Gold Watch or Sack of Coal I have been an English teacher for 41 years, over 31 years serving Collier County secondary students. I came to Naples High School in 1973. The disparity in number of years served here is due to my selling my Naples home in 1987 and returning to my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame, to study and write for a second master’s degree and a doctor of philosophy degree in English. I returned in 1991; I am not ready to retire. I planned since the birth of my last son to sign up for DROP during his senior year in high school, this year, and continue the job I love to pay for his college education. But the new Superintendent, Colonel Thompson and his minions have a better idea. I guess that many people think of him/herself as on stage and being watched by a large audience. I know that’s wrong in my case. Nevertheless I hope you do know my wife, Dr. Karen (who earned 3 Notre Dame degrees), my son, Ben, and I have spoken out in the newspapers, on the street corners, and at public meetings on various issues. We have exhorted many past Presidents to use tactics other than war to solve international problems. Sometimes what we have spoken about is supporting justice and mercy for Dr. Al-Arian, for Gregory Capehart, for migrant workers, for CCPS custodians. Sometimes what we have spoken about is supporting the best and brightest students in CCPS with a block schedule and the best teachers for their AP courses. Sometimes what we have spoken about is supporting the ESE students and their special needs. We’ve spoken about keeping Ray Baker as superintendent, about hiring only fully qualified moral and noble people for positions of power in local, state and national government. We’ve tried to support musicians, artists, the fearless practitioners of free speech, good teachers and good educational environment over tax dollars. On the streets of Naples I have endured abusive behavior in the form of spitting, obscene gestures and words, tossed razorblades and beer bottles, punches, and venomous anger as I and my friends held signs such as “Where’s the Evidence, Mr. Bush.” Like my non-violent heroes I have not responded in kind. In the classrooms of CCPS I have likewise endured abuse of late, not from my students, but from recently emplaced administrators who, instead of asking for consultation and advice, instead of complementing me for well-run classes filled with effective presentation of the knowledge I have acquired with great expense and arduous study, instead of the reward of a gold wristwatch (or apple), I have been saddled with an abusive, rudely contemptuous, scornfully contumelious principal whose insolent impudence has destroyed not only my and my wife’s classes but also my previously well-functioning high school. He carefully constructs a public mask that belies his coarseness. Such activities as I have participated in have earned both love and hatred in this community. So I suppose that my going the way of forced retirement will take me out of circulation. A rule of school administrators has always been “if you watch anyone closely enough for long enough, you can catch him doing something wrong. If not, pretend.” But their efforts to revoke my teaching license at the State Department of Education failed. Last year, I was brought to book for permitting students to purchase a specific book title for LHS classroom use. I gave them extra credit for learning what an ISBN number is, for going to a bookstore, and for buying and donating for the use of future students major works of literature like Paradise Lost, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Beowulf, The Brothers Karamazov, Jane Eyre, The Complete Works of Jonathan Swift, Caleb Williams, and others. Why did I offer this? Many CCPS students are not ready for rigorous study and strict grading by the time they reach senior level. It was a safety net convenient for struggling students to avoid failure by doing something that would academically enhance future classes. It also provided the school with titles unavailable on the “State Adopted List.” Hardly anyone was unhappy with me or my wholly optional 10 % extra credit program during the many years I offered it. However, Ms. Martha Hayes, the new Rockford/ Tennessee import that was brought to Naples with Colonel Thompson wrote, “No matter how one slices it, in the end a kid is, in essence, buying a higher grade.” Mr. Fairbanks ordered me to stop the practice. It was a bad order, but I immediately obeyed. Nevertheless, he later used it in his 3-day suspension reprimand writing that, “At no time is it permissible to provide students with extra credit in exchange for gifts, money, etc.” This was done in spite of the practice of many other LHS faculty members to provide extra credit for purchasing and donating Beanie Babies, canned foods, advertisement money, etc. None of the other teachers were reprimanded or