Day 16: Tuesday, 26 December 2006. 

I mailed off another half a dozen packages today and I saw several people who didn't know I had been fired and am essentially on my way out of here. The looks of astonishment of their faces when I tell them what has happened reinforces the sense of having been ambushed by the administrators at the school and, I guess, Mr. Thompson. And I can't yet reconcile myself to the loss of a career I really loved in a school with students and colleagues I generally adored.

That is part of my confusion I guess. I actually like Mr. Sennett! I have over the past two years turned to him a number of times for ideas on how to invigorate my curriculum, modify my grading practices so that a failing student isn't just stuck with an insurmountable score that cannot mathematically be overcome, and  generally understand the system I was working my way through -- one more month -- and I'd have been off probation. I really don't get it. I've had meetings with him where he was genuinly interested in how I was fitting in to the community, meetings where he and I have had to speak quite frankly about our differing perceptions, and meetings where I was so pleased to have produced some curricular project that I knew would reflect well on the school and assure him he made the right decision in hiring me and sending me to Advanced Placement training. But that termination meeting was a whole different Robert Sennett than one I've ever seen before.  His hands trembled as he held up the termination letter. His voice broke and he struggled to read the content of the letter with any fluency. He misread words, had to repeat sentences that were garbled on first recitation, and generally acted as though he was being coerced.

So  how did Mr. Sennett become Mr. Hyde? I am at a loss to explain his behavior. He had never acted like that to me before.  Good management, of course, requires good communication. I've been in management in the corporate world -- and managing a class full of kids is certainly a challenge, but the strategy is essentially the same. As a manager, one explains the expectations to the employee (or student) and then observes the progress toward the goal. It's pretty simple stuff. If the result isn't what was expected then some clarification is needed. That is usually done in writing, perhaps with an example. Why couldn't Mr. Sennett have spoken to me directly about his concerns with the student newspaper? I thought the class was doing a great job.  They established the focus of each issue on their own. They researched and wrote their own stories. I made first-pass edits to their work and then returned the stories to them to correct. At that point the learning curve was their own to climb.  If they failed to make the edits I asked for the story got pulled from that issue. The Seniors in the class put the layout together, printed, and distributed the paper. Once, the class went to press with a full edition while I was out sick! I was mighty proud of their initiative. The next day we would go over the paper again and catch all the errors that slipped by and try to figure out when and how the error got in to print. That's the kind of communication and opportunity to improve that a manager should provide.  What was the motivation then behind Mr. Sennett's full out assault ending in firing me, without so much as a hint that the student newspaper didn't meet his expectations?

Come to think of it -- in October I invited Mr. Sennett to come and talk with the Journalism class about what he had in mind for the student newspaper -- the sort of over-arching message the information in the paper should contain to convey his vision of the VHS that the community would embrace.  At first he agreed to come and meet with the class. I asked the students to write up three questions each they would like to ask Mr. Sennett.  I warned them against complaining about the dress code or asking if he was happy with his new Deputy Principal -- the sort of thing that wasn't "journalism," but rather just frivolous complaining.  But before I could give the questions to Mr. Sennett and set a date for his visit, he begged off suggesting instead, that a "professional journalist" coming to talk would be more appropriate.  That is true to some extent, but there are no professional journalists who have the insider knowledge about what Mr. Sennett wanted to establish as the "message" from the student journalists -- and that is what the students needed to hear first. I think I still have the emails back and forth where I asked for his input. Looking back, it is entirely possible the Deputy Principal had already begun counting his perception of print errors. But Mr. Sennett was my assigned performance assessment manager -- it was his job to tell me when things were going astray and what corrections he needed -- particularly in the situation I just described -- where I was asking for his input!. Was his utter failure to do that job a question of malfeasence then? Don't know.

But, during the termination meeting, a few feet away from Mr. Sennett, sitting with his back to the corner, silent, smug, and superior was Mr. Werner. Although I was quite in a state of shock myself at the moment I was aware that he was staring at me -- looking I suppose -- for some sign of me recognizing my loss so that he could feel the rush of his cruel victory. Makes me wonder if he tortured animals as a child. I imagine he has taught many people to hate him. At many levels we are all responsible for training people to treat us a certain way.  But that happens over time -- I can't figure out how I trained him to treat me with such distain, so I suspect he has long practice.

Federal law doesn't require Mr. Sennett to give me a chance to improve.  Nor does it require he give me reasons for firing me. But good management demands the former. Those who know me, know without a doubt, that had I been given some corrective actions to take, by golly, I would have taken them. But then, that would have caused another problem wouldn't it? It takes a truly malevolent person to set the bar at a certain height, challenge someone to clear it, and then cut them anyway when they meet the challenge.  I don't think Mr. Sennett has quite the heart for that so by not giving me a chance to improve to his expectations he made it easier on himself -- his conscious -- or so I'd bet he hopes.  I don't think that will work all that well, but with time he may be able to justify his leading me into a mine field with a warm smile and a hope he would not have to face the resulting blast.  Just as I will have to learn to live with having believed and trusted in his leadership -- and being wrong. Takes my breath away still to think about how I was set up and then fragged. It is all the more painfully because of the trivial nature of the "cause" listed -- which criticizes my students' efforts as much as my own. Why do we tolerate such negative, punative "leadership" when education is meant to inspire?