I'm SO TIRED

of dealing with the onslaught of insults that comes with each effort to support my teachers. From facebook groups to North Penn Reporter comments to Souderton Independent blogs, these guys seem to think I just can't get enough.

I'm not trying to say that I'm not up to this challenge. But maintaining strong and very public support for my teachers is getting harder and harder with each comment like this one:

Souderton Independent Article: "Student says contract impasse causing fear, anger" by Bob Keeler

Neil of Souderton:

""I represent a student body that frankly needs help and it's help that our teachers aren't equipped to give until they receive a fair contract." Nonsense. Teachers don't magically lose the ability to teach simply because their demands for 8 percent per-year raises are not met. If teachers are not providing students with "help" because of this strike, it's a disgrace - for them. To me, this story indicates only that the desperation of the teachers' union has grown so great that they are willing to start using children to try and muscle the district. Disgusting. [...] Learning to peel away the layers of propaganda is something you can't even BEGIN to understand unless you're a working Souderton taxpayer."

My Response:

I really don't appreciate my efforts being reduced to evidence for a "disgusting" assumption. I spoke of my own accord at that board meeting, and I'll do it again despite the negative attention I continue to get from people like you as well as my peers. I had my fair share of propaganda from the school board this summer--and I continue to receive it from students who simply borrow their parents' perspective on the issue and pass it off as their own. I'm tired of it, and I'm tired of being insulted by those who presume to have the authority to tell me what I should think about my teachers' situation. I have looked at numbers, and I have paid attention to how the strike affects students, parents and teachers on an individual level. Maybe you should get the facts AND hear the accounts before you go throwing around words like 'propaganda' or accusations of my teachers 'using' me.

It's posts like this that get me really riled. If a couple of kids want to make an insulting facebook group about me, let them do so (and I hope they enjoy getting the book thrown at them). But "Neil" here is clearly an adult who went out of his way to be hurtful and rude without even bothering to gain a true understanding for the entire situation first. And I have to wonder if any of these people would be willing to look me in the eye and say the things they say on the internet. No one has come forth and outright said "you're wrong" to me. It's because they can't--I'm not wrong.

Lesson of the day. Dealing with stupid people is exhausting.