The following are some of the
things I was speaking-up against which resulted in massive harassment and
defamation imposed by administration.
1. Electronic Anecdotes of
Student Behavior
I spoke against electronic student behavioral
anecdotes that we were being forced to enter into fallible websites like
Dedication, Teacher Ease, and the like. We know that corporations and agencies
are using people information from different social websites (like facebook,
myspace, and …) to profile individuals. Once information is placed on the internet
it is there forever. It creates a permanent cyber foot print even after it has
been deleted. What is more, that information is accessible to anyone around the
world.
The big question here becomes: How
would you like your son or daughter, when they get older, to be profiled and
judged unfairly, based on poor judgment that they exercised when they were
young. How would you like for others to use this information to make decisions
about your children’s future?
What is worst, these behavioral
anecdotes are completely one sided. There is never an opportunity for students
or their family to shine light on their account of the incidents cited on these
websites.
No one can assure us that the anecdotes
that we are forced to enter into these websites, about our students are
completely private and no one can assure us that this information will not be
used by other people later on to pass unfair judgment about our children which
can impede them from opportunities.
2. Coached and coerced to lie
on these surveys
All Department of Education’s Surveys are
administered completely unscientifically and results are filled with
confounding variables. The surveys are intentionally administered unethically
by administrators. Students and teachers are coached and coerced to lie on
these surveys. Therefore an accurate representation of what is really happening
in the school building is never attained through such measuring tool.
Administrators deliberately lie to
students and teachers about the anonymity of these surveys but everyone seems
to know better. Students from my science classes, particularly, learn about the
ethics of conducting scientific research, including the sound use of surveys. They
know that in order to control for the attainment of honest answers surveys should be genuinely
anonymous and optional. Neither of which are offered here.
Every year I hear teachers and students
warning each other to be very careful how they answer the questions because it
can all be traced back to you.
Your name is always associated with a specific
computer generated number which appears on the survey form. Administrators direct
teachers to sign a sheet of paper in a particular order and then take a
“nameless” survey card in a particular order.
Students are pulled out and reprimanded
for resisting in filling out their survey. When students from my science class
would object to the unfairness of the survey I would be reprimanded by
administrators and I would be the only one in the building assigned a proctor
to monitor me read each question aloud to the students. Yes you read correctly,
teachers are mandated to bias the results of these surveys by reading each
question aloud, reiterating, interpreting, and suggesting how each question
should be answered.
Speaking up against this faulty
unethical practice, which blinds the public to what really is going on in the
school building, caused me to be targeted and harassed by administrators.
3. Excessive classroom
interruptions with complete disregard to
the impact in which this has on learning.
Excessive classroom interruptions with
complete disregard to the impact in which this has on learning was another
significant problem I attempted to diplomatically address with administration but
was met with much condescension and hostility. The harassment inspired me to
write and send out to all parties involved a memo titled, The Attention Span
of a Squirrel. (see below). This memo intensified the harassment by
administration.
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 12:34 PM
Subject: From Mr. Perez & Classroom Observations
The Attention
Span of a Squirrel
Greetings!
Social psychologists have long researched and written about the influence which
an observer has on the behavior and mindset of people being observed. An
observer’s influence on the observed is not just limited to humans but also
found as a response by other organisms. Such influence has been supported by
different types of bio-feedback measures such as heart rate and galvanic skin
response. Said influence is referred to as reactivity. Although we can
all relate to the idea that people being observed react to the presence of an
observer, this also holds true in the other direction. Observers also react to
the presence of people they are observing, which in turn, arouses a multitude
of other reactions, which together create a complex web of distractions.
Research has also shown that performance on complex tasks is often inhibited by
the presence of an observer; a phenomenon researchers coined the social-impairment
effect. Social-impairment effects are found to be dependent on not only the
complexity of the task on hand but also who is doing the observation.
It is critical that we, as facilitators of learning, seriously consider the
direct impact that reactivity and social-impairment effect has on
the focus and learning of our learners, as a function of obtrusive
observational visits. It is equally critical that we consider the additional
instructional time that is wasted because of the need to redirect our learner’s
focus on the lessons on hand, also as a function of obtrusive observational
visits.
Off the top of my head, my classroom has been observed, thus far, over 19 times
in the 18 weeks since the opening of the school year, (approximately 4 parent
tours, 4 engineers and maintenance staff visits, 4 teacher tours, the group
interested in opening up a dual language school, New Vision staff, … ). What is
more, we are anticipating further distractions by the Quality Review Team and
now additional teacher observations.
On Friday, January 28, 2011, I was given a “heads-up” by Ms. H whom
said that, “either D & M or D & myself will be coming to
observe your class on Monday”. According to Ms. H “these are classroom
visits that we all discussed and agreed to do”. When I prompted for a
description of what was meant by “we”, Ms. H responded, “me and your
cohorts”.
I wish to affirm here that I never agreed to these additional classroom visits. On
the contrary, I expressed my opposition to the idea during an advisory meeting
that took place on January 19, 2011 before Ms. Mc, Ms. R, Ms.
L, and Mr. La.
It is also worth mentioning that the complex and subtle distractions caused by
the reactivity of being observed are further compounded by the learners
developmental default struggle to maintain focused, environmental factors such
as phone calls in the classroom, (many which are done in error, for example-
caller looking for a person in a different location), students entering the
classroom late, loud speaker announcements, staff that come into the classroom
requesting to speak to a particular student or two, staff that come into the
classroom requesting to make an announcement, students that are sent by staff
to borrow materials, fire drills, flyer and memo distributions, etc.. Which
raises the following question - are we in fact facilitating learning or
attention deficit?
In respect to the reasoning behind the additional classroom visits, which is to
see what other teachers are doing in their classes to better control student
behavior, we should all consider the following. People’s tendency to react to
observational research creates a confounding variable which compromises the
validity of the research results and thus the effectiveness of any behavioral
plan that may stem from said research. In other words, what you observe is not
representative of how the learners behave when they are not aware that they are
being observed. Consequently, it is futile to create a plan based on such
information.
Sincerely,
Mr. Perez, Educator
4. Textbook School
Supply Scandal
Gross negligence
was perpetrated for two consecutive and entire school years on the part of all
administrators concerning basic school supplies for students (Textbooks, Workbooks, ...). My constant but
failed attempts to find rectification of this problem produced much unnecessary
stress and harassment from all administrators in the form of giving me the
“run-around”, of direct intimidation, interruptions of my lessons, and petty
summonses, in order to redirect me from the problem at hand. Documents
exist to prove this.
