Continued work on the Fourth Precept

Another few days have gone by and my struggle to maintain mindfullness of speech continues. I would like to say that I have managed to be mindfull at all times and have rigorously practiced right speech but if I said as much I would not be speaking truly and so further violating the precept ! I have at least been more aware of my speech and have tried to lessen my propensity to speak of others when they are not present. I must say that at my workplace, a secondary school, this resolve is much harder to maintain. It seems that one thing that is quite common for those of us at my school is to speak of others, more often than not in a less than flattering way. It seems to me that talking about others is a favourite topic, perhaps because it is an easy thing to speak on. I shall have to redouble my efforts to be mindfull with my speech !