A rejected letter from Pennsylvania State Senator Seth Grove.

Flea circus

Limiting beliefs can truly hold you back from greatness. Many strategies break the problem down into smaller pieces. Then you can celebrate your small victories and build confidence.When you see yourself caught in a limiting belief just remember the flea circus. It would be silly to bang your head on a cellophane barrier. It also is wrong to hold onto limiting beliefs.

This post was originally posted on November 21st. At that time I thought it was from my State Senator Ted Erickson. I was mistaken. The letter came from State Senator Seth Grove's office. I have apologized to Senator Erickson because he had nothing to do with this response, however, the meaning of the post still is valid. Seth Grove or someone in his office should not be using intimidation techniques to respond to the citizens of their state.  The letter below was faxed to my school's public fax number. I still would be wiling to meet with Senator Grove to discuss the content of this post.

Sir,

Recently, I received a faxed response from you with a few grammar and spelling corrections. It appears that you were trying to reinforce a weakness in my writing ability to undermine the content of my letter.

You said nothing about the content of the letter, so I think I made you angry. This was not my intention. You are a senator, and I respect you but, would you have answered my students in the same way? When Senator Jay Costa responded to my letter he addressed the main idea of student to teacher ratios. He said that because our school’s money came from local districts with varied per capita reimbursements, then it would be extremely difficult to tie funding to ratios. Although I disagree with Mr. Costa, would it have been that hard to write to this point as well? Mr. Grove, my letter was an opinion, not an assignment in a class. I am a teacher and administrator of leadership electives in a cyber high school. I am the adviser for our active student government organization where our students learn civic leadership in practical ways. If you wrote back this kind of response to one of them, would your influence limit their belief system? Would they ever write a letter to their legislator again?

Sir, I admit that you are smarter and more influential than I, but the only way I can perceive this letter is as a personal attack. When you faxed the letter back to my school without a comment apart from your corrections about my mechanics, this attacked my reputation as an educator. Was this your intention? I would think this would have been better handled with a phone call or meeting. Would you like to meet?