Teach for Hysteria: Tunnel. Light. Go.

Well, I somehow sent out all my SBO transfers, and I went to the New Visions Schools job fair tonight. (Note: if you send an SBO transfer in, it gets priority over other applicants. They look at you _first_.)

This whole job search has really triggered a lot of my insecurities. Working at the Citadel has poisoned my confidence. I am miserable, feel like a failure, and am constantly subjected to more daily drama from Psychotic Man.

The other day, during a two hour harangue, PM told the math coach who works with my academy that 'Ms S. is the protector of that academy.' The math coach told my math partner, who of course told me. The math coach said, 'Ms S. protects the other teachers from criticism. Someone there needs to tell the people who are doing badly to get their acts together. Someone needs to come down on them.'

"I think," says my lovely partner, "that she was telling me since you were protecting everyone, I had to be the bitch. WTF?"

"Yeah," I replied, "except neither you nor I believe that yelling and harassing people is going to make them into better teachers."

I thought this was interesting. I guess I don't let the administrators come in and target people for criticism (that's putting it gently) when they invade our team meetings. I back my peeps unconditionally, and give suggestions and advice privately and respectfully. PM and dem always want to know who who who -- who leaves the rooms messy? Whose classes are most out of control? Who? Who? Who? Public shaming is their main management tool. So I redirect it, and reiterate that everyone is trying really hard, and yes some suggestions would be helpful, but picking on people would not.

The other day I told the math coach, who was sent as PM lackey, "Look, I am really sick of people coming in here and telling us what is wrong, wrong, wrong. We are all busting out asses to try to get these kids together (the Wild Children, of course). We call parents, we call psychologists, we give detention, we give incentives, we write referrrals, we have parents in, we meet with them after school, we talk to them privately, we talk to their counselors,we team teach during our preps, we give each other advice. What else do you suggest we do? Because we don't know." Of course, there was no reply to this.

Whatever. So that place has really cut my confidence in half. I have felt like a sucky, awful teacher. It is hard to explain to people exactly what is going on. But let me tell you this: just for kicks, I looked up "abusive workplace" online. And the symptoms fit our school exactly. I love the kids so much, but when I am away from that place, and their little brown/green/blue eyes aren't looking at me, I never want to go back.

So tonight I went to the New Vision Schools Job Fair. People were actually impressed by me! One woman said, "You have a great background. Lots of people are going to want to hire you." (She was cute too -- was she picking me up? LOL) I asked good questions and shared ideas! I was intellectually stimulated by people who were actually talking about education! I even had a conversation about Maxine Green with the Lincoln Center Intiative person! People were friendly! Someone offered me a job on the spot! (And I might take it -- we'll see what the visit is like!) I shared my teaching ideas and people thought they were interesting and that I might be a good teacher! I said I came from a terrible environment and people nodded knowingly!

Tunnel. Light. Go.

Now, I await the responses...