For those who do not know there is an ATR support page on Facebook known as the ATR Alliance (It is a closed group and you must request to join). If you are an ATR I suggest you sign up and get to know some of those in the same boat.

One thing I myself have noticed over the year and a half of being rubberized is that most of those I have served time with are outliers. Heck, not even just from the Rubber Room, those I call some of my dearest friends and confidants in across the DOE are outliers and proudly so.

These people are smart, dedicated, demanding, independent, and worse to many administrators, honest. But instead of being seen in a positive light by our colleagues we are seen as something that must be rid of. Something that must be shunned. Something that must be ignored. Something that is berated behind our backs. Something that must be stopped at all costs. Notice the something is used instead of someone. These people looking down their noses and from behind our backs do not see "someONE," they see "someTHING."

Some people only feel good in being part of the problem and part of the mob. The lack of independent thought and independent guidance is what leads these people to be part of this mob mentality amongst adults in our schools. Hold your head above the crowd and see how fast you are taken down.

So I was reading this posting on the ATR FB page about bullies in the work place. We have all had our share of those in the DOE, some more than others. Those that turn their backs to you. Those that are your "pals" to your face yet would not think for a second to do you in. Those that are so bereft of any ethics or morals that they will just shove a knife in your back in a heartbeat.

But the worst are those that you genuinely have gone to bat for and when you need them to step up to the plate for you they run away feigning they ever knew you or were close to you. Yeah, really. Those are the worse. Those are the ones who don't wish to ruin their cred with the correct school clique.

But back to this posting. It really hits home for me. It is a witch hunt out there. What makes it worse is that we expect it to come from administrators, we don't expect it to come from those who we consider friends and colleagues.

I'm re-posting the blog post and  juxtaposing it with lyrics from 1981's "Witch Hunt (Part III of the Fear Trilogy)" off of "Moving Pictures" by the band Rush. Seems so appropriate.

The night is black
Without a moon
The air is thick and still
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torch lit hill

What Is Mobbing? - The office disease

The hallmark of mobbing behavior is an initial unresolved conflict that is preventing the targeted person from accomplishing his or her job in the most effective way.

The targeted person tries with good intent to resolve the situation in a constructive way, never realizing that the people he or she is dealing with have already decided to get rid of him or her, which is "revealed in attacks of various sorts: humiliation, ridicule, stigmatization, ostracism, exclusion and isolation.".

Features distorted in the flickering light
The faces are twisted and grotesque
Silent and stern in the sweltering night
The mob moves like demons possessed
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right
Confident their ways are best

This leads the targeted person to suffer "self-doubt," "…confusion, tension, anger and depression." Id. These unresolved conflicts intensify and are magnified until the targeted person is suffering severe emotional distress. The more the targeted person attempts to find recourse the more those who are doing the mobbing create reasons why the issue cannot be resolved. Because those doing the mobbing have no intention of resolving the conflict, the conflict escalates until it is virtually unmanageable.

The targeted person becomes very ill or depressed, work suffers and it is only a matter of time before the targeted person is terminated, resigns or retires. The expulsion of the targeted person was predetermined by those doing the mobbing from the very start and there was nothing the targeted person could have done to resolve the issue (therein lies the "crazy-making").

People new to handling power, and who are insecure and incompetent when it comes to wielding it, will apparently target the talented and dedicated for mobbing. Learn to spot and stop it whenever it rears its ugly head.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill

Checklist of mobbing indicators

Sociologist Kenneth Westhues devised the following list of mobbing indicators, with indicator number 12 probably being the most important:

- By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.
- Rumors and gossip circulate about the target's misdeeds: "Did you hear what she did last week?"
- The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.
- Collective focus on a critical incident that "shows what kind of man he really is".
- Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, "to be taught a lesson".
- Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e.g., apart from the annual performance review.
- Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.
- Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e.g., a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.
- High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.
- Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to "speak up for" or defend the target.
- The adding up of the target's real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action.
- The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.
- Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.
- Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.
- Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.
- Mobbers' fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

They say there are strangers who threaten us
In our immigrants and infidels
They say there is strangeness too dangerous
In our theaters and bookstore shelves
That those who know what's best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves

Psychological and health effects to the victim of mobbing in the workplace
Victims of workplace mobbing frequently suffer from: adjustment disorders, somatic symptoms (e.g., headaches or irritable bowel syndrome), Post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression.

In mobbing targets with PTSD, Leymann notes that the "mental effects were fully comparable with PTSD from war or prison camp experiences. Some patients may develop alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders. Family relationships routinely suffer. Some targets may even develop brief psychotic episodes, generally with paranoid symptoms. Leymann estimated that 15% of suicides in Sweden could be directly attributed to workplace mobbing.

Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand... 

Degrees of mobbing

First degree: Victim manages to resist, escapes at an early stage, or is fully rehabilitated in the original workplace or elsewhere.

Second degree: Victim cannot resist or escape immediately and suffers temporary or prolonged mental and/or physical disability and has difficulty reentering the workforce.

Third degree: Victim is unable to reenter the workforce and suffers serious, long-lasting mental or physical disability.
Watch:

I do not like Alex Rodriguez. Never have, never will. I think Alex has cost the Yankees over the years and feel in no way he carried them in 2009. I would take Scott Brosius or Charlie Hayes any day of A-Rod.

Alex is a sneak, a cheat, a liar, and worse, a rat. He dug his own grave. True, he still has not had his day in court, but I support his right to have that day and will respect the outcome.

What I found fascinating is that when the Yanks played the Red Sox a few weeks ago and Alex got plunked by Ryan Dempster (I don't know why the world came down on Dempster. Back in the day if you just breathed funny Bob Gibson or Don Drysdale would nail you. It was old time baseball!)

But after Alex go hit, what happened? His entire team, and his manager supported him. It did not matter what a jerk he was, that he was a rat, a liar, and a cheat. No, the Yankees as a team said to themselves (With apologies to Animal House), "Hey Alex is our teammate, Dempster can't do that to our teammate!"

What do the staff at PS 154 do and react when two teachers are humiliated by bogus 3020a charges and forced to sit in a room by themselves by DR Alison Coviello, Principal and PhD.? Those teachers become persona non grata. They are ignored. They are not thought of. They are non persons.

Eight teachers, most over 40, and of color were given their first U ratings this year. Nothing. No support. No outrage. Nada. Bupkus.

With comments like, "Well, I am not a target so I don't care about others," to "Some teachers, and they know who they are, better start teaching." That one is my favorite. How the hell does a 5th grade teacher know what a 1st grade teacher is doing in their classroom?

There is no empathy, no selflessness, no nothing at PS 154. There are three groups at 154.

Group 1 are The Outliers, in which those fight back or keep to themselves or are shunned.

Group 2 are the fearful, those that no what is being done is wrong. Such as forcing teachers to come in on their Summer vacation to learn some wasteful discipline method, Responsive Classroom. Or they are intimidated into being ratting out colleagues, or given just enough responsibility by the triple headed hydra running 154 to allow them to think they are important.

Then there is Group 3, the ass kissers, the boot lickers, the ones that live inside the rectum and the colon. Those that have no shame, no values, and a lack of independent thought.

Yeah, I know every school has this issue, but it is sad that this happened to 154. This school used to be such a tight knit, close, and supportive school. Then came Cynthia Ballard as principal and she destroyed that closeness. Some say that she was bi-polar. But anyway, Ballard hired what we have in place now. The apple does not seem to fall far from the tree.

The sad part is that those is Group 2 and Group 3 will be sucked into the vortex of evil just as soon as they are not useful to the hydra and will be chewed up and spit out.

Some from Group 2 can be saved, especially those who are in fear. We all have fear, but we can't let fear control who we are or what we do. You need your moral compass to fight against the bully, to stand up and show the bully you are strong. Remember a bully preys on fear, smells fear, and will always manipulate your fear.

Remember, a bully is only as strong as the power you give them.

Casey Stengel, former manager of the Mets and Yankees was once asked how he keeps harmony on a baseball team of twenty-five players. He said, and I want this understood that I am paraphrasing him, "there are ten players who hate me, ten who love me, and five who don't give a sh**. The trick is to keep the ten who hate me away from the five who don't give a sh**." Casey was a wise man, a great manager, and more importantly a great leader.

Unfortunately, Dear Principal John Deacon has none of these qualities. In fact in my years of teaching there has always been factions in a school like Casey mentioned there are on a baseball team. That is until this year.

Except for the mindless few in my school who are so far up in Dear Principal John Deacon's colon, I have never seen a principal or known of a principal so despised, or having a lack of respect in a school as is Dear Principal John Deacon. I mean to get this hated so quick, by so many must be some kind of new DOE record. The most pathetic part of it all is that Dear Principal John Deacon actually thinks it is loved and respected. I guess it comes from that warm fuzzy feeling of having its colon cleaned by the mindless, soulless sycophants it surrounds itself with.

But like rats running out of a burning building or a sinking ship, so will these colon cleaners of Dear Principal John Deacon run away and not only turn on one another when the ship starts to sink, but turn on Dear Principal John Deacon when the implosion happens. And when this happens every teacher in the school will pull out their chaise lounge, get the binoculars, and watch as Dear Leader John Deacon and its colon cleaners all cannabilize one another and point fingers at each other. Sweet.