Our school has a fairly strict dress code, and part of that includes the prohibition of wearing jackets inside the building. If students are cold, they are to bring a sweater.
Yesterday, before the last period, a young man came sauntering down the hall, slightly dragging one foot behind him in that ever-so-fashionable gangster shuffle, his camouflage jacket on, and everything about him shouting, “I have low self-esteem.”
As he approached me, I found myself thinking, “Come on — take the jacket off now so I don’t have to say something.” It was the last day before Christmas break; I’d finished all my classes; I did not want to have a confrontation over something silly.
But he didn’t, and so I said something, and he started showing his full “gangster” plumage. He refused to look at me; he refused to acknowledge me; in short, he acted like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.
I told him, “You’re making an issue of something that need not be an issue by showing me extreme disrespect. If we’re unable to work this out here, I’ll simply write a referral to the administration and let the vice principle work it out.” Nothing, for a moment. Finally, he looked at me. “That’s a start.”
As we talked, I eventually asked him, “How many times have you gotten in-school suspension.”
“Two.”
“Notice what I did?” I asked. “I didn’t even ask you ‘Have you ever gotten ISS?’ I knew. I don’t even know your name, yet I knew you’d had ISS. Want to know how I knew that?”
A begrudging, “How?”
“Your body language screams it,” I told him. “No one who hadn’t been to ISS would have acted as you’ve been acting over a stupid coat. Your slouching refusal to give me eye contact, your silly refusal to acknowledge anything I said, the way you smack your teeth as if to provide punctuation to every single sentence I utter — all these things said, ‘This is a kid who finds himself in trouble a lot.’ Did you want to tell me that?”
These kids have no idea how much they communicate without even opening their mouths, something I hope to start remedying next quarter when I teach my related arts class. More later — right now the syllabus is still in development…