WEBVTT

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Well, it’s not worth trying to figure
out why a bully does what they do.

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I mean, you’ve got a bigger problem than that.
What do you mean?

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Well, if she’s bullying you in front of other
people, she’s also damaging you professionally.

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You need to protect yourself and your reputation.
Trust me - you need to take some addi-tional steps,

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or your professional reputation
could be permanently damaged.

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Like a lot of teachers at my school,
teaching is a second career for me.

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Our Principal doesn’t like us much.
She calls us non-traditional teachers.

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Nothing we do is good enough and if we do
come up with a good idea or take initiative

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she’s quick to slap us down.

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Hey, that looks great!

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Oh, thanks! I’m going to put this up outside the
classroom so the students can see it when they walk in.

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Great idea!

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You can’t put that sign up.

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Why not?
You didn’t clear it with me first.

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I just finished grading the final exams at 10:30 last
night. It was obviously too late to call you then.

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Come on! It’s just a poster!

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It’s not even 8am and already you two have
reminded me how incompetent my staff can be.

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I don’t have to explain this to the
real teachers in this building.

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Why should I have to explain it to you?

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The poster does not go up!

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Later that summer, Gayle sent an e-mail
outlining a ridicu-lous new policy:

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ALL classroom posters needed to be ap-proved by
her first. Then when school started in the fall,

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Gayle told us to create posters to
show individual student achievement.

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She totally stole my idea.
So she’s obviously only out for herself.

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That’s awful! So what did you do?

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Well, after she did that, I reviewed our school’s
policies on professional behavior and bullying.

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And then I started to document Gayle’s behavior...

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her e-mails and her rude comments from our last
staff meeting along with the poster incident.

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When I was ready, I confronted her and I reminded
her that another teacher saw my poster before

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she had taken credit for it. I also told her that I
was prepared to go to the district Superintendent.

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She changed her tune pretty soon after that
and she made a big show of thanking me

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for my creativity at our next staff meeting.