I felt general anger for a time, but then I started wondering about specifics. Who was it that stabbed me in the back? Who was it that felt I deserved this? Who didn't defend me? Who do some of the other employees know that spared them? It's natural to blame someone else. I still think someone out there feels guilty, besides me. I never did any harm and I always did my best as an educator. As a doctor, I'd be worth a couple hundred thousand a year for that. Actually, doctors are the easiest folks to blame for my job loss, since healthcare costs have been one of the main factors in me being too expensive to my district, even before Act 10 made destroying teachers much easier. 

Can I blame the special ed teacher who demanded a meeting that I ignored? I thought maybe someone in my department tattled that I was opinionated at our recent meetings (about lack of continuity in grammar, not about hatred for management). I imagined a list of past accusations and some of the student and parent faces that went with those complaints. I blamed the administrator who observed me for five minutes twice, the lack of a system for addressing those observations, and the abandonment of any fail-safe to make sure someone who deserves to be employed based on more than just what is done for a few minutes in the classroom. 

I blamed my principal because he had no idea how much I had done or could do. I blame a litany of others in my district for the same offense. I blame those who saw my talent and refused to participate in what I helped set up for them. 

Advice:

Blame your own damn self and move on. Once you're fired, you're fired. Blaming others won't un-fire you. Getting them to take sides as you leave won't make anyone feel good once you're gone. You probably won't ever see any of them again, but if you act like a total baffoon, they'll remember you for that forever. I can remember retirement parties with long speeches and tearful hugs. Maybe that doesn't exist in the private sector I hear so much about, but we used to have it. I pray I can get back into a career where that might happen, at least to a few more co-workers, for a few more years. If not, we'll all just be fighting to remain employed through our twenties, and then what? My advice is to work for those old-school companies or run companies like that.