Truth and Consequences

Imagine that you were told that your duties were to be changed at your job.  For whatever reason, you would be losing a part of the position you enjoy.  You would probably be unhappy.  You might be angry.  Perhaps you'd even know the reason why you were released. 

Now imagine a whole town demanding to know why this happened.  What would you say; how could you react?  Would you tell the truth, from your heart of hearts?  And if the media stepped in and stirred this up big-time---whoa!  Things could get out of hand.

Finally, imagine your employers giving in and telling everyone why you were released.  How many nanoseconds would it take you to file a lawsuit for the bazillion employment and privacy laws they had just broken?

If you follow small-town politics, you know that occasionally, everyone in a community has to lose their minds over athletics.  It happened (not for the first time) this week at my school system.  Four coaches were released from their coaching duties; they weren't fired, just had their duties changed. 

I don't know anything more than anyone else does---that is to say, rumor and speculation is all I am privy to, just like everyone else.  As with many things related to school, I found out about this from my kids.  I don't have a dog in this fight, and I barely know the people involved.  It's none of my business why this happened. 

And then there's this:  It's not anyone else's business, either.  Certainly, no one can demand to know the circumstances of someone else's employment and seriously expect an answer. 

If I found myself in this situation, I think that I would know why this might have happened.  I tend to self-reflect a little too much and worry about making the right decisions for my students, and I believe that is a place that all good teachers operate from.  And I would surely be horrified if the whole town, even in my defense, were to demand to know why I was reassigned.  After all, it happens frequently in education. 

That's what gets me about the current hubbub:  schools are about education, not sports.

Where is the righteous indignation for the state of education in Oklahoma?

Where were these people when we rallied at the capitol three weeks ago, to demand action and budgets that properly reflect the needs of our students?  We are dead last in the region, and next to last in the nation, in our financial commitment to our students.  Why isn't that what's stirring people up so much that they write fantastically hateful, ridiculous comments on news station stories and post them on the internet for all the world to see?

Why do people lose it over games, which only a few students will get to participate in for a handful of years, but don't see how the treatment of all teachers and whole school systems affects lives for a lifetime?

I haven't had time to fully assimilate it in my head, but this whole thing keeps me thinking of a poem by one of those pessimistic Naturalists, who believed that the most difficult thing to deal with was probably what would happen.  Stephen Crane, who wrote The Red Badge of Courage, also wrote many more poems like this one:

The Wayfarer

The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last,
"Doubtless there are other roads."

Stephen Crane

The message is simple; the truth is painful.  Those closest to it are hurt the most.  It's easy to look at anything---a path full of painful weeds, someone else's decision---from a distance and raise hell, cry foul, and demand our own way.  It's another thing to be close to the truth and cut by its razor edges.