Month: September 2022

I took a leap of faith several years back and followed one of my principals to a large urban school district where I would serve in an administrative position designed for the purpose of mentoring and facilitating the teachers. I had worked for years in a smaller, more low key school district where it seemed as though I knew people from almost every other school as well as all of the top officers at the administration building. I had a wonderful reputation there as well as offers to rise to even higher leadership positions, but I wanted to assist the principal who had helped me to make my way up the career ladder as he navigated the more shark infested waters of one of the country’s largest urban school districts. I agreed to come work for him and for the teachers at the school that he led.

He had warned me that the environment was not always as warm and fuzzy as the one that I would be leaving. Nonetheless I saw opportunities to expand my knowledge and skills as an educator, and I felt up to the challenge as long as he had confidence in me. Nonetheless I was a bit nervous as the first day of back to school inservice drew near. A good friend noticed my anxiety and took me out for a final leisurely lunch before I would be bound to the new campus for the next many months. 

While we were chatting and exchanging a few jokes she pulled a small package from her purse. I opened it to find a gold star pin. She explained that she wanted me to wear the pin on my first day so that I might remember that I was more than capable of being a guide and a helpmate for the teachers with whom I would be working. She said that the star was a symbol of my excellence, but also a reminder that I was but one among many individuals working to make a better world for our children in schools. Her gift and her words were so profound that I found the confidence to face the uncertain future. With the pin firmly planted on the lapel of my suit and a smile spreading across my face I introduced myself the following to the wonderful teachers whom I would be assisting .

I soon learned that it would not be easy sailing in my new role. None of the teachers knew me and they were reluctant to believe that my forays into their classrooms were for their benefit. I was an outsider and in their minds it was possible that I was little more than a spy for the principal. Many of them had worked in the school for decades and they felt that it was a bit audacious of me to come wearing that star and looking like I was the new sheriff’s deputy in the town. 

While I was attempting to demonstrate to the faculty that I was at their service, I learned about the problems of a navigating the business end of a large governmental agency. When the first paychecks arrived, mine was missing. It almost took an act of Congress to clear things up, but I finally managed to provide them with the documentation they needed to prove that I was actually a working employee and had been so for the past month.

On top of all of the furor in the payroll department I suddenly learned that someone was using my checking account to make large purchases. Since my husband was a banker he checked such things several times each day and took care of the problem immediately. Unfortunately I had to get a new checking account and begin again with the process of routing my pay go to my bank by direct deposit. It would be almost six weeks before I finally saw any money for the work I had been doing. Since it covered three pay periods it was a very large check.

Strangely I began to notice whispers and strange glances as I went about my daily routine of observing and conferring with teachers. I finally asked a faculty member who had been quite welcoming to me what was creating the uncomfortable environment around me. She laughed and explained that the clerk in the office who handed out the pay stubs had noticed my large paycheck and had multiplied it times the number of checks I would receive in an entire school year to determine my annual salary. Of course the amount that registered on her calculator was three times what it was supposed to be because of the delay in my first two checks. Without taking that into account she spend the rumor that I was making more money than even the principal. 

From there the talk got even juicier. Somehow one thing led to another and there were stories that I had just purchased a million dollar home and that I had to be some kind of spy for the district to be making the kind of money that was generally the exclusive domain of the higher ups. There was great concern about who I was and what I was trying to do inside the school. 

Eventually I was able to clear up all of the confusion, but I always felt as though a slight element of distrust lingered in many people’s minds even though I did my best to prove to them that I really was there to assist them and nothing else. I often supposed that the star pin from my friend must have muddied the waters even more. I can only imagine how I must have appeared to a faculty that has endured many big changes in a very short span of time. 

Rumors are grist for gossip and we all know that once something is uttered, it is often impossible to take it back. I probably struggled more at that school than I ever have in my entire life because the clerk planted a seed of doubt in many people’s minds. The good thing is that overall it was an incredible learning experience both for me and the faculty. I even reached a point at which I was able to laugh about the whole thing, especially that million dollar house that I was supposed to own.

