By definition a leader is “one who shows the way.” Citizens,
including school children, look to their leaders for lessons in terms of
character, doing the right thing, behavior in public and how to treat those
less powerful. Since the moment that he entered office, New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie has provided lessons that no parent or teacher would wish on
school children. Here is a sampling.
Lesson 1: Be a bully
In a recent Rutgers
Eagleton poll, New Jersey residents used the terms bully, arrogant, selfish
and aggressive to describe the Governor. Apparently, Chris Christie flunked
kindergarten. These are hardly the words one would hope people used to describe
a leader and role model for children. The
Washington Post, noting that Christie has a video crew follow him around to
capture moments in meetings when he bullies a New Jersey citizen so that his
bullying reputation can be bolstered by You Tube videos, says simply, “The
reason Chris Christie is so good at this is that Chris Christie is actually a
bully… He's someone who uses his office to intimidate people and punish or
humiliate perceived enemies.”
Bridgegate is, of course, the most famous bullying incident,
but bullying tactics have been central to Christie’s leadership style from the
beginning. These incidents include stripping a former governor of his police security
at public events, taking funding away from a Rutgers professor who had somehow
offended him, disinviting a state senator from an event in the man’s own
district, stalling another state senator’s judicial appointment and of course,
berating citizens at town hall meetings and even chasing one down the
boardwalk yelling, “Keep walking, Keep walking.”
It is ironic that the man who signed the Anti-Bullying Act
in New Jersey in the wake of the Tyler Clementi suicide, embodies the
characteristics of a bully that that legislation was designed to address in and
around schools. Here is the definition of bullying in that act:
"Harassment,
intimidation or bullying" means any gesture, any written, verbal or
physical act, or any electronic communication, whether it be a single incident
or a series of incidents, that is reasonably perceived as being motivated
either by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color,
religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender
identity and expression, or a mental, physical or sensory disability, or by any
other distinguishing characteristic…
·
[an act] a
reasonable person should know, under the circumstances, will have the effect of
physically or emotionally harming a student…
·
[an act
that] has the effect of insulting or demeaning any student or group of students…
·
[any act
that] creates a hostile educational environment
By this or any other definition, Chris Christie shows the school
children of New Jersey it is good to be a bully.
Lesson 2. Talk back to your
teachers
Teachers are a favorite target of Christie’s bullying. He
has been videoed angrily berating teachers on several occasions. New Jersey
teachers Marie Corfield and Melissa Tomlinson have both felt the steam of Chris
the Bully. Both women, both teachers, both asking the Governor simple questions
about school funding and his inflammatory rhetoric in a public place, both
shouted down by an angry faced bully.
Teachers have made a convenient scapegoat for Christie’s
unwillingness to tax the wealthy of the state to meet pension obligations or
to fully fund schools. As New Jersey teacher, Mark Weber, points out in an
article in The Progressive,
He accused teachers of
“using the students like drug mules to carry information back to the
classroom.” He claimed teachers were “standing in front of classrooms, and
lying about and excoriating the governor.” He told a group of Trenton high
school students that if their teachers cared about learning, they wouldn’t be
at the annual teachers’ convention.
Christie’s message to children? No need to show your teachers
any respect. If a teacher questions your efforts or corrects you, feel free to
shout them down.
Lesson 3. Ignore your
commitments
By his
own account, Christie’s “biggest government victory” was pension reform. In
2011, Christie negotiated concessions from public employee unions that required
the union members to accept reduced benefits and pay more into their pensions.
Christie agreed that the state would end years of underfunding the pension when he signed the bill and pledged that the bill would “bring to an end years
of broken promises.” Christie has ridden this agreement to national prominence
as a Republican who can work with the “other side.”
Faced with a budget shortfall this year, however, Christie
broke his promise. When the unions sued for him to follow his own law, Christie
sent his lawyers to court to argue that this “signature achievement” was
unconstitutional. Rather than raise taxes to meet his commitment, which would
have damaged his presidential aspirations, Christie reneged on his promises,
something the public employees, who continue to meet their obligations to the
pension fund, were not allowed to do.
For a school child the lesson is clear. Stick to your
agreements as long as they are convenient; once the agreement is not working
for you, well – never mind.
Lesson 4. When in trouble
blame your friends
Christie says he has been “exonerated” for Bridgegate, the
scandal that broke over a nasty little retribution scheme aimed at the mayor of
Fort Lee who had the audacity to decline to endorse Christie in his re-election
campaign. When the story broke, Christie was quick to throw his friends under
the school bus. These were all people he knew well and who he had appointed to
important positions. Christie threw the full weight of the blame on these
people, never acknowledging that he was the person responsible for setting the
climate of bullying and intimidation that ruled in his office.
Christie has clearly modeled for school children that the
best way to deal with getting caught doing something wrong is to look around
and point the finger at any convenient target and never, ever accept any
personal responsibility.
So there we have it, four clear lessons for school children
from the leader of their state. I am sure Governor Christie, like all leaders,
would like to think of himself as a role model. Well, Governor, I have seen
some role models in my day, and I would say unless you are auditioning for the
role of Tony Soprano, you are no role model.
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