Teachers who bully colleagues
This is an extension of the previous article Teacher's Issues. Despite this, we still have teachers who bully other teachers. Here is a letter to them:-
Dear Teacher Bully,
This letter has been a long time coming, and I have ignored this situation long enough. I am tired of teachers who bully other teachers. I have been a victim and seen too many friends go through it to just sit back any more! In the past, your actions have made me feel inferior, and I am ready for it to stop. I am not inferior!
In the true fashion, I made a list.
For the love of teaching and team work, please stop doing these things:
• Stop sharing your opinion all the time. Everyone knows how you feel, so constantly stating the same opinion again and again is not going to change my opinion on the matter at hand, even if I choose to just sit silently and let you speak. I have no energy for things that are not constructive. If there is a conversation happening, and you believe differently, just stay out of it. We know how you feel.
• Stop speaking for others. “This person said this” or “this person said that”, as a means to justify your point is more than obvious. If those people wanted to share their opinion they would share their opinion, and participate in the conversation at hand. Guess what? They are not in the conversation, so your secondhand pieces of information are not valid in your constant explanation of your own opinions.
• Speaking over me. I can tell by your body language that when anyone else speaks, you are completely uninterested. It’s rude and it’s not professional.
• Stop speaking at me. If you talk about teaching, learning, or the business of education then let’s have a conversation about it. Don’t exert your opinions on me again and again, and then dismiss the opportunity for a conversation. Your approach to communication makes others feel as if they cannot have an opinion for fear of what you might say or do next. People engaged in conversations with you fear you. Let that sink in for a moment. People. Fear. You.
• Stop talking about yourself all the time. I know your lesson was perfect and we know that administration loves you. You do have amazing lessons and teaching practices, but that does not make you the be-all-end of teaching. It also does not make your ideas any better than anyone else’s. Sharing is of course great, but it’s a two-way street and if you are not open to listening to other people’s successes, then we don’t want to hear yours.
• Stop saying each year your class is the best or the worst ever. Why does it have to only be both extremes? When you have four or five other team mates, it’s highly unlikely that your class is the worst/best at reading every single year! It puts others down and deval- ues the struggle in our profession. We all feel it – trust me.
• Stop running and telling administration everything that happens. I am not admitting to doing anything wrong, but if you have an issue with me, I should not have to hear from administration that so-and-so says I am in violation of the handbook. No one likes “that teacher” who constantly has their nose up administration’s rear-end ... and to be honest it is contributing to my feelings of you being a bully because I can’t talk openly around you.
• Stop teaching the same thing again and again and again. Guess what... It’s not 1984 anymore and there are all sorts of new concepts and learning approaches out there! Don’t judge me for graciously accepting your “binder of resources” that has been handed down again and again and then not following it exactly. I am a professional, and I choose to create resources and teach concepts that are up to date. And I won’t judge you for teaching the same thing for 32 years. For the record, I have shared and you have not been open to other ideas outside the binder. (Whoa – that was a little more passive aggressive than I normally am).