it with, that seemed to be the end of it.

Strike One.

Strike Two.

Over the summer, although it was meant to be restful, I’m afraid that it wasn’t.  Going into the next school year, little did I know that although Art “said” these issues were resolved the previous spring, no, they really weren’t.  Someone knew how to hold on to things that apparently and outwardly were over and done with.

When teachers are putting together their classroom lists for the upcoming school year, they look at traits like behavioral issues, boys, girls, and ethnicity among other things in order to get a good mix of children.

Sometimes, however, try as they may, that mix is heaped with challenges.  That’s a nice way of saying “behavior problems.” 

This particular year, I had the deck stacked against me, as I had not one but four challenging boys:  Eric, Dustin, Henry, and Michael.  Through no fault of their own, these four had been placed in my care, and despite my previous two strikes, I still had some tricks up my sleeve.  One of the ways in which I managed my classroom, was to strategically place these four little guys as far apart from each other as possible, and with others that could demonstrate appropriate classroom behaviors most of the time.  I say ‘most’ because even the best kids can be easily swayed to the Dark Side.  Henry and Michael were two such kids.

Now, from time to time even we adults need to “excuse ourselves” and use the restroom.  It was one day near the end of May 1994 that I found myself needing to do so.  I asked my colleague, Andi, to just peek in for a few minutes while I ran to the restroom.  And she gladly obliged.

Upon my return, however, I noticed that she’d left and Dustin was jumping up and down on his chair, shouting.  I wasn’t paying attention to the shouting part, only the jumping up and down part.  I walked over to him and said, “Dustin, what you doing?”

Not a sound, no eye contact, only more jumping.

“Dustin, look at me.”

Boing. Boing.

“Dustin…”

At this point, I placed my thumb and two fingers on his chin and slowly turned his face toward me. 

“You need to sit down.  We’ll discuss this later.”  And that, I thought, was the end of it.

Oh hell no!

The next morning his mother, Mrs. Whitman, brought him into the room and apparently told her that I’d tried to “choke him, by putting your hand around his throat.”  Her words.

I told her I was sorry about the incident yesterday, but that my hands never touched his neck or throat, and that Dustin and I had already talked about appropriate behaviors in the classroom.  To this, her response was:

“He’s only a kid.  I’m a single parent and I don’t need this.”

I told her that Dustin was the only one jumping up and down on his chair.

With that, she stormed out of the room and spent the next 45 to 60 minutes talking to His Royalness, Art, about what Dustin had relayed to her.  This was on a Friday morning.  I didn’t see or hear from Art until the following Tuesday morning when he delivered a sealed envelope to me during class.

So, on that sunny Tuesday afternoon, I found myself, once again, in the hot seat in Art’s office.  Now that I think about it, he was the only one of my supervisors, ‘scuse me, Superiors, that felt the need to drag me into his office over a he said/she said with a parent and student.  No other time in my 20 years.  I digress.

Paul (the Union President), Lori (our Building Rep), myself and Art were at this meeting.  The mini-blinds were drawn for some reason.

At this point, Art started unloading his baggage that he’d seemingly said time and time again he had considered “closed”.

1)      Stephanie Brookshire, the little girl that had a urinary tract infection or disease, and required her to use the restroom on a regular basis.  Art concluded that I “admonished” her for having an accident.  I had to look the word up in a dictionary, as it’s not within the realm of elementary age students and not likely to be part of their or my vocabulary. 

I told him I disagreed with his assessment of that situation, but he continued.

2)      Calling Rob Rossio at approximately 2:00 am on a Saturday morning and use, “very inappropriate language towards him.” 

Same thing; I told him that this never happened, but apparently, again, I was not to be believed.

3)      Dustin Whitman, caught jumping up and down on his chair, and telling his mother that I “tried to choke me.”

No point in pursuing this because I knew without hearing another word out of his mouth exactly how Art felt.  I just shook my head and rolled my eyes.

At this point, we were done. I got up and left.

In 1993, you could ask those questions of your employees, and it probably was ground for dismissal back then, but, Art wasn’t going to simply pursue getting me fired on those grounds.

So what exactly came of all of this?  I’m so glad you asked.  I was forced, yes, under duress, to sign a statement basically that I agreed to not touch another child for the remainder of the school (it was late May 1994 by now), only praise the students and never reprimand them, and the clincher, report to Cascade Counseling Center for a complete psychological evaluation. 

That last part turned out to be nothing but an outright joke, mostly to the counseling center.  They had no idea why I was there at that time because they’d only heard good things about me and my teaching abilities from other teachers, parents, former students and several upper level administrators.

I apologized for taking up their time, but they went along with the evaluation nonetheless.  And no surprise, I passed with flying colors.

On the last Friday of the month, May 27, there was a meeting with the counselor with whom I’d worked (Ed Fuller), Art, Louise Rosen (a consultant for our Union), Paul (Union President), and myself.  The purpose of this meeting was to discuss exactly what direction we (Art, the Union, and me) were going to go from here on out.

I went first, since no one else was rushing to speak up.

“So, you’ve decided (looking at Art) that the incidents with Stephanie Brookshire, Rob Rossio, and Dustin Whitman are still active issues with you.  I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me, and yet these continue to be soar spots with you.  At what point are they going to be over and done with?”

Louise turned my way, and nodded her head at me, as if to say, “Yes, exactly.”

“These things will always be of concern to me as long as Tom is teaching in this district.  I want him fired, and I will continue to work towards that end.”  Art had spoken his piece.  Paul piped in:

“Art, no, you can’t do that.  He’s (me) dotted all of his I’s and crossed all of his T’s for you.  There is nothing else. You need to let this go.

I just sat there fuming, enraged, because I knew in my heart that Art was never going to let this go.  He hated to be undermined; it was part of that ‘little man’ syndrome he was living with.  He had a chip on his shoulder, me, and that was that.  The meeting was over, I shook Paul’s, Ed’s and Louise’s hands and left the building.  I got a call at home that Friday night from Louise, basically saying that Art was done singling me out and not to lose any more sleep over it. 

I had a great weekend!

At the staff meeting that following Monday after school, Art sighed, hung his head and said, “I have some difficult news.  The administration has decided to transfer some principals to different buildings for next year.  With that, you’ll have a new principal here in August for your inservice. I’ve decided to transfer to Tualatin Elementary in order to help guide them.”  (So noble of him, right?  No, the fact is that, Arthur, His Royal Shortness, was being transferred, a decision made by the Administration Office.  Art had no say whatsoever in that choice.)

I could hardly contain myself.  I looked around the room to Carolyn, Barb, and a couple of others that had been under Art’s microscope.  We all smiled and winked at each other.    We were finally free!

Hallelujah! You could almost hear choirs of angels singing on high.

It was a good day.