The first worst teaching year in my 34-year career was the result of sloppy systematic change as well as the fact that I didn't appropriately change directions in light of the challenged teaching/learning environment that year. I learned that when struggle occurs, you have to respond to that struggle with a focus on safety first, wellness/team next and finally a focus on prioritized, most-important efforts. You can't do the job as you have always done it during times of considerable challenge and change.
My second worst year of teaching was a lesson in trust. For the most part, I have always been a trusting person. I simply believed that was true of most people and have mostly expected people to act with honesty and good will. I didn't expect people to work against your best efforts or ability, I just assumed that people wanted to help you be the best that you can be. Now, I realize that was a naive assumption. Sadly there are some who will work against you, and it is important to recognize that in the work you do and life you lead.
The seeds for the bad year had been planted long before. I had been too cavaliar with my commentary, too trusting with my affiliations, and not as professional as I now know to be. From my very first days in the teaching environment, I was working with educators who freely exchanged their opinions, judgement, ideas, speculation and conjecture. There was a fair amount of conjecture amongst the ranks probably because there was not a lot of good communication back then about what was happening at the administrative level and why that was happening. Yet, at that time, the connections between educators and the administrative team was much stronger than in my later years. There were far fewer administrators and greater teacher leadership back then which, in some ways, made the collaboration between educators and administrators greater.
As time went on, more and more leaders and teachers were added to the system ranks for multiple reasons including more state/federal mandates to ensure that all children were taught with sensitivity to their needs. What was once a small, familial staff was now a much larger staff who did not know each other well. New administrators were hired from outside the system and there seemed to be more jockeying for promotions too--many wanted to make their mark and rise in the profession. Again, as with my worst year of teaching, I didn't update my actions to match the changing environment. I still relied on staff to be as trusting, collaborative and familial as they had been in the past, but that wasn't the case. More competition, greater ambition, multiple new ways to look at teaching and learning, greater diversity amongst the staff and changing social patterns for families and schools had dramatically changed the environment yet I was still operating as if the system was the same system I started teaching in twenty-five years ago.
I freely shared my feelings, ideas, perspectives, and when sharing, I too often allowed strong emotions, expressions and words to relay my point of view. I clearly lacked both the skill and supports to navigate the change in the professional environment, yet I continued to have great passion and ability to teach children well. Without any outreach to help me build better skill, I was not aware of the needed changes and continue to operate as I always had. Then an incident occurred that struck me like a boulder.
While expressing words of advocacy to a colleague with passion, another colleague secretly reported the discourse to adminisration. The administration secretly worked with union members without my knowledge to greatly reprimand me and perhaps fire me. I had no idea this was happening. I knew that heated words were exchanged between the colleague and me. I was sorry I used such strong emotion, but I knew that the words of advocacy I expressed for some of our most challenged students was rightly directed. I was very frustrated that time, and again my advocacy for those students was unheard and dismissed, and that's why I expressed the words with such strong emotion. I also knew the colleague had similarly demonstrated emotion in the exchange--for quite some time, that colleague and I disagreed about significant teaching strategies and priorities. This wasn't our first disagreement.
Several weeks later, I learned about the charges. Both my union representatives and the administration worked against me. I hired a private lawyer to help me out, and the reprimand was quickly dismissed. To this day, I really don't understand what exactly happened beyond expressing words of discontent with emotion to a colleague, having another colleague report the words, and then having my union representation work against my interests, and then having the situation dismissed.
What was so upsetting about the situation was that I trusted my colleagues to work with me with honesty and good will. I also trusted the administration to do the same. I readily admitted that I was very emotional during the interchange and apologized for my charged presentation. I didn't have to apologize for the words used as they were words of advocacy for children's best interests, nothing more, but those who worked against me never apologized and were unwilling to sit down afterwards to discuss what really happened and why so I never had the chance to understand the full story of the event.
After the event, I sought expert consult with regard to surveying and understanding the landscape around me with regard to who to trust and who not to trust with my thoughts. I also worked on how to express strong statements, advocacy and beliefs with a calm approach and rather than use words alone, I put most of my advocacy in writing so that I had a record later on. Some of the same leadership that worked against me in that incident were dismayed with my written advocacy after the fact. I suspect it was much easier for them to lambaste me for words said than words written down perhaps.
As with my worst year of teaching, some of the struggle was due to my own lack of skill, experience and understanding of what the situation required. To some, it probably seems unthinkable to realize that I didn't know what I didn't know, but that was the truth of the matter as in both cases, there was never any ill intention, but ignorance instead. Also, in both cases, systemwide leadership offered little good support and that left greater struggle, but in both cases, colleagues offered some good support which was very helpful and likely made the difference between dismissal and good growth as an educator.
We learn from our worst years in anything we do and with good consult, steady effort and lessons learned, the bad years translate into many good years and that's the good of the bad experienced. Onward.