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Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Staying with it....the truth is the truth is the truth.
Dear fellow bullied targets:
I believe there is a place of some security and of sanity.
I am there. I have, in spite of many worried friends and co-workers telling me to "shush!" arrived, I think, at
a safe place. There is a threshold of truth telling. If you reach it; if you speak and seek the truth over and over and over
again; if you extend yourself as a source of help, resiliency, and information to all--bullied and bullying--you are safe.......well,
at least you are safer.
I recently posted this (email exchange below my name) as a comment on the
NEA article about bullying school administrators and school districts at:
http://neatoday.org/2012/05/16/bullying-of-teachers-pervasive-in-many-schools/I want all bullied teachers to know how much I appreciate you.
Thank you.
Kim
Kim Werner says:
September 22, 2012 at 7:28 am
Good Morning eveyone-
I recently responded to an article my local newspaper’s educational writer, Dr Pedro Suarez, had written. I was surprised
to receive an email from the paper’s publisher wanting to feature my response as a “letter to the editor.”
Our email exchange follows. I invite you to write letters of support to Mr. Tom Curtis, publisher of The River Citiies Gazette.
His name and email address are:
Tom Curtis newtcurtis@curtispub.net
This is the way we build a movement.
Kim
Tom,
You are welcome to use this anyway you wish. I’ve changed up a few things and
added a paragraph. You’ll see what it is. I thank you for getting this out. It feels obscene to me that so much attention
is given to keeping children emotionally safe in such toxic and unsafe environments for employees.
Hey, I don’t
know much about statistics, but I do know that each voice on the NEA site represents lots and lots of hurt and frightened
educators across the nation.
Thanks again.
Kim
On Mon, 3 Sep 2012 10:40:22 -0400, Tom Curtis
wrote:
Kim, I am forwarding this to Dr. Pedro–would love to run what you wrote as a letter to the editor,
complementing Dr. Pedro–you might want to edit it a little but it would be great. However, I need the final by
Tuesday
AM. Tom Curtis
Pedro,
I read your articles in the River Cities Gazette with much enthusiasm.
I find myself internally hollering “Yeah!!” often. I am a middle school counselor. I am also an Olweus Bullying
Prevention Program trainer.
And I am a former bullied target of a bullying school principal. That horror
led me to The Workplace Bullying Institute and that organization’s training in Bellingham, Washington. I needed to learn
about the dynamics of workplace abuse. I have come to understand, with great clarity and with great sadness, that there is
no way we can keep children emotionally safe from bullying if we, school employees, are not safe from the same.
I believe the rampant, fear soaked rage surrounding NCLB and all of its requirements and punishments is opening the
flood gates of rampant and fear soaked bullying of teachers by raging administrators. There are a lot of those around the
nation. It appears they simply can do what they want and not only “get away with it” but are celebrated for it
by their bosses. That certainly seems to be the case with my former principal. He, in his tenure as both an assistant principal
and as a principal appears to have terrorized many people and destroyed, at the very least, their professions…and more
often, their sense of themselves.
We, bullied targets, are all altered in some way. I’ve become a
stalwart truth teller. Although I am still, at times, terror filled at what might have become of me–maybe of what will
become of me if I don’t “watch it” as I’ve been warned–I feel compelled now to assist others.
Other targets, sadly, are not as lucky as I’ve been. They lose jobs, families and hope. Some have taken their lives.
Workplace bullying in schools is a very big deal.
I link to an article put out by The National Education
Association (NEA) called, “Bullying of Teachers Pervasive In Many Schools” from A Piece Full World’s homepage:
http://www.apiecefullworld.com. That article has almost 500 responses. To put that number in perspective, the next most popular article has
25 responses. I am participating.
I also link to a Montgomery County, Maryland lawsuit from A Piece Full World’s
homepage. I will be seated in the courtroom when that jury trial takes place. The six plaintiffs, elementary school teachers
who were taunted, intimidated and harassed by their principal, deserve support. Their case speaks for all bullied teachers
across the nation. The principal, by the way, has had no consequences. He is, in fact, still leading that school.
Thank you, Pedro, for being a voice of courage and honesty about the mess in which we in public education find ourselves.
Kim Werner, Creator
A Piece Full World
Workplace Bullying Prevention Trainer
Olweus Bullying Prevention
Program Trainer
http://www.apiecefullworld.comWell-loved. Like or Dislike: 26 0
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Click here for my district's bullying and harassment policy. You will see I have made comments....
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