Dear Teachers: Please Stop Being So Difficult
There is a terrible little book called Dealing With Difficult Teachers (2002) by Todd Whitaker. I’d been curious about this book since I saw it on my assistant principal’s Amazon wish list three years ago. I finally read it this week. It was even worse than I had imagined, both in terms of ideas and prose.
So, let’s get started!
What do you do with a difficult teacher?
And what is a difficult teacher anyway?
And what is a difficult teacher anyway?
Difficult teachers are defined entirely by how the principal feels about what a teacher does. The principal, in this book, is always validated. Always.
The principal is positive; the difficult teacher is negative.
The principal is trying to move the school forward; the difficult teacher is trying to stop him.
Difficult teachers are bad and ineffective; even dangerous.
The principal is trying to move the school forward; the difficult teacher is trying to stop him.
Difficult teachers are bad and ineffective; even dangerous.
Armed with this validating and elastic set of truths and hints, the principal-reader is empowered to define difficult