Intellectual Property
Like most students at the beginning of the semester, I was hopeful and optimistic. I enrolled in six courses in an attempt to graduate this semester. Soon, I realized I bit off more than I could chew.
I was balancing a rigorous course load. I was working full time as a Montessori Children’s House Guide at a brand-new school and was feeling utterly lost in the unbalanced mix of the expectations of corporate education and implementing proper Montessori pedagogy. I fell in love with Montessori philosophy, but I felt overwhelmed by a school that ran like a business. I felt this company focused more on marketing and enrollment and they were unsupportive of the needs of the children we already had in our classrooms. I felt I failed as a Montessori Guide. I was balancing being an attentive daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin, teacher, friend, and girlfriend. I began to have panic attacks for the first time in my life as I was pulled in these different directions, lacking boundaries and balance.
In February, my classroom had been open for three months. In addition to sending daily photos and weekly e-mails, we were expected to write and send a monthly newsletter. I poured my heart and soul into my newsletter… it was three pages. I created it on Canva and wrote about classroom accomplishments, new students, and upcoming birthdays. I featured a “Curriculum Spotlight” section. I talked about how I would be implementing Yoga into our morning work period.
I was so proud of my work and my words.
When I came into work the morning after I posted my newsletter, I was checking my post on the school’s online platform — it’s kind of like a Canvas type of system. I was so excited to see if any parents had commented on my newsletter.
In the feed, above my post, I saw a post for another classroom.
I saw my words.
I had to read it a few times and even brought up my document shared screen on my laptop to compare just to make sure. It was posted for the classroom next to mine, under that teacher’s profile. It appeared to me that somehow, she copied the verbiage off my Canva JPEG image (which baffled me) and pasted it as an announcement.
I was pissed.
My Appalachian and Italian temper started to flare no matter how many deep breaths I tried. I wanted to go next door and confront the lady. I wanted to print it out, storm into my boss’s office and slam it on her desk. But, my uncle’s advice kept running in my head; “Don’t do no hillbilly shit at work.” So, I flexed my strongest muscle, and I wrote an email. I said I was “concerned about my work being plagiarized” (!!!!!!!).
My boss called a meeting and as soon as I sat down, she explained to me that it was HER. My boss! The ‘Head of the School’! With the Montessori credential! With the Master’s degree and six-figure salary when I was a lead teacher still making $14.50! SHE told me that she was the copy-and-paster. All I can say is thank god I had a mask on because I cannot hide my emotions for anything, and my jaw was dropped open. She continued to explain that my neighbor teacher came to her struggling with the project. So, this was her way of ‘helping’. See, I had sent my boss a draft of the verbiage to proofread before I transferred it into Canva. She copied that document and pasted it, only changing the names of the students. She then FURTHER preceded to tell me that she had been sending the weekly emails I was sending to the parents in my classroom as ‘examples’ (COPY AND PASTE AND CHANGE THE NAME EXAMPLES) to the other teachers to use. She said that writing is something that a lot of people struggle with and I was so eloquent with language, and I had a gift, and my words were beautiful.
I felt like I was cheated on. I felt betrayed by this woman who I respected, who I thought was my mentor, who I thought was sincere with her intentions.
Once I collected my thoughts, I explained to her how writing is my art. Writing is what I am going to school for; what I have been trained to do. I explained to her that in the end, I do not get a painting or a sculpture or a photo as my tangible masterpiece. All I have are words.
I explained to her the concept of intellectual property, and that she had stolen mine.
I told her all she had to do was ask me, and I would have happily shared and been flattered.
I had never had to assert myself in such a way before. I never had to advocate for myself to a person in a position of power over me because they had wronged me.
When I left her office, I felt pretty badass.
After work when I told my family about the incident, my older male cousin told me, “My boss takes my work and says he did it all the time. That is just what they do. Now you put a target on your back.” Well, that got my dad spinning and now he was on the bandwagon of how I should have just sat down and shut up and let them *STEAL* from me.
Their arrogance projected onto my conscious and I began to think I should have remained compliant and let this corporation and positions of power distribute my writing without my permission. I felt again no matter which decision I made it was the wrong one.
Then we read the novel How Dare We Write in my Theories of Fiction class.
Most of the narratives in this book refer to the lack of diversity taught in the curriculum; most authors traditionally discussed in the public classroom are white men and occasionally a few women make the cut. The essays, “A Case for Writing While Black”, “mamatowinsin: Writing as Spiritual Praxis”, “Crazy”, “Saying My Name With Happiness”, and “Intersectional Bribes and the Cost of Poetry” ignited a feeling of empowerment within me.
In my experience with these narratives, I felt obligated to persist in advocating for myself and continuing to create. While reading “A Case for Writing While Black” and “Intersectional Bribes and the Cost of Poetry”, my experience of betrayal at work allowed me to resonate — in part — with their narratives. Reading these conversations about multicultural creative experiences in How Dare We Write provoked a passion within me to pursue further advocacy regarding racial, cultural, religious, economic, gender-biased, and fundamentally systematic oppression. While I have been working to fulfill this craving for additional knowledge How Dare I Write has ignited, I began to think about all the African American and other minority creatives that have been stolen from. Like Big Mama Thornton, who sang ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog’ before Elvis made it iconic. It made me start thinking about how entrenched this issue of stealing intellectual property is in our culture’s practices. Someone else is always doing the work, and someone else is always getting the credit. Typically, suppressed employees or minorities being exploited by people in positions of power.
As a new and aspiring educator, my passion for pursuing a career in education is to elevate the next generations of students beyond the generational toxicity that is embedded in these traditionally revered institutions of systematic oppression. In my classroom, I want to provide and inspire my students with a culturally diverse and rich assortment of narratives. My hope is that reading these experiences at a formative age will substantially motivate their emotional intelligence, promote cultural awareness of all peoples, and inspire change.
A few weekends ago, my family had their first gathering since the pandemic began. After, apparently, observing my behavior all weekend, on Sunday morning at brunch before we all left, my grandma’s sister told me: “You aren’t afraid to stick up for yourself.” Maybe it was the mimosas or maybe it really was an epiphany, but I knew what she said was true. And I knew, in part, the women mentors in my family were responsible for providing me the foundation for my recent development in courage. In three generations, the women in my family have given life to thirty-nine children. They married men that were abusive, addicts, and cheaters. My paternal grandmother was beaten by her first husband so viciously while she was pregnant, that when she gave birth, the baby was born without her brain attached to her cerebellum and passed away within two days. During her second marriage (to my ‘grandfather’) she again was being attacked while pregnant. This time she stabbed him. During the court trial, the judge deemed her actions as self-defense and sent her husband to jail. They left those marriages. A few found men that respected and loved them. When they were sexually harassed in the workplace, they confronted the perpetrators. My maternal grandma became one of the first women Postmasters and never had to depend on any salary but her own. They found jobs that allowed them to be independent of the financial control of their partners. They never passed an opportunity for growth. Their courage — and pain — is inside of me.
For the fun of it, let’s rename the failures I was feeling “successes”. I was successful in quitting my job in a corporation I no longer felt aligned with. I was successful in the ways I learned to assert myself to people in positions of power. I was successful in the confrontations I encountered while addressing the plagiarism of my intellectual property for the company’s profit. I was successful in learning to have difficult conversations. I was successful in remaining poise. I was successful in obtaining employment in a new position as a teacher I feel I can thrive in. I was successful in remaining authentic to my personal values. I was successful in trusting myself and the divine, knowing everything is going to work out the way it is supposed to. I’ve created boundaries and found balance.