It’s only September, but I am already seeing signs of ghosts and goblins in stores. Halloween, a yearly celebration of folklore and frivolity is surely on its way with witches and cauldrons always part of the featured characters who lurk about on the night of tricks and treats. We humans have an attraction to stories of wicked women with gnarled faces who cast spells. Such stories have been around for centuries and remain the grist of fears and sometimes even injustice. 

Shakespeare alluded to the power of witches in Macbeth when a group hovering menacingly over a fire predicted the hero’s ultimate fate in words filled with irony and intrigue. These creatures set the ominous stage for murder and mayhem. Without them the play would have been just another story about the lure of power. 

These days we mostly laugh at the idea of witches able to foresee the future or cast dastardly spells on their enemies. Witches are an almost comic representation of our human foibles, but that was not the case in Salem, Massachusetts in a time when science was unable to explain strange happenings. With religious fervor and a lack of understanding a kind of group hysteria ruled the day, resulting in trials and sentences that were sometimes deadly. 

From 1692 to 1693, over 200 individuals were accused of witchcraft and prosecuted for their so called crimes. Nineteen of those people were sentenced to death and hung. The unfortunate series of events began when a group of girls began exhibiting strange fits that included convulsions and fainting. They claimed to have been taken over by the devil and named several people as witches who had cast spells on them. This lead to many months of hysteria and overly dramatic trials. 

What had once been a quiet seaport and farming town became infamous for the tragedy that the false accusations created. The lurid reputation of the era has become a kind model of the devastating consequences of embracing superstitions. Nonetheless it would be naive to believe that mythical thinking no longer exists. History has demonstrated again and again that, especially in difficult times, people are willing to suspend rational thinking and accept almost magical explanations for what is happening around them. 

It might be argued that the people of post World War I Germany fell for the lies that much of their misery had been cause by their Jewish neighbors because they were grasping for explanations for the hunger and want that they were experiencing. Hitler used their fears, anxieties and already developed prejudices to convince them that ridding themselves of certain people was actually justified. It’s the same age old trope that allowed slavery or turned ordinary people into witches. 

During the 1950s Senator Joseph McCarthy created boogeymen out of writers, actors and ordinary people in response to the cold war with the Soviet Union. Much as with the Salem witch trials he began hearings claiming that we were overrun with Communists intent on killing our democracy. Many of the people named in the hearings lost their jobs and became pariahs when in fact they had done nothing wrong. It was indeed a witch hunt of a different kind. 

Today we have so many bizarre stories about Covid-19 and the scientists and healthcare community attempting to help us that doctors are being threatened with death and hospitals have had to hire extra security. The stories of tracking devices in the vaccines and made up mortality statistics abound. The anti-science fervor has gone from simply not accepting the precautions and treatments to accusations that scientists and doctors are purposely putting citizens in harm’s way. 

We have groups who falsely believe that the presidential election was fraudulent, that teachers are grooming students for devious purposes, and that a deep state of politicians are trafficking children. The hysteria surrounding such beliefs is the same as those that the colonists of Salem felt back in the fifteenth century. We humans are still easily manipulated into accepting fantastical theories over the simple truth. 

One of my all time favorite college classes was called “Folklore.” I learned that just as there were people of old who actually believed that King Arthur existed, in modern times we want so badly to know that Elvis is still alive that there are sightings of him all over the world. We share stories that John Kennedy did not die but instead lived out his days on a Greek island. More recently a crowd gathered in Dallas in anticipation that John Kennedy, Jr. was going to return to tell us truths that we needed to hear. 

Sometimes it’s easier to believe fantastic stories than face the truth. You would think we might have learned from the tragedy of Salem and other superstitious times, but it seems that we still have a long way to go. The myths and legends may seem silly or even funny until they hurt someone. If it sounds too fantastical, it most likely is and that should give us pause to check for the facts. Nobody should ever be harmed by lies.