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…
It’s much easier to get away with stuff if your every movement doesn’t scream “I am looking to get into trouble.” That’s what makes me think the confrontation, not the misbehaving, is the point.
Perhaps — but that would mean some of these kids are constantly looking for a confrontation.
You’re absolutely right when it comes to classroom management issues. Such behavior is designed to get the teacher’s attention, often because the student knows no other methods to get attention that are nearly as successful as provoking a confrontation.
But this was simply a young man walking down the hall.
After working with this population (though a couple of degrees more difficult) last year, I’ve come to the realization that this is simply their normal street self that they are unable to turn off when they need to. That sort of loud, confrontational existence will get you “props” out on the street, but they’ve never had modeled for them the proper way getting “props” anywhere else. They do it unconsciously, in other words.
A good example of this is “teeth smacking” (sucking air through your mouth and opening it just enough to make a slight pop sound — the noise you make when you start to talk but then stop short). I have students who do it to every single thing I say — and I ask them, “Are you aware that you just did it?” and they often answer that they are not. It’s a habit, just like being confrontational.
The problem is, while it works in other environments, it most decidedly does not work in formal, institutional environments.
So I would agree with you, but only to a point. This was intended to be a confrontation, but only because everything this young man does in school is intended to be a confrontation.
I’d agree with you, gls. I’ve noticed that many students don’t “code-switch” anymore. Code switching refers to changing speech patterns and behavior based on who you are talking to–sort of how you speak differently to a police officer than you do to your friends.
My students try to talk to me the same way they talk to their friends, and will say things that most students 20 years ago would NEVER say to an adult. It’s the same with the poor habits. They immediately deny wrongdoing, roll their eyes, do the “sucking teeth click” thing, and usually are so habit bound that they really don’t realize that they’re doing it.
That describes, oh, 95% of my students. And that is no exaggeration. I have to teach subject area content and social skills, particularly in my “on-level” classes (which are usually at least one grade level behind and a year older than those in the “advanced” and “gifted” classes).
That sounds like my students last year. They were all very hostile. I suggested a Valium salt-lick for the office workroom (we have no “faculty lounge”), but no one paid attention. I hope that either Ron Clark (The Essential 55) or Fred Jones (Tools for Teaching) are your best friends. I’m also a fan of Dr. Marvin Marshall’s “Discipline without Stress, Punishments, or Rewards”. I have yet to find a single system that works, and even after 10 years in the classroom, I’m still fiddling around with a discipline/social skills system.
I don’t mean to imply that they’re all belligerent, but I do have very few students who don’t ask “Why?” to every single thing I ask them to do or play the innocent every time I call them down.
M, GLS — that’s interesting. It had not occurred to me that the confrontational attitude could be a tic rather than intentionally intended.
Selling the idea of “code switching” has to be difficult, though. I know a lot people who think behaving differently in different audiences is dishonest or two-faced, and they value consistency of behavior. I had a real problem with this myself when I was in high school; I recognized I was code switching naturally, but considered that a moral failing.
Cultural groups with strong cultural markers probably have the most difficulty with this notion. Besides urban street culture, I’ve also seen it in back-woods rednecks and hard-core techno-geeks. Code switching smacks of assimilation, which seems like subservience. So how do you explain it to people who value independence?
(It was eventually explained to me, but I forgot how.)
It does not mean conformity or assimilation. Mainly, what both M and I have in mind are simple things:
I’ve never told my kids they have to change who they are or stop identifying with this or that cultural group. I just try to teach them that we all use different “personalities” at different times. I don’t behave the same way around my wife as I do around my principal. That’s all we’re talking about.
I second that info, gls. Code switching is a thing that everyone used to learn and do automatically: you don’t talk to Grandma the same way you talk to your buddies. These students have gotten to the point where their parents talk to them like they are their peers, so the students don’t know how to behave in a “work” environment. Couple that with a culture that devalues both education and authority, and you get some really interesting interactions.
Ooh, or the students’ only knowledge of interactions comes from TV. Disrespect is hilarious on the sitcoms!
You reminded me of something someone once told me, M, but alas, it’s a long story that will have to wait until after the holiday season.