Principals and parents used to support and respect the teachers.  When I first started teaching, it was unheard of for a parent to yell at a teacher.  If a student didn't do his work, the parent was called, and the work was on time after that.  Now a lot of principals and parents hold the teachers accountable if their students fail to turn in assignments.  Plus, teachers are often expected to accept very late (more than a week) work.  

I was a teacher for thirty years, and over the course of those thirty years, I noticed that many administrators became less concerned with education and more concerned with politics, and I mean 'politics' in the worst sense of the word.  

I couldn't help but think that increasingly, the people who were attracted to these jobs were motivated more by personal ambition than a desire to make a positive contribution to

education.  Hence, when a principal fails to support a teacher, or, as I might more bluntly put it, "sells out a teacher" by forsaking principle for public relations, he or she can be pretty confident that they will be rewarded by the employers, not sanctioned.

I am one who who got sold out twice by administrators last year. Once, I nearly got sued. And yes, they do take a class on how to please the community. That is the essence of their job, please the community any way possible, even if it means selling a teacher down the river.

As far as ambition, its a money thing. I have never met an administrator who was dedicated to education, only the bottom line of the dollar.

A few years back I was cursed out by a parent in the front hall of the school. I had written a referral because the child was taking things out of other students' bookbags. A couple of days later, I found the original referral form balled up and hidden behind some books on a shelf. I called the parent and told her what happened, with little response from her. After school that day, I was called to come to the front because a "visitor" was there to see me.  As soon as I rounded the corner I was attacked verbally by the father, and it went on for 5 or 6 minutes. He even threw the referral form at me. Finally, our assistant principal sauntered out of the office and attempted to intervene, and was able to get the parent to leave.  I told the administrator that I was glad he finally came to help me out, and he said that he had gotten a phone call earlier and he knew the parents were coming to chew me out!! I said,"You mean to tell me that you knew they were coming and you didn't even have the decency to warn me or to come out of your office to meet them as soon as the yelling started?" And he just looked at me and said yes. I walked out of the office and burst into tears. I went directly to the principal the next morning and all she said was that she was sorry that it happened. Big help she was! My husband was so mad he wanted to go down to the school and give that assistant principal a punch in the face! That's an example of the kind of support we get!  The next time, God forbid, it happens, Im going to call the police!

i wouldn't mind all the parenting i do so much, if what i said went all the time, and everywhere the student was. you want me to raise your kid?  well, then give up the ghost of parental responsiblity and let me! also, yes, admin need to support teachers as much as they possibly can. which my two VPs do, but: sending kids to the office is not the way to go, unless the student has done something that results in a referral according to school policy. they do like it in there, what with all the gossip and drama swirling around them.

This issue seems to have struck some nerves for sure. I question how useful complaining really is. If all the administrators are bad, then become a good one. If you have administrators who are not great communicators, then make sure you are a great communicator. If there's likely to be a problem, give administrators a little bit of heads up that they're about to get some complaints.

Granted some teachers don't get the respect they deserve. I would venture to say that at times, some teachers don't deserve the respect they get either. Perhaps it's because I have only been teaching for five years, or that I don't see myself as being locked into being a teacher. I teach because I choose to do so. There's no real benefit in teaching if all we do is complain about the situation. What does that teach the students about respect?

I'm not saying the kids and parents and administration don't mess up. I have been through similar situations. The point was that as I read through the comments (not so much your post), I read people complaining and not seeming to offer any solutions.

A story.

We set up a parent conference this year for a student who had failing grades in something like 21 classes out of 35 in the first five grading periods. The dad didn't show up. The person in the office who was supposed to set up the conference never seemed to get around to it. Of course, the student's parents came up frequently to take him home after being suspended and all of those kinds of things. It just never seemed to cross her mind to say, "Hey, go talk to the band teacher while you're here."

Amazing.

One of the nice thing about life being divided into semesters is that we have a chance to renew our minds instead of getting bogged down in the negative mentality.

jwag,

Just curious, what kinds of solutions can you come up with about unsupportive administrators? As for me, I have no desire to be an administrator, so your solution to "become a good one" is pointless for me. My choice is to be a teacher because I love the kids I teach and I know that I am making a difference in their lives. The situation with such administrators  has nothing to do with teachers being good communicators. As far as complaining goes, I choose to look at it as people sharing their common experiences. Sometimes it helps to get support from colleagues who have had similar situations. As for teaching the students respect, that has nothing to do with communicating with fellow teachers in private conversations or in this blog.

We can all agree that we have stressful jobs and our working conditions are somewhat less than desireable. The bottom line? we can't change society, but we can band together to come up with a solution.

On the complaining issue; if we don't vent, we would not be able to come up with solutions for our problems. We have to lay our problems out on the table; pick them, poke them, an prod them until we can figure out what to do about them.

Getting together would be a good first step, and I beleive we are working toward this here.