Sincerely.
Dear colleagues,
I made a huge mistake when I published a post on this website that criticized your teaching practices. As my fellow members of the Social Science department at our school, you deserve better. I should have been earnest with my opinions and sought direct feedback from you. And I feel sorry for the underhanded way that I put my message across. I was wrong to judge you in front of a public audience without approaching you first.
So, I apologize: I truly regret the psychological harm that I brought to you. Regardless of my initial intention, I can offer no legitimate reason for making you doubt your methods of teaching. I hold no excuse for including students and parents in my critique before I included you. I was wrong.
I have since realized that each of you have a true commitment to your craft; that you care for what you do and the young minds that you seek to reach. Each of you believes what you do and how you do it. You chose your profession to improve the world around you.
You believe in your "why" and develop your courses around it.
I assumed too much and made decisions about you before I visited your classrooms. I was utterly and completely wrong to jeopardize our individual relationships, as well as that of our department as a whole. And I understand that, most likely, I have erased all trust that you may have had in me. You have every right to feel angry and hurt.
I was wrong.
But I hope we can grow from my mistake.
My Why
When I addressed the teachers and administration during my PD at the beginning of this year, I asked for our teachers' best practices because I want to get better. After all, look at yourselves: most of you have been teaching for far beyond a decade. Many of you have taught exclusively at our school. I'm only in my seventh year of teaching; only two years at our school. I have so much to learn about what I teach, about our school's unique community, and about you. And I do believe that you can help me. In fact, I need you to help me get better.
You should also know that I focus first on relationships in my classroom. I make time for team-building exercises that emphasize collaboration and breaking up cliques. Students are expected to work with all their peers, which is why I change the seating chart and formation continually throughout the year. I inform my students that my least favorite event is when they speak over each other, because it shows a personal disrespect to the individual. Therefore, I am a hypocrite for negatively impacting our professional relationships. My post demonstrates a complete disregard for our professional relationship and undermines the message I wish to get across to the teenagers I teach.
I also believe that gossip and passive aggression remain the most toxic elements in our national society, so I seek to diffuse these elements before or, if necessary, after they arise in my classes. I employ restorative practices in the classroom through Community Circles and Feedback Loops, where I invite students to criticize how and what they're learning; where I invite them to criticize ME. And I sit there in the circle with them and I listen; where I FEEL the impact of my shortcomings and failures. I show them that I value their opinions, even when the criticism hurts me, because I, like you, love what I do as an educator. You, my colleagues, deserve the same forum.
Not that it should take away the pain that I've caused you, but I understand and empathize with your pain. It hurts.
I was wrong.
Moving Forward
I feel excited and optimistic about taking part in more restorative practices as a department. When I sat in the circle and listened to you describe the impact my actions had on you, I felt extreme regret. I assumed that you all believed so much in your approaches that the critique of an inexperienced teacher, who uses controversial and nontraditional teaching practices, would mean little to you. I didn't understand that you would take it to heart. I only hope the restoration of our relationships is still possible.
But part of the truth of my action lies in our pedagogy as a Social Science department, a department that, in my short experience at three different high schools, typically represents the greatest aversion to authority. I won't claim that we're all conspiracy theorists, but many professionals, who have gained a nuanced understanding of the history of nations and human nature, naturally distrust authority. When we're told what to do by our administration, our district, or our nation's standards of the Common Core, we dissent in some meaningful way. We (appropriately) distrust "top-down" methods to government, to schools, and to our classrooms.
In short, we mindfully choose what we will teach. We choose what we will not teach.
Although I will ask for your forgiveness for how I personally affected you, namely, for the pain you experienced due to my deceitful method of criticizing you, I will not apologize for my natural distrust of authority. I will not mindlessly obey orders that impact what I teach or how I teach it. I will never expect my students to passively accept the "facts" I offer. Never.
I will, however, listen to you and learn from your best practices, even if they focus on content instead of skills. And I think you'll find that I'll gladly concede when I'm wrong. Publicly.
With hope and gratitude,
Charles (Chad) O'Connor
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