Ok, the rehearsal went well. EVERYONE was very respectful of my strict anti-infection protocols. I was furthest away from everyone else, the sun did come out, and it was very windy, which is good (no chance for germs to settle - they get blown away). Everyone wore masks except when we were actually singing/playing. Considering we haven't practiced in 90 days, we sounded good. The neighbors were cool - a couple cheered us on and a few more told us as we were packing up how nice it was to hear original music again.
Can we please include a topic for Madeleine McCann ? Can we please pray for her and her family ? If she is still alive, we pray that she be kept safe and be found soon; else may her situation be resolved soon so that her family and loved ones can find closure.
I am beside myself right now. This is a long story, and I am going to try and keep it as short as I can. I am so overwrought with frustration right now, I want so badly to let this all go. But I find myself ruminating and ruminating. Maybe you can all help me figure out how to detach from it.
I am a teacher. A few years back, I was invited to join a board of directors for a statewide educational advocacy organization to finish out the term for a colleague who was being promoted to director of the group. It's unpaid but the information and connection to like-minded advocates attracted me to the role. I served for a year and a half in the role of educator advocate for my region. They wanted me to stay on, but the educator advocate role was difficult to maintain with my teaching assignment at that time, so I moved to run for the parent advocate role in the next board election instead. So, they approached a different teacher with some background in the area of our focus (gifted education) to run for educator advocate. At first, things worked really well. I thought we had a fine partnership to help people in the region we represented in common. Later, at some point, something changed. I don't know why, but the Ed. advocate stopped including me, her parent partner in the region, in gatherings; she stopped working with me unless she absolutely had to. I was perplexed, but I didn't sweat it too much at the time.
Fast forward to another, related opportunity. The director ( who would be leaving the organization) of the advocacy group was starting a training consortium and invited both me and the other advocate to participate as educational consultants. This was a wonderful and lucrative opportunity. I was honored to have been asked and looked forward to the collaboration. The partnership between the other individuals and myself was productive and fulfilling -- until it wasn't. Again, the Ed. Advocate pulled back and started doing really sneaky things. She started marketing herself as a lone trainer for the same certificate program the four of us in this consortium had designed. Meanwhile, back in the advocacy organization itself, I was being pushed out of key committees after having led similar endeavors. My reputation was being tarnished, but I didn't understand why. I was starting to feel upset and confused.
As I came to know this individual, I learned that she tended to be critical of others. She had judgments about so many on the board including the director who had invited BOTH of us to the board and BOTH of us to be part of the training consortium. She frequently bad-mouthed her personal assistant/secretary who did a great deal to support her at work. It made sense that she was probably bad-mouthing me as well behind my back. I felt powerless. To bring this up would seem paranoid. The other thing to consider is that this person really was a hard worker who could get things done. She had a lot of power because of that element of her personality. People tended to turn a blind eye to her unpleasant criticisms.
So eventually, although I stayed with the training consortium, I left the advocacy group. I let my third term expire without running again. They couldn't get another parent advocate for many years, and this ed. advocate ended up having to do a lot of that work solo. Meanwhile, I discovered that she was going behind the backs of our consortium to offer the same training on her own to school districts in our portion of the state -- behind the (now former) organization director's back whose consortium it was, the same woman who'd included her to begin with. I found this out when a board memver friend of mine asked me about her after she'd come to one of their meetings to present HER certificate program to them. I told the director who was non-plussed -- I don't know why -- as were others in the leadership of the organization. She was using the name of the organization to promote her solo endeavor. This was a big reason I left the advocacy group. Few people, I later learned, liked her, "but she gets stuff done" was their mantra. I have so little respect for them, now. It's very sad. I left all of that behind to focus on other things -- my teaching practice and my writing.
I enjoyed a relative period of peace from this woman and her manipulative, unprofessional ways. It was great. I didn't miss it one bit. Our consulting is intermittent, and we present our sessions independently, so I didn't even have to look at her or hear from her at all. I could still enjoy the consulting piece, and I was grateful for that.
After COVID-19, the woman who'd been the director and who'd started the Consortium partnered with a university to facilitate moving our certification program online. As I was preparing materials, I ran across a reference to our in-person version of the certification program in a Google search. A teacher from a district we'd never signed a contract with was claiming she had a certificate from our consortium. This same district expressed interest in our program in the middle of 2019, but later said they wouldn't follow through. Yet, this teacher had a certificate. I can only assume that we were betrayed by this one member who went behind our backs again to offer the program on her own for her own profit.
I suppose you could say it's a free country, and more power to her for her entrepreneurial spirit. But where are the professional ethics? Where is the professional courtesy? And this woman hasn't taught in a classroom in more than ten years. I fear she's lifted my materials, which are directly drawn from my current teaching practice. I don't know this for fact, but I *feel* it, and it's infuriating. My module is THE module for applying the content we teach into daily practice. I am the only one in our group who is still teaching, and that's why I do that module. It makes me sick to think about her teaching with MY examples, my pedagogy, my strategies, my reflections and my perspectives.
