SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL: Five Stages Of Rubber Room Teacher Grief

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Five Stages Of Rubber Room Teacher Grief


So Mulgrew and his cohorts tell teachers sent to the Rubber Room that they should be happy for they are still getting a paycheck. But Mulgrew and his predecessor Sell-Out Randi Weingarten don't really give a rat's a** about what the teachers psyche. Teachers go through the five stages of grief, just like anyone else that has suffered a loss.

Today we examine these five stages and how they effect teachers.

1. Denial This is all a big mistake. I have been teaching for twenty years and until the 26 year old new principal arrived I have enjoyed accolades. I have years of thank you cards from parents and students. Former students from years ago stop by my school to thank me for making them what they are. This is wrong, this is a mistake. I won't let my family or friends know.

2. Anger If I ever see that principal or Klein I will stick out my tongue at them and flip them the bird. They don't know who they are messing with. I'll show them. I hate everyone in the Rubber Room. No one better sit in my chair. The principal is incompetent.
3. Bargaining Please, UFT district rep, this is all a big mistake. I know if I speak to someone myself this can all be sorted out quickly. Just find out why I am here. Mike Mulgrew cares about me. I pay dues every month so I can call the UFT HQ and this can be straightened out.

4. Depression I can't get out of bed in the morning. They all hate me in the RR. My union doesn't care. I don't know how much longer I can cope with being couped up in a windowless room.

5. Acceptance Hey I am where I am. The Rubber Room is my friend. No hassles here. Not going to fight it anymore. Monday's are Star Trek round table discussions. Tuesdays and Thursdays are circle jerk day (ladies invited). Tuesdays are for distance, Thursdays for accuracy. I can't count one anyone. Only myself. Not my union. Not my so-called friends at my school.

5 comments:

DAVID PAKTER said...

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The Five Stages of Grief After Hubris
What The Faux Chancellor Can Expect
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Those folks over at SOUTH BRONX SCHOOL. They NEVER miss a beat.

They can even read my mind and snatch words from my mouth before they have even exited my lips.

An historic letter was recently hand delivered to 500 Pearl Street in Manhattan. Every Lawyer knows that famous address. It is the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York. That letter was addressed to a well known Federal Judge.

It occurred to me, that as the 15 (Fifteen) Defendants named in that letter, start to run out of places to evade the long arm of Justice- (there are only so many dark and clammy places to hide in Central Park), that now would be a good time to sit down, and just for my own interest, list the Five Stages of Grief a Faux Chancellor goes through when his past catches up with him.

But the crack SBS Investigative Team has apparently beaten me to the punch.


Of course, to be honest, they were thinking of the five stages of grief teachers, (in particular, maliciously Railroaded and perfectly innocent teachers) go through when targeted by a certain Faux Chancellor's hired lapdogs and lackeys.

But actually, that Faux Chancellor will in time be experiencing the same, most unhappy Fate of passing through the Five stages of Grief.

Of course the Faux Chancellor I have in mind will absolutely deserve what is going to befall his "Legend in his own Mind" existence, as he passes through the Five Stages of Grief.

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DAVID PAKTER said...

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The Five Stages of Grief After Hubris
What The Faux Chancellor Can Expect
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CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

Let us explore what is in store for this most unhappy individual as the Wheels of Justice continue to turn, slowly but surely and inexorably to their final conclusion.

1) DENIAL- He will likely deny it is possible a mere UFT Member and teacher, who began his teaching career in the Fort Apache section of the South East Bronx, could get a Faux Schools Chancellor hauled into Federal Court.

2) ANGER - Oh yes- when his Defense team- (the most expensive money can buy), apprises him of the fact that he has run out of options to avoid a Court appearance, Mr. Faux Chancellor will be more than angry.

3) BARGAINING - That will be when the Faux Chancellor and his other 14 (Fourteen) Co-Defendants decide that maybe they can make some type of "deal" to escape having to pay the wages of their collective Sins.


After all, they were all, each in his or her own way, responsible for having visited and knowingly unleashed such undeserved Havoc on another man's Life, slandering his good name and knowingly and viciously destroying his highly Decorated career.

4) DEPRESSION - That terrible stage and state which the 15 (Fifteen) Federal Court Defendants will experience, (with no hope of escape), as they realize they were, and are, mere mortals just like the rest of us, after all, and that their Hubris in believing themselves above the Law, might have been a slightly exaggerated flaw in their personal as well as collective view of the Universe.

