Annual Labor Day Post

Who will advocate for workers? The bigger the business, the less connected to the workers management becomes. And let’s recognize that the goal of a business is not to take care of workers but the investors (whether public or private); if that goal comes at the expense of workers, well, there are more workers out there, right? 

On my way out the door at Hancock, I was informed by the (then) superintendent, “I’ve got people who can do what you do.” I believe that was shortsighted and, in fact, inaccurate on more than one level. But then he didn’t really know what I brought to the party (honestly, it was a lot more than chips and dip, if I do say so myself) and building management only pretended to stand up for me while actually throwing me under the proverbial bus. But that seems the attitude of modern management in all fields.

(Note, as disappointing and hurtful as this was, it turns out they did me a favor, if perhaps not those students and teachers I might have benefitted by staying. But I landed in a great place to end (most of) my career, my four fantastic final years at Schechter/Mirowitz.)

So, in honor of Labor Day, I’m going to share a few paragraphs from previous articles on the topic:

From 2011:

• Child labor laws

• 40-hour work week

• Overtime

• Workmen's Compensation

• Non-discriminatory hiring practices

• Workplace safety laws

• Unemployment compensation

• Paid vacations

• Retirement pensions

This is just a partial list of gains for workers granted voluntarily through the generosity of businesses concerned for their employees. Oh, wait, no, these things that we now define as givens for a good job came as the result of decades of struggle by organized groups of workers known as unions.

From 2013:

I’ve previously written about the debt that most Americans, with the possible exception of those few whose families have always enjoyed prosperity, owe to labor unions. The growth of the middle class in the United States clearly parallels the growth of labor unions. The shrinking number of middle class households of the last couple decades follows that same trend of declining union households. While I understand the dangers of equating causation with correlation, I find the trend disturbing. I also find the charges of class warfare disingenuous, at best. I find it ironic that those concerns were nowhere to be found as the middle class shrank and income disparity grew, as unions were assaulted and vilified while CEOs saw their pay and prestige grow explosively.

I think our founding fathers were on the right track when they incorporated a system of checks and balances into our governance, trying to establish a system whereby no one person, group or branch was able to accumulate too much power. I further believe that checks and balances must also apply to our economic system, and that unions are a key check to the unbridled power of corporations (people though they may be). Government also has a role, both as a defender of the checkers (both unions and businesses) and as an enforcer/check itself.

Nostalgia

It’s that time of year, proud parents posting their annual pix of their kids getting ready to start a new school year, some even a new school or stage of life. Schools publicize themselves with pep rallies, back to school videos and pictures, kick-off events, etc.

So it’s only natural that I nostalgically look back on a long and fulfilling career and start to think, “God, I’m glad I got out when I did.”

Didn’t see that coming, did you? The first year away from my profession was hard because I left behind a group of kids and teaching team of whom I was genuinely fond, even loved, but during the opening weeks of that first year or retirement, I recognized that, for once in my life, my timing was right on target. I could have kept going, of course, relying on experience and a lifetime of accumulated skills to compensate for diminished energy and enthusiasm, but it wouldn’t have been fair to anyone, not my kids, not my colleagues, not my family, not me.

So keep those pictures and posts coming, stay proud of your kids (whether your own or those you have the privilege to teach or work with), keep supporting your schools and teachers (you do make a difference and you do make your school better by being a part of the solution). I’ll be sitting at home, rooting you on and every once in a while summon the strength to stand up and cheer!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Dear Ms. Teaching,

This is such a hard letter to write, and I’ve been struggling with it for a long time. As prone as I am to dither, agonize and procrastinate when faced with difficult choices, I have made a decision, and I think it’s best to be direct:

I’m sorry, but we have to break up. It’s time. Look, we’ve been together, more or less, for 45 years now and I just don’t think I can maintain the relationship any longer. I mean, it’s been fun and all, and I’ll always remember, with great fondness, our time together. You’ve helped make me who I am today and I appreciate that. You’ve made me a better person, father, maybe even husband, although I’m not sure Carolyn always agreed, even as she has loyally and patiently stood by me. Still, I’ll never forget you — I confess that you were much more than a dalliance; no, you were a part of me, almost the definition of me.

That’s the problem, of course. In the competition for limited time, you frequently won and my family lost. It is never good news when your daughter’s first complete sentence is, “Daddy’s at a meeting.” You consumed me, my time, my energy – and I loved you with an undeniable ardor. I guess I always will, but it’s time to end our, yes, I’m saying it, our affair.

Oh, please, you’ve had to know this was coming for a long time. Just accept it and move on. There are lots of younger, more energetic, more ambitious targets of your various and undeniable charms who can meet your ever escalating needs.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Really, as trite as it sounds, it isn’t you, it’s me, although surely even you must admit that you have become increasingly needy, increasingly demanding. I don’t know, maybe you always were but I was just so smitten that I couldn’t see it. I was obsessed, our connection so strong, we just seemed meant for each other; but that passion which once possessed me has not just diminished, it’s disappeared, completely gone.

