Treating Teachers Like Children

I have this theory that because administrators have always been teachers, they don’t know how to treat adults. Their only models for leadership have been those that they practice themselves. As a result, they treat teachers like they did their students. Granted, some teachers deserve to be treated like children, but most of us do not.

A perfect example is this whole “letter in your file” thing. I’ve never understood how it works. It seems an awful lot like the infamous “permanent record” that we were threatened with in high school, but a lot more damaging.

Administrators really like to use the “letter in your file” method of discipline. They threaten us with it all the time. Most of us get pretty nervous about it.

I have a letter in my file because a student in my class had a headcovering on when the principal walked in. Actually, it was a small kerchief, and I felt bad about making the student take it off. She was having a really bad hair day.

So, now I have a letter in my file. What happens next? Do I grieve it? Do I challenge the letter? It seems like a great deal of work to do over a kerchief.

Chaz has written about the file concept and he addresses the legalities involved in looking at one’s file. We can’t even be trusted to look at it alone-we have to view it in the presence of the principal.

Makes me feel like I’m five years old all over again.

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