Thrown to the Wolves

A teacher survives an attack on his career and learns a lesson: In union, there is strength

Photo by Fernando Garcia

By John Flickinger

I am named after my father. He is my hero. One night last February, he was sitting in his little, assisted-living apartment watching the news. He saw his son on TV. The newswoman made it clear that here was a guilty man. My father's feeble hands shook and his poor old heart broke.

January 6, 2003. I was excited to get back to my students after the Christmas break, and especially happy to be starting my yearly exploration of the mind of Henry David Thoreau. We began with Civil Disobedience.

Soon, my students' hatred for Thoreau's verbose 19th century style gave way to amazement at this brilliant intellect and his wonderful ideas. By the end of the week, fine young minds were interpreting the transcendental concepts of Henry David Thoreau, showing me things I had never thought of in all my years of teaching.

Then along came A-B block scheduling. We were told that instead of seeing our students every day for 50 minutes, we would see them every other day for 90. Two teachers surveyed the faculty: 149 against, 13 for. We took the results and a stack of research showing the folly of block scheduling to the school board. Their reaction was a "so what" shrug. "We are placing you on block scheduling. End of discussion."

The next day, the teachers wore black ribbons mourning the death of site-based management. It was decisions made by people in the trenches that made Montwood a national Blue Ribbon school. And site-based management is mandated by our state education department. But A-B scheduling was a done deal.

My students asked, "What should we do?" Being a teacher, I answered their question with a question. "What does Thoreau say?"

They dug into Civil Disobedience. "It's not only our right but our responsibility to make our feelings known," they said. I was so proud of them.

Students and parents organized to express their opinions. Two meetings were called by the district and abruptly canceled. Then, I heard rumors of a student walkout. I wrote on my board, "No Walk-Out."

The next morning, 1,000 students left class and gathered in front of the school. They chanted and waved placards, peacefully expressing their dissatisfaction.

Panic stricken, the district called the police. A hundred riot gear-clad, helmet-wearing officers turned a peaceful protest into a riot. The smell of mace in the clear January air.

Afterwards, the superintendent told us this riot was "entirely the teachers' fault."

Why do politicians believe our youth are too dull-witted and morally slothful to understand a moral concept and act upon it? Perhaps they judge others by their own standards.

The next morning, I sent an e-mail praising the actions of 99.9 percent of our students. I blamed the incident on arrogant district officials.

Security showed up at my door. I was told to report to the principal's office. I smiled at my students and said, "Some things never change. The words 'report to the principal's office' still give me that 'Oh no, what did I do now?' feeling." The students laughed and I headed downstairs. I was suspended for improper use of district e-mail.

National attention was now focused on our school. A sacrifice was needed. One other teacher who stood up for our students and I were chosen.

That night, I was ambushed on my porch by a local TV station with ties to the district. I refused to speak. On the 10 o'clock news, there I was peeking out of my front door. "The teacher rumored to have incited the riot refused to speak to us." My e-mail was read, edited to sound like support for the riot and an appeal for more violence.

Then e-mails began to arrive from places like Stanford, MIT, Columbia, and Notre Dame, from my former students. "Emerson and Thoreau and their life-changing philosophy are the reason I am here today," they said.

At the next board meeting, a parent delivered a stack of letters testifying to the influence of my teaching. Parents and students held signs: "Give us back our teacher." I tried to hold back the tears. I failed.

When I am 80 years old and someone asks me what I did in life, I will remember those students holding those signs. I will straighten up and proudly say, "I was a teacher."

The powers that be threw two of us to the wolves. I was out in the cold among the hungry lupus. I survived because of my defenders. My first stop was the campus rep of the Texas State Teachers Association. A lawyer in Austin jumped on a plane and arrived in El Paso just in time to quietly take notes at the Friday night district meeting. He was noticed. At every meeting, people were there to support me. When I walked into a potential ambush by district officials, I was accompanied by two union representatives who have spent a lifetime protecting teachers. And today, I am back in the classroom teaching the lessons of the last month.

We have people running districts who only care about power. Join the union. The other teacher had no support and he is still sitting at home. Join the union and tell your peers to join. You never know who they will throw to the wolves next. It might be you. Join the union.

John Flickinger teaches English at Montwood High School in El Paso, Texas.

Editor's Note

This is the final issue of NEA Today for this school year. Now the NEA Today staff turns to gathering story ideas, casting the net widely for good material for next year's eight issues.

Many of our story ideas come from NEA members who pass along their suggestions via mail, e-mail, or phone call. (See page 3 for a list of ways to reach us.)

And the writers pick up many ideas while at school sites doing other stories. Other NEA staff are another good source of story suggestions as are state and local affiliates.

In addition to gathering story ideas, we've enlisted the help of NEA Research and a national polling firm to conduct a nationwide telephone survey of NEA members to learn members' opinions of NEA Today.

The survey, which has been done nearly every year for the past 20, will help us identify the types of stories you'd like to see covered and which are of less interest to you.

For example, one survey question asks members to rank the following types of stories in order of importance to them:

• Federal and state education policy and laws
• Negotiating salaries, benefits, and workplace issues
• Professional development
• Race and the achievement gap
• Social issues affecting students
• Strategies to boost student achievement
• Student discipline and classroom management
• Technology
• Health care policy.

Other parts of the survey will ask NEA members how often they access information from the main NEA website, www.nea.org and NEA Today online, which contains the current issue, and archived material dating back to 1997.

Hearing from our members is important to us as we plan for next year. It's your magazine and your stories.

--Bill Fischer