So, which one of you contacted Dayton's principal?

Yes, I would imagine that would count. He still has to read them and honestly try to understand what his superiors are saying but I imagine it does not matter how he writes it down.

It was not meant as a dig and was just a helpful suggestion I saw online.

That is all good and not to tear you down or anything but if you were as good as you are saying do you think you would have the difficult employment history you do have? I am just trying to help you see that there is room for self improvement and making your superiors happy by doing what they want is a big part of competence in a job field. Try to approach real life suggestions (maybe not internet suggestions) with an open mind, write down what they say they want you to do, and make doubly sure you actually do that.

Or discard what I am saying if you don't want anything to change.

I had an entire series of posts in My Diary thread about this subject in the last couple of months. Read that and you might understand.

Yet we all know that's your own delusional fantasy and that you are in fact a below par under performing teacher.

And there is no evidence of that whatsoever.

Yes there is.

None whatsoever.

You know better than that. We know better than that. Why do you insist on lying to cover your own inadequacies.

Best of luck with the job interviews.

I have a reporter friend (actually he's a multimedia journalist who shoots, writes, and edits his own stories) who's very, very talented. Really good at all of the "crafts" involved in doing the work.

He's been fired from his last two jobs (the first in early 2014, the second about 14 months later). Not for any shortcomings in the technical, creative, or journalistic part of his job, but because he disobeyed instructions from the management and was rude, insulting, and difficult with his coworkers.

He's been out of work since the spring and despite interviewing for jobs from coast to coast (literally, from San Diego and Portland to some place back east) he's been unable to get a job.

He messaged me the other day, perplexed as to why prospective employers couldn't see how "qualified" he is.

Sounds like a good man. I wish him well.

Sorry, unlike you I can't cover my inadequacies with a napkin.

Except there is, Dayton and you know it. How will you improve if you keep denying improvement is needed. All of these issues you have had with your employer and the previous one are not typical for teachers. They really are not. It is one of the most protected and difficult to fire positions in the country just stating a fact.

I do not think it helps you to claim you are the best of the best when clearly the school board has repeatedly not agreed with that assessment. Did they just decide to single you out by drawing your name out of a hat or will you agree there were some issues where you needed improvement? You won't be able to help yourself until you start making an honest assessment.

He's a decent person, but he's stubborn and pigheaded, even when presented with clear evidence that doing things "his way" clearly isn't working. He got fired from two jobs in a row because he refused to heed the advice of friends and coworkers to be more flexible in his dealings with his management and fellow employees.

Really, according to a speaker at the annual coaches clinic, most football coaches in Arkansas last only two years at any particular job.

Sounds like a good man. I wish him well.

He's my friend, but he's immature and foolish.

The only good thing he's got going for him is that he's single so his inability to stay employed affects only him.

Because they get fired or because they succeed and move up in the world?

Some of both. Fired, not happy with where they work, disenchanted with the profession in general, or move up.

By the way, I was told by a veteran teacher a few years ago that a vast number of teachers stop teaching (and go to another profession) after their third year in the classroom.

It is true that many decide they do not like the profession and decide to leave on their own but very few actually get fired. That is a rare event. That is my point.

Good. I wish more people had self awareness to realize they aren't a good fit for their profession and adjust their jobs accordingly.

There are things I can't address without opening the door to the events mentioned earlier. And your claim that "the school board has repeatedly not agreed with that assessment" is clearly in error.

If you look at the information up thread from 2013 it is clear that in 2013 the school board protected me.

Except that isn't why they stop teaching. Principals routinely torment teachers in their first years by assigning them the largest classes filled with the most incorrigible students in order to force them to leave. A form of "weeding" out not unlike the ridiculous practices they've had in the medical practice of assigning residents shockingly difficult hours.

That's almost every profession, though.

As for teaching, why start with the easiest classes to teach first? Anyone can reach out to AP students. The "bad" kids are the ones they'll get more out of educating than the gifted students that will work in nearly any environment.

I had an aunt that taught almost exclusively in the 'hood, specifically because they were the ones she knew got lost in the cracks. She had one class where the only two student reading at grade level were two Chinese immigrants that had worked in sweatshops most of their lives. When she took a teaching job in a good school, she was bored out of her mind.

That's definitely true of my profession. Almost no one gets hired in a medium or large market right out of school. You have to spend time at smaller stations (where the equipment isn't as good, the staff sizes are too small, and the news isn't usually as important/impactful) in order to get better at the job before you move up to the "big leagues".

Most first time teachers have effectively no unsupervised time in the classroom prior to their first teaching jobs (practice teaching is not unsupervised). For virtually ever first time teacher, that first experience is very, very jarring. One of my sisters in in her 31st year of teaching and her first year was sheer hell.

Given that to me it makes more sense to break in brand new teachers with a lighter student and class load and let them work up to more difficult ones.

One of my favorite bands has a song with the lyric, "You gotta know how to bend if you don't wanna get broke."

Part of the bridge for that song goes, "The more I dig in, the deeper the hole/Come off the rails when I get on a roll."

But, as another one of their songs says, "The old wood cracks before it bends."

Not enough get fired. But when one does its always a good thing.

And only someone who was completely classless would even give a shit about what Dayton does as his job, and take his bragging worth a grain of salt. I don't care for what you or Liet have to say most of the time, but do you see me posting personal shit about you or about your job? The closest I've seen to something like that are certain posters who go after garamet being a Star Trek novelist.

Which is why he insists otherwise and you're making some argument about how permission given two years ago in an old thread is somehow still valid, right?

And yet you so enthusiastically will repeat it, as often as possible, and continue to argue that it should be okay to do so.

The job is being able to do the work AND being able to function with others in the organization. Being able to do the work is not enough.

To say "I'm competent, but other people find it difficult to work with me" is to say "I'm not competent."