What surprised me was this new twist on the official story-I had deliberately taken the job from her. Yes, I’d expected Debbie to not be happy about the decision. “What gives you the right to take a position from someone else who it was promised to for years before you even started teaching here?”Īt first I just stood there. “I just have one question for you,” she began, skipping the formality of a hello. I had just shown up from out of state less than two years before, an outsider, an intruder.Īnd that’s what Debbie was there to talk about.
Unlike me, she grew up in the area, knew a lot of people, had family and connections all over the place. She’d been at the school much longer than me. Being asked to fill that slot felt like a vote of confidence for me, and I was pretty pumped up to take it on.īut I’d heard that Debbie felt the job was promised to her. Seventh grade was considered the “challenging” year, the year when students in our state were most heavily assessed in writing, and a spot was opening up for next year. I was pretty sure Debbie’s arrival had something to do with my principal’s recent decision to move me to seventh grade language arts for the following school year. Debbie taught in a different grade, in another part of the building, and though we’d occasionally sat at the same table in meetings and exchanged cordial smiles in the halls, we didn’t really know each other. She never just popped in for no reason in fact, I didn’t think she’d ever been in my room before. When Debbie walked into my classroom, I could tell right away she was pissed. Once that was decided, school became a chilly place for me.
#Cult animosity shows no sign letting full#
I don’t know the exact number, nor do I know the full extent of their dislike, but it was becoming clear to me that in the minds of my fellow teachers, I had become one of the chosen ones, the principal’s pet.
#Cult animosity shows no sign letting series#
Through a series of incidents, I had come to realize that some of my colleagues didn’t much care for me. It didn’t involve being challenged by an angry parent or getting negative feedback on an observation. In fact, my actual teaching skills and my relationships with students and parents were all good during this time, but every morning as I entered the school building, I still got a wrenching feeling in the pit of my stomach. One of the most painful experiences of my teaching career had nothing to do with difficult students. Sponsored by Peergrade and Microsoft Teams for Education
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