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FIRED
Yes, I was fired last year. Thompson is a
small town and people must remember me. And everyone seems to think that I
had it coming. But do you actually know why I was fired? The College has the
right to reject someone on probation without giving any reasons. But in my
case, I was able, with some difficulty, to get them to come up with written
reasons for my rejection. I have in front of me a letter from the President of
the College, Denise Henning, dated Nov. 26 2007: “Rejection on Probation”. Now I'm going to
show you what kind of people I was working with.
The letter of rejection consists of twelve
paragraphs, two of general introduction and two of conclusion, which leaves eight
paragraphs of content. In seven of these eight paragraphs, my failure to stick
to the curriculum is cited as an ongoing problem. In fact, the curriculum issue
was nothing but a red herring. It was
first raised by my senior co-instrucutor Murray
Oman
just before the Christmas break as a result of an unrelated personal conflict:
namely, I disobeyed his direct instructions by suspending in class a student
who swore at me. When I became aware that in retaliation for this incident I
was being accused of not following the curriculum, I wrote my supervisor asking
for specific examples. Nothing of the sort was ever provided, verbally or in
writing, until Ms. Henning’s letter, which came five months after my dismissal.
Understand: the college had the right,
under the collective agreement, to reject me on probation for NO REASON. But
they chose to make a case against me based on curriculum. That is the clear
thrust of Ms. Henning's letter, which to be fair is also peppered throughout
with vague and non-specific references to "unprofessional behavior"
and “interpersonal issues”. But none of these side issues are important enough
to warrant specific citation in Henning’s letter, so I’m going to likewise
ignore them in mine. I can’t very well respond to accusations that she doesn’t
raise herself except in the vaguest of generalities. Yes, I exhibited
unprofessional behavior at times and yes, I have certain interpersonal issues.
Who doesn’t? But it is the curriculum issue, reiterated in every single
paragraph of the letter but one, which is clearly the centerpiece of her case,
and that’s what I intend to answer here.
In what way did I not follow the
curriculum? After months of my badgering
the College, verbally and in writing, to provide any specific cases of my
supposed improper teaching, during a year when I was continually under the
microscope, here are the examples which they are able to muster: (From Hennings
letter of Nov. 26 2007, para. 6:)
“Specific
situations which were provided to Mr. Green regarding examples which were
deemed to be difficult for the students to relate to were: determining the
height of a smoke stack, the slope example, trouble-shooting a circuit, control
for electric water heaters, and use of complex trigonometry"
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TO BE CONTINUED....
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