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I recently completed a 3-week book tour for Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire. It was rather ironic. I was supposed to be on the road inspiring teachers and parents, but more often than not, I was the one being inspired.
I met thousands of caring and talented people. There are so many citizens in our nation who are working very hard every day and making a difference. We never read about them in the newspaper or see them on television. I met a man who has been a fabulous teacher for forty-five years in Portland, Oregon. It's exciting meeting heroes. It can be depressing that our culture seems more intrigued with Britney Spears' underwear than amazing individuals like the man in Portland.
Sadly, at every appearance on the tour I was asked the same question. A teacher would stand up and say, "Rafe, what do you think I should do? I love being a teacher. I am doing extra things with my kids, and the children are fantastic. But some of my fellow teachers are mean to me."
Perhaps the teacher began a chess club, or was coming in early to give struggling youngsters extra help, or putting on a play after school. Time and again, these dedicated stars felt the stinging pain of a colleague making critical and often downright mean-spirited comments. One would think the coworkers would be cheering. Instead, the final comment to some of these extraordinary teachers was "Are you trying to make us look bad?"
Last year, one of the best teachers I have ever seen left my school. The guy was a wizard. His kids did amazing things, and he humbly worked hard every day. He never asked anything of anyone, and never showed off. Yet a few teachers at our school were so mean to this gentle soul that he left. And the students at our school were the losers.
At every stop, I did my best to tell the truth. I wish I had a simple answer to this problem. I don't. All I could do was express what I have seen over the last quarter of a century.
When people are mean to you, try to remember this is not personal even though it feels that way. In any profession there are mean people. There are mean doctors, architects, lawyers, gardeners, and grocery clerks. It's the nature of our species.
Consider that when someone is mean to you, even though you are doing nothing wrong, it is a statement about them and not you. When someone is nasty to me at school, I take it as an opportunity to be kind in return. It's not easy. But in being nice to disagreeable people, it gives me the right to ask my own students to be nice. They see me being gracious and kind to those who are not. The children learn that to make our world kinder, it starts with us. If we keep escalating the spitefulness we all lose.
And if this helps, repeat this line to yourself but never out loud. If someone asks, "Are you trying to make me look bad?" you can think, "No I'm not. You look bad all by yourself!"
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Rafe Esquith, 
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Are you trying to make me look bad?
My internal response to that query is, "Jesus is today believed by many to be the best man that ever lived on this earth. Yet they hung Him on a cross."
When we know we are doing the right thing, for the right reason, we just do it anyway, no matter what the critics say. Our true judges will be the children who learn from us, as they go forth and pass on the fruits that have developed on their own trees of life.
I appreciate your book, and your blog. Thank you for having the courage of your convictions, and the determination to stay with it even when things get tough.
"You are trying to make us all look bad."
My sins? My ESL students had a higher passing rate on standardized tests than the school average even though they did not speak the language and we meet in the hall and do not even have a classroom (I wasn't allowed to even participate in proctoring the second year). My college students had a 28% higher pass rate on the departmental final than the average (exams not taken in my presence, not designed by me and graded by other professors). My people with special needs had a higher graduation rate than the overall. It is not that they are mean to me. I could not care less without doing physical damage to myself. It is not that they keep breaking into my cabinets and stealing my supplies and books that I buy out of my own pocket. I keep getting non-renewal of contract notices just before I can get tenure, the next level of certification, whatever b/c of alleged paperwork problems related to my certification, transcripts not received, file incomplete, etc. or for teaching ESL too well and having too many students pass out (yet there are uncertified teachers being hired every day to teach ESL). We have teachers teaching for 9 years with just a GED, and I have 2 certifications and a Master's Degree + and take CEUs, seminars and workshops every semester!! The state of education is right where the teachers/administrators, even some of the parents who do not want their darlings pushed to be all that they could be, want it to be, if you ask me. My students write me thank you letters, have their friends request me, cry when I'm gone, call/e-mail me with questions their new teachers can't answer. That is what I care about.
They have managed to run me off. I have lost three husbands because my world revolves around teaching, lesson plans, research, grading papers, and extracurricular activities. I am getting too old to have to keep starting over every year or two.