But even if a passion ember still existed, the energy to do anything about it does not. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I couldn’t get through our most recent tryst without a nap! Where I used to think about you all the time, often ignoring my family and neglecting my obligations to please you, now, once I leave our room, I devote almost zero energy to you. You deserve more than that, you know you do. But my family also deserved more and it’s (finally) their time now.

So this is it. Yes, I know it sounds harsh, but please, I’m begging you, don’t call me. I’ll call you if I want to get back together, but don’t wait up. No, I mean it, don’t call me. Because if you do we both know I will at least be tempted to respond to your siren call, and resisting temptation (and flattery, and the need to be needed) has never been one of my great strengths.

Thanks for everything, thanks to everyone, all those who made our affair so memorable. But I’m done. Buh-bye.

You're Fired!

Before Donald Trump ultimately delivers his own coup de grace (surely some statement so outrageously stupid will finally sink his ship, although current polls and events offer depressing evidence to the contrary, despite his best efforts to live down to my expectations) and fades into (at least) political oblivion, I thought I’d share my story that ties into his (typically despicable) catch phrase. I am going to post it on both my Hancock and personal blog because, well, I can.

The setting: Year 5, which some of you might know as Tenure Year. Although tenure’s protections are vastly overrated, it does mean that administrators must at least follow procedural rules to fire you. (They do NOT need to actually prove their allegations.) Prior to that, it’s a simple, “Buh-Bye.”

I don’t claim that I had achieved anything close to Master Teacher status by this time in my career. In fact, I make no claim to have ever achieved that. But this was an especially tough year.

• A new principal, the late John Gibson, arrived. 

• I was the president of the teachers union and was a constant (and some would argue, perpetually obnoxious) PIA to administration. I was also effective.

• I had the worst class in my entire career (of course, I didn’t know it at the time; I probably DID intuitively know that if many more like that had followed I would have self-terminated, at least as a teacher): Freshman English, a class roster of 28 students, 24 boys and 4 girls, with family names that read like a Who’s Who of Lemay infamy (including a couple of the girls). Average reading level of 12^th percentile, with the highest at the 25^th percentile. 20% were off the chart at the bottom. (I know of only 3 from that group who graduated, although I may have missed 1 or 2.)

• I was naive, believing that I could change the world and them. I kept trying to actually teach instead of just retaining (some semblance of) control. I had yet to learn that you couldn’t actually teach unless you had control; I hadn’t needed to know that the previous four years. So at least I learned something that year.

• I was not a good teacher for those kids. Could someone else have done better? I don’t know, but they could hardly have been worse. (They DID provide me with some of my best stories, though.)

• Relatively new father, with new responsibilities in that area and resultant marital stresses did not help.

Did John Gibson actually have orders to fire me? Can’t prove it one way or another, but he was an ambitious man and knew, at least instinctively, that getting credit for my leaving the Place would be a feather in his cap.

I was struggling. It was no secret. Gibson told an English department colleague concerned about evaluation that it would be unfair (his words), for example, to evaluate me based on that one class. (I remember no particular problems with any of my others; neither do I remember even one bona fide evaluation prior that point in my career. One year’s consisted of the principal stepping into my room and throwing me a mini-basketball from Lemay Bank; I successfully reached down and to the left to make the grab and earned praise: “You’re all right!”) Guess which was the ONLY class he sat in on and on which I was evaluated.

That spring, the late Jim (father of Cardinal broadcaster Dan) McLaughlin and I were in the lounge next to my room when the late Don Steckhan, math teacher emeritus, came huffing and puffing up the stairs. (Steckhan was a 5x5 smoker, so that description is pretty literal.) PCs were at least a decade away from common usage; everything was handwritten on paper, and Steckhan had a habit of perusing said papers on the principal’s desk while he was away.

“You need to get down there,” he wheezed. “You're being fired!” Mac (and I? – maybe) immediately headed down, confirmed what Steckhan had seen on the evaluation, and the wheels started turning.

I met with state union reps, lawyers were contacted, strategies discussed (including initial preparation for a lawsuit claiming a violation of my 1^st Amendment rights – did I say I tended to be outspoken and critical?). Most importantly, Mac (the law school graduate) set up a sidebar meeting with Superintendent Brodbeck. As near as I can tell, whether this was a plot or just a rogue operation, Brodbeck was either not in the loop or up for a fight. In any case, he assured Mac, “We don't want to fire the union president.”

They didn’t. When the evaluation conference was finally held (the shortest in my career, except for the year the [different] principal wasn’t speaking to me and just shoved it in my mailbox) the cover sheet, and ONLY the cover sheet, had been changed to read, “Recommended.” This despite, if you believe what was actually written on the evaluation itself, my being the worst teacher in the history of the universe. If I had believed it, I would have fired me. Instead, not even attempting a rebuttal, I took the win, signed the document, and left the office.

And life went on. By the time I finally retired, 29 years later, I think my personnel file had its own file drawer.