I've told the director about what I found about this weird occurrence of this certificate for a district that supposedly declined to sign us on. I don't know what she will do. Last time, she just let it go figuring it was the other person's prerogative if they wanted to offer this content independently. My concern is that she's stolen our work and stealing contracts that are not rightfully hers to fulfill. Her expertise is limited.
I am so frustrated. She's a liar, and like I said before, to call attention to it hasn't worked in the past.
How can I let this go?
@parizienne I'm not sure because I don't think I could. I was taught that something is copyrighted once you put pen to paper, whether you do it officially or not. I'm wondering if you can find out if she's definitely using your material and have someone send her a cease and desist letter. I think it's terrible to steal someone's hard work.
I am trying to decide if it's worth the effort to try and prove it. Thank you, @suspira44 .
That has to be so frightening on several levels.
While antidepressants seem to cause more depression and suicidal thoughts in younger people, the boy’s depression needs to be dealt with. From my own, starting at about 11, there wasn’t much that could have helped me. I really believe, in retrospect, that it was both hormonal and genetic. I’ve had bouts of depression and anxiety almost all my life and I’ll be 69 in July.
The boy’s love for music can help a lot, but since he is creative, I get the feeling music can help him to a certain degree. Even great talents have not been able to win their battle with depression.
what your daughter is doing for and with him is very loving and helping give guidance,
but when those feelings of hopelessness come up, nothing matters. Then again, he pulled a knife on others, didn’t try to stab himself. So I’m confused. Is he wanting others to know he needs help? Whatever is going on, he needs professional help right away. He is sadly a danger to your daughter, others, and himself. I hope he gets evaluated. I’m surprised his school is open. They are all closed here in Oregon. Either way, it’s understandable your daughter is shaken up. He doesn’t have control of his thoughts, feelings, and actions. There are so many red flags. I hope a social worker and psychiatrist team up to help him.
Anita
@parizienne I checked with my teacher friend - he has been stolen of millions of times but he never cared. One woman did it constantly, and he said if she'd asked, he would have given her the material anyway.
However, you DO have an automatic copyright, whether you officially register it or not. Might be worth pursuing.
Thank you so much for inquiring with your teacher friend. I will willingly share ideas and curriculum with colleagues. Some like to share. Some don’t. Others take and don’t share, lol.
This is is a little different because it’s work product for teacher training. I developed a whole course for this consortium that took dozens of hours and much of it drawn from my own experience and skill. She’s passing it off as her own when she isn’t even teaching children anymore. She’s got a six-figure admin job in her district, so it’s perplexing as to why she can’t just let each of us do our thing. It’s a game to her, I think.
I want so badly to let it go, but the idea of her pushing me out with my own content ... it feels like she is taking my dignity along with my work product.
On a different note, thank you for reading my very long post and trying to help. I posted because this “thing” is back in my life after I thought I’d moved past it.
Im torturing myself with the whys. Why is it back? What did I do or not do to warrant this? Why is she like that? Why can’t she just teach her own modules and take her giant paycheck and leave me alone? Why can’t I just let it go and not care about my dignity?
ugh. It’s 2:00 am right now and i’ve got a knot in my stomach over this.
I once read — or maybe someone told me— if you want someone’s influence out of your life to write their name on a piece of paper, stick it into a container with water and place it in the freezer. I don’t know if that sounds crazy, but I might try it. It surely can’t hurt.
"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in"
Leonard Cohen
"ANTHEM"
Jeanne once told me here that I had a rare gift- that I feel the weight of the collective. I think so.
I barely got through yesterday- Should not have tuned in to George Floyd's funeral. Besides being beyond depressing there are just too many mood disordered filters in my psyche. It is hard to cope sometimes. The grace and faith of his community was overwhelmingly bittersweet and it wrecked me.
His aunt's eulogy took my breath away. And then the way she nearly collapsed against her nephew, having said her piece. I felt the heart break of every person in the world in that moment. I also felt the unbelievable strength of that place and that connection and love and support that the Floyd family exhibited. I was overtaken by a tsunami of grief, my own, and others.
I found myself again wishing I were able to do more for everyone. But it's like the mask in the airplane demo, got to put it on first, and then can put one on everyone else. The truth is I am crazy triggered and may need a med adjustment...We'll see.
Today I am rededicating myself to self care. I am a little concerned about the reactive symptoms in me lately, but the observer in me knows, has a deep knowing, that I am strength and grace also and I am okay. I am in peace, if I only choose to be. It's not a straight line to strength and grace. We miss the mark, have to take aim again and again, and just keep moving forward, which made me think of this Leonard Cohen quote.
I strive to project an "I've got it all together" vibe. The perfectionist in me sets the bar way high. And I don't think that has served me well. So I allowed myself to crack a bit yesterday.
"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in"
@parizienne Well, there's the old "take an action and let it go" business. If you were to write a letter to this person, and put the copyright symbol after the title of your work, and inform her that she is violating your copyright, that might be enough. Or if you have a lawyer friend that can write a cease and desist letter. For me, taking some action is important.
This represents so much work on your part - stand up for yourself. Your work deserves it, and so do you.