is one I love and one I carry pretty close to my heart.<\/span><\/p>\nI guess I\u2019ve never understood why people (females, especially) tear each other down. Of course, I\u2019m not suggesting <\/span>all<\/span><\/i> women do this. And I\u2019m not saying that even the best among us doesn\u2019t slip up from time to time.<\/span><\/p>\nBut I bet you\u2019ve known someone in your life for whom \u201cthrowing rocks\u201d seems to be a full-time job. I\u2019m talking about the mean girls, gremlins, dementors, whatever name you have for them. I tend to just call them haters.<\/span><\/p>\nThey\u2019re the ones who want to trample all over your every success. They screenshot your Facebook post about an accomplishment or triumph and send it to their mob squad hater group. They actively root for you to fail\u2014and if you do, they tap dance on your metaphorical grave.<\/span><\/p>\nI have encountered a lot of haters in my life. And hey, I\u2019m willing to reflect on my own actions\u00a0and consider what my contribution to this behavior could have been. But more often than not, I\u2019m pretty sure it has nothing to do with me and <\/span>everything<\/span><\/i> to do with them.<\/span><\/p>\nMy True Tales of Haters<\/h2>\n
I\u2019ve always loved dressing up for work, and at a school where I once worked, I would often wear skirts. The dress code called for skirts no shorter than knee-length; I overcompensated by making sure my skirts were at least two inches longer than that. Why did I do this? Because women have had issues with my legs from way back, and I was trying to avoid conflict. (I run 30 miles a week. I\u2019ve earned these awesome legs, and I\u2019m proud of them!)<\/span><\/p>\nLo and behold, it turns out my fellow teachers had a problem with seeing my legs. So much so, the principal\u2014a dear friend of mine\u2014asked me to change how I dressed because she didn\u2019t have time to deal with the teachers complaining about my legs in a cute skirt and heels!<\/span><\/p>\nI wish I was kidding about this, but I\u2019m not.<\/span><\/p>\nAnother time, our local newspaper ran an article about a really cool project my class was doing with the area\u2019s animal shelter. My principal was so proud that he blew up one of the quotes from the article to hang in the school hallway. Well, that was a mistake.<\/span><\/p>\nYou\u2019d have thought I was walking around with a crown on my head with the pushback I received. Other teachers were truly upset. It seems they didn\u2019t want to see me get ANY attention for this! Why? Because it made them feel inferior. (Of course, it wasn\u2019t all bad. There were plenty of teachers who were happy for me and offered their congratulations.)<\/span><\/p>\nStop the Hate Before It Spreads Further<\/h2>\n
A colleague and Facebook friend recently reached out to me about her own experiences with haters.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThis year has been, by far, one of my worst with hateful people, specifically women, at work,\u201d she wrote. \u201cIt all started when I was named teacher of the month, and my coworkers found out that I was nominated by our principal. I never knew people\/professionals could be so evil and nasty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n(I hated hearing this. But she also mentioned that attending one of my conferences helped to change her outlook and brought her joy. And that brought <\/span>me<\/span><\/i> joy!)<\/span><\/p>\nI have more stories like this, and I\u2019d be willing to bet that you do, too. I\u2019ve heard time and again about this kind of poisonous environment in other schools, and I have just one thing to say: It has to stop! <\/span><\/p>\nWe need to root for one another, celebrate one another\u2019s successes, lift each other up, and stand in the light together. If you are ticked off because someone else is succeeding, getting recognition, or is a kick-ass dynamo \u2026 well, it\u2019s time to take a hard look within. <\/span><\/p>\nWe can and should do better. We should not have teachers in our schools who are afraid to shine, who are afraid the principal will single them out as leaders, who are afraid to be asked to be on committees, or who are afraid to be really good at something\u2014simply because there will be retribution from their peers.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019ve heard of this happening in all kind of workplaces. But I\u2019m being asked by more and more schools to <\/span>present motivational talks about this very topic<\/span><\/a>. Because poisonous behavior shouldn\u2019t have a place in ANY work environment. <\/span><\/p>\nThe current education system makes teaching challenging enough. If we want to make a real difference, shouldn\u2019t we stand together instead of apart?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to Deal with the \u2018Haters\u2019 at Your School \u201cPeople throw rocks at things that shine.\u201d This quote from Taylor Swift\u2019s song, \u201cOurs,\u201d is one I love and one I carry pretty close to my heart. I guess I\u2019ve never understood why people (females, especially) tear each other down. Of course, I\u2019m not suggesting all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20578,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-joy-drop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47483,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20576\/revisions\/47483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/strobeleducation.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}