disciplined. Under the reign of LHS principal Dr. Bruce Meyers, one of my students, Lionel Decius, received permission to circulate a petition requesting a DNA test for Gregory Capehart, a man on Florida’s death row in Starke, FL. I had spoken of Gregory whom I met through my church’s arrangement to practice the Christian injunction in St. Matthew to visit those in prison and set the captive free. The action was feted in local papers and on television. It even received national attention when the test was performed and proved that Mr. Capehart was not at the scene of the murder and rape. A judge vacated his death sentence. He was removed from death row in Starke and put in Pasco County Detention Center near Tampa to await another trial. I always mentioned the prisoner Gregory as an opportunity for personal letters or Christmas cards, using the school address as a return address in order to protect students from untoward solicitation. Such communication was never an assignment. Some LHS students held car washes and made other efforts to help Mr. Capehart by sending him money to ease his suffering during an unjust jail sentence. Last year the College Board decided to vet all AP courses by having teachers submit their syllabi for review. After several attempts to have my syllabus approved, I spoke with Mr. Roe at the College Board by telephone. He wanted me to insert some writing assignment that would indicate that my classroom boundaries were breached by the outside world. I mentioned many things my students have been involved in during the years. He suggested I write an assignment based on the Gregory Capehart experience. I did so, sent him the revised syllabus, had the previously contested syllabus approved, and was then summoned to the principal’s office for discipline—a three day suspension without pay—even though no student ever saw the assignment. There are other elements of my presence in CCPS that Colonel Thompson and his minions find objectionable such as my support for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, my expecting students to be on time and in attendance during my class, my including class participation grades, and my mentioning Mr. G. W. Bush’s legacy in a negative light during my class coverage (in one single class) of George Orwell’s 1984. But the gist of it all is that, according to Mr. Fairbanks, I “have shown a pattern of insubordination and challenging management directives and authority” [SIC]. However, many of my students and their parents both current and past have joined in a Support John Dwyer group. I’ve even heard from a number of younger wannabe students. Nearly 100 have written official letters of support. The Florida Department of Education wrote that they “find no probable cause to suspend or revoke [my] Educator Certificate.” I have the satisfaction of having assisted in the selection of many of my students to first tier colleges as well as having helped in their gaining scholarships. I guess that many Collier citizens sympathize with this move of our administrators to expel a secondary teacher of English who insists on speaking out in favor the Corporal Works of Mercy. Insubordinate I am not. I have attended every mandatory meeting, I have instantly stopped doing everything my principals have ordered me to stop and done everything I was assigned to do, I have taken very few sick days, I have worked hard to serve my students and their parents with immediate response to phone calls, accepting late work, doing everything in my power to enhance their educational experience both in and out of the classroom. I even wrote lesson plans for the first three-day suspension without pay. I will not for my second because my best students are engaged in a highly complex close reading of the complete texts Paradise Lost and Jane Eyre (from those evilly acquired extra-credit books). They are expecting to return to a test on Brontë and a recitation of 25 lines of Milton. My regular students are in the middle of Catcher in the Rye, 1984, and Moll Flanders, five preparations for a replacement teacher. So my reward at the end of my 41 years is not a gold watch. It is a discourteous and overly eager acceptance of my early retirement. First, I wanted to continue teaching for five more years; after all the recent harassment, I asked to retire on my birthday, seven weeks into the second semester. Instead of permitting my students to enjoy five more years or even seven more weeks of instruction from me, “for the good of the students,” I am to be placed in the Substitute Pool. Rather than submit to that indignity, my retirement date is now set for January 9, 2009. In my (and my wife’s) case[s] as in so many others, Colonel T. wins. I wonder what the credentials of our replacements will be. (John: A.B. 1966, M.A.T. 1968, M.A. 1992, Ph.D. 1997. Karen: A.B. '89, M.A. '91, Ph.D. '00—all from the University of Notre Dame). Yours truly, Dr. John P. Dwyer