I walk around here with a smile on my face. I had such a horrible school experience when younger, one of my aims was to make sure none of my students have that same experience.  It is getting hard to keep up the façade again.

I worked in a few different photo-related fields before getting my teaching certificate.  I was a photo researcher/librarian for a famous paparazzo and for a major sports organization.  I was also an assistant photo editor for a weekly and monthly TV magazine in New York. 

The paparazzo I worked for was a grumpy old man who was a cuddly bear inside.  He was fine to work for.  He trusted us gals to do our jobs and never bothered us.  His wife?  Well, she was a nasty woman to the extreme.  Phenomenally fake.  However, if you hid from her in the photo stacks and just did your job, you were OK.  She saved most of her nastiness for the publications editors.  We gals who worked in that basement stuck together.  The one gal who kissed butt was not a part of our group.  We had a camaraderie that made working there fun, regardless of how busy or not busy we would be.  Plus, the husband and wife had bunnies who lived on the same floor that we worked on.   I liked that job.

I worked for the NBA for six years, including when I started teaching.  I thought it would be nasty.  I was female.  I don't like sports.  However, I am a hard worker.  That is what mattered there.  Yes, there were people who had their jobs due to personal connections.  Yet, they worked as hard as the rest of us.  If you were given a position there and you did not work, you stood out like a sore thumb.  If you proved yourself, you were urged to move up.  I was given opportunities to move up, but I chose to focus on teaching.  It was the most egalitarian place I ever worked.  Female?  Gay?  Short? Hated basketball?  A freak?  It did not matter.  If you worked hard, they liked you and treated you with respect.  They treated me well.  Very well.  And I do not mean monetarily.  It is known in the sports agency field that you do not work for the money - there is little unless you play - but for a love of the game.  I still dream about that job.  I wake up smiling.

I worked for a now defunct TV magazine in New York City.  I hated the commute - 12 hour days - and the job was sooooo boring.  I was friends with the mail room guy and the receptionists.  I was told that publishing is the most cutthroat business in the city.  Your best friend would sell you out for a chance to advance.  I saw a little of that.  I thought it was clique-y.  I did not belong. But it was not a bad job.  My editor treated me like crap, but she did that to everyone before me.  The chief editors knew this and I was the last person they let her do that to.  They knew there was a problem and dealt with it.  She improved her treatment of the assistants after me.

I worked in four districts before I came here.  I was taken advantage of in my first permanent job.  I was half time and was given tons of stuff to do with no regard for prep time.  The union did nothing for me.  My third district was a dream.  I saw how a truly well run district operates.  When the Board of Education, the Superintendent, administration, teachers, and parents/guardians all put the students first, you have a well run district.  I loved it there even though it was not my chosen grade level.  All levels respected each other there.  No teacher was looking to undercut a colleague.  No admin was seeking revenge on a teacher for not playing along.  There was nothing to undercut someone for.  There was no need for revenge.  Differences in opinion were respected.  It was understood that we all cared about the kids first, so every suggestion or idea was listened to and considered.  This was a strict that banded together when the board was stacked with people who did not care for anything but their own advancement.  The residents banded together and replaced those individuals with people who cared about the kids first.  I cried when I was let go.  The kids cried too.  I don't say that to be selfish or big headed.  We all cared about each other that much.  I was a maternity leave coverage and the woman wanted back.  So basically, I know how well a school district can be run.  I have some experience.

And now I am here.  I love my students so much.  I love what I do.  15 years here.  Four years teaching Sculpture, and now my 11th year teaching Photography.  This job is not getting old.  I still do a little skip inside when I see how happy the kids are at their first developed roll of film.  (8 out of 8 successful rolls yesterday!)  But this place is killing me.  I am now on two different medications.  The air quality in the Sculpture room is partly to blame for my asthma progressing from exercise-induced to full blown years ago.  This place is killing all the best teachers.  The only way to get ahead is to kiss ass.  Kissing ass does not make one a good teacher.  As a matter of fact, all the time spent devising ways to do that is time taken away from doing for the students.  I have learned abut what goes on in the classrooms of those who kiss up.  I have supplemented the teaching of many of their kids, without their knowledge.  They create the aura of being a challenging/hard teacher.  It is just an aura, no substance.   I am a good worker.  I come in two hours before clock in time.  I work through my lunch. I check my e-mail over the weekends and holidays.  I am there for my students and colleagues 24/7.  The only thing that keeps me disconnected is that I do not have a smart phone.  I have volunteered for countless committees and contribute to those committees, rather than just warm a seat.  However, I see that I have been left out of the DEAC - no representation of the specials on a committee that picks the next evaluation system.  I was on the first ScIP.  According to the state legislation, the members are to rotate.  No member is on the committee for two consecutive years. Tell that to my administration.  I have had ideas taken from me and passed off as one's own (class dues to pay for the yearbook, a garden club, and so on).  Under that creep JW, I had to deal with the threat of losing my darkroom every single year.  Now I have a sweet employee who tells me that my room will be another room for the Bergen County program in a bit.  But no worries.  I could use the little darkroom in room 148.  Yes, the one that fits 4 kids at most.

Then there are the little revenge bits that chip away at every fiber of your being.  Those of us who have been treated as such here all know the method:  administration or colleagues do little things that individually seem minor.  However, when done repeatedly, they pile up.  It is a systematic way of doing horrible things to us to break us down while making us seem paranoid for taking things to heart.  It is a form of gas lighting.  If we complain about our treatment, we are told we are taking it personally or are making a big deal of nothing.  However, these things are done to the same people over and over.  It is not a mistake,  It is how previous administrations did things and it carries on.  Oh, and did I mention all us victims are female?  This place would have one helluva gender discrimination class action problem if everyone had the guts to take action.

Instead, we all talk and talk about it.  We grumble.  We add to the list of doctors we have to see.  We take more and more medication.  We cry.  We slam doors and throw things in anger.  We try to find the time for creative outlets and social endeavors.  And we teach and love our students as best as we can given our situations.