The Bully-Your Own Personal Terrorist

It's not a stretch; I am not comparing apples and oranges. Do not dismiss this out of hand.

Bullying and terrorism are related activities. They spring from the same motives and instill the same fears.

An act designed to frighten is an act that is designed to frighten. Whether the act is a beating at the edge of a demonstration in Iran or a suicide bombing at a mosque or the public pronouncement that "if you don't like it here, you can go somewhere else," the act is designed to frighten. When the new superintendent stands in front of all of the district employees and states that if you are an experienced teacher who is not interested in making the changes he is about to make, "you can go do something else," it is a threat. It is discrimination; it is based not on the capabilities of the individual but the assumed weaknesses of the group. It was interpreted as a threat by the district senior staff and when the bullying increased in our building after that remark, there was an identifiable link between the superintendent's words and our treatment.

So you come to work and the office manager refuses to speak to you, turns her back on you, looks at you as if you are an interuption to her day, refuses to perform the requested task except at HER convenience not yours, and insults you publicly in a faculty meeting (after which other teachers ask "if they can do that to you, what can they do to ME?"). This is a terrorist act. When you follow district procedures and ask for a meeting to clear the air, the principal joins the office manager in bullying you. This is a terrorist act. Continuing to follow district procedures, you notify HR requesting a meeting to air your greivances; they cancel the meeting the day before it is to occur to give a guided tour to a new HR employee and make no offer or attempt to reschedule. This is a terrorist act. Continuing to follow district procedures, you inform the assistant superintendent of your concerns and he asks the offending principal if he is bullying you, to which he replies-of course not. (If you asked a bank robber if he just robbed the bank, they would deny it, too. Somehow the police don't accept that answer but the assistant super does.) And the bullying increases in severity and frequency. This is also a terrorist act; your own personal terrorists have been given free reign by the authorities to treat you as badly as they can. The treatment starts coming from different people; this is called mobbing, also a terrorist act. Everybody who is inclined to treat you badly, because they want to or because they want to be on the principal's good side, joins in. Finally, you witness the principal and office manager bullying STUDENTS because no one has stopped them before and YOU are fired as a whistleblower, they FINALLY conduct an "investigation" but the room that witnesses are to report to is within sight of the principal's and office manager's desk (they can see who is complaining). This is also a terrorist act.

You are a Christian in Iraq and you receive a letter telling you to leave the country or be killed along with your family. This is a terrorist act. You are a teacher who is put on notice that you will be bullied at will. This is a personal terrorist act. The physiological and psychological effects on the victim are the same.

For school officials to allow, perhaps even approve or instigate this terrorism is appalling. Certificated personnel who engage in this behavior should be brought before an ethics board and have their certification revoked. Schools board members who allow this to go on should be recalled and removed from office.