Danielle wrote this to me. My response is below.
Hi Ben,
I hope it’s ok to ask you for advice, you are Ben SOLVE IT. This quarter I have 6th grade Italian. Mark C. is the only other Italian teacher. I only teach it when necessary. Anyway, he has written emails to me on two occasions so far since the quarter started telling me what he’s doing in class and we should more or less be on the same page.
Mark does mainly screen castify presentations on the SLIDES presentations that he has prepared with a vocabulary sheet to fill in. I’m awful at it bc it’s not how I teach and it’s so unnatural for me. I’m totally awkward presenting it and the kids are so NOT engaged.
I’m concerned to do CI with this class because Mark will definitely be their teacher next year. Do I just do what I”m doing with my Spanish classes? Just work around the Star (which is the best way for me)? I’m feeling very lost and not confident.
I responded:
I’m glad that not all teachers think that their colleagues have to teach in the way they do. Perhaps Mark wants more from you as well. Perhaps he wants you to:
- feel controlled and manipulated.
- question your own professional decisions about how you want to teach.
- empathize with the narcissist.
- justify yourself through the narcissist.
- give up your values and try to please him (yes, he’s the narcissist in this equation).
- experience a little extra stress and anxiety with his request.
- know that he doesn’t think much of your work.
- know that you are not a very worthwhile teacher.
- forget your own professional vision in favor of his.
- be passionate about his work, not yours.
I then added this:
Danielle, your students are so young! They should be able to experience both yours and Mark’s style. The principal should support you in this. Mark is displaying here some alarmingly narcissistic traits. REFUSE his request and tell him to take his request up with the principal.
If he can get the backing of the principal, and they both force you to change, then you will consider your options at that time. But that will never happen, because nobody gets to become a principal who would pit one teacher against another.
Next, after telling Mark to go to the principal, cease all communication with him. (It won’t get that far because the principal is not an idiot. Anyone who would pit one teacher against a colleague is not a principal.) So now, just tell Mark that you are happy doing what you do and that if he has a problem with that HE, NOT YOU, can go to the principal and lay out his concerns. Again, he’ll get nowhere with his request. Then don’t talk to him after that. Only one email should be sent, then put his request completely out of your mind.
And then read a book or look up some online articles on narcissism. Such people are ruining our world right now and they are EVERYWHERE in the teaching profession. This should be a RED ALERT for us because once a child becomes an empath victim of a narc teacher, then we lose the spine of our society. When kids grow up as empath victims, all they want to do is please the leader, and the result is quite visible in our society right now, n’est-ce pas? Trust me on this. I am now an expert on covert malignant narcissism.