And as that realization, that thought begins to settle over their rather pitiful and rather ugly souls, and begins to dawn on and then weigh upon their twisted psyches, a certain form of inescapable depression will envelope them, such as they have never known or ever imagined could exist.

5) ACCEPTANCE - Here is where the stages of Grief of the Faux Chancellor and his 14 Co-Defendants may differ, split off from the main road and head in very different directions.

Some will perhaps try to make Peace with themselves, "find religion" and/or just start to depend on endless refills, bottle after bottle of Anti-Depressants.


Some will likely file Appeal after Appeal- hoping against Hope that somewhere, somehow, some Judge and/or Jury will, in a rare moment of compassion, witnessing their forlorn and sorrowful state, take pity on the Faux Chancellor and/or his conniving confederates.

But that is not likely to happen.

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DAVID PAKTER said...

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The Five Stages of Grief After Hubris
What The Faux Chancellor Can Expect
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CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

Faux Chancellor Joel Klein, Esq., a Former Federal Prosecutor, who possessed virtually zero State Education credentials to be appointed NYC schools Chancellor and who, in fact, had to obtain a State "Waiver" to be installed as Head of the NYC schools system, was and is the last person in the world who should have ever been entrusted with the futures of more than one million, mostly Minority, "inner City", at risk school children.

The willfull and wanton destruction Joel Klein has visited upon the NY City Schools System, due to his boundless ego, his boundless ignorance of all things pertaining to Educating inner city children, (or any children, for that matter), will require at least a decade to repair- assuming the damage Joel Klein has wrought, can, in fact, be repaired.

But for me this is personal. I had designed, personally financed and built from the ground up, the first Medical Illustration Program in America for gifted Minority High School students. The goal of this elite, highly enriched Medical program was to lift up, inspire and propel those students from the poorest neighborhoods in New York City, into the most prestigious Universities in our nation.

The program was successful beyond my wildest dreams and talked about by many and written about by a Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist, Clara Hemphill.

But once I became a Whistle-blower and wrote to Faux schools Chancellor Joel Klein, informing him of egregious Federal Civil Rights violations I had witnessed in my school, orders were given that I must be destroyed.

This is all fully documented in countless hundreds of pages of Court Documents and Exhibits that will be examined and considered by a Federal Judge and Jury at the proper time.

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DAVID PAKTER said...

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The Five Stages of Grief After Hubris
What The Faux Chancellor Can Expect
__________________________________

CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

But getting back to the "Five Stages of Grief", I can honestly say that no amount of punishment meted out to that very sorry excuse for a human being, (the notorious former Federal Prosecutor turned "instant Education expert"- with the stroke of a pen), the "Legend in his own Mind", Mr. Joel Klein, - no degree of punishment, I maintain, doled out to that pathetic man, can ever be sufficient to be considered commensurate with the degree of his crimes against New York's inner city, at risk, innocent and mostly vulnerable and defenseless children.

And I shall go to my grave seeing before my eyes the faces of all my students, who were to me as if of my own flesh and blood, who a power hungry, egotistical and despicable excuse for a man, robbed of their futures when my Medical Program for exceptionally gifted Minority students was dismantled and destroyed and I myself "disappeared" into the NYC Dept of Education's network of so-called "Rubber Room" Gulags.

Weep reader for all the children I might have saved, might have rescued from a life condemned to pulling at the oars in Society's Galleys, had the 15 Defendants who will one day meet with Justice in a Federal Courtroom, not conspired to have a former "Teacher of the Year" removed from his life's work of educating New York City's most socio-economically disadvantaged and most innocent citizens.

Those who will one day answer for their hideous crimes against me but far more importantly, for their crimes they perpetrated against innocent children, who were robbed of their dreams and futures simply because people wished to retaliate against me, -those individuals may with time, (some of them), regret what they have wrought and wish for forgiveness.



If there is a Divine Cosmic force able to Forgive such human beings for all their heinous and despicable crimes, against more than one million innocent children, and their more than one hundred thousand highly committed and dedicated Teachers, so be it, because I certainly cannot now, and never shall in the most distant future, be able to render up the least amount of forgiveness for their acts.

Such Forgiveness will have to originate and come from a higher power than myself.
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David Pakter

FidgetyTeach said...

Wow. Very powerful and very accurate. I watch these stages unfold before me every day as new teachers are reassigned and sent to the Rubber Room.