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Examples

Monday 06 May 2013

Dear Terrence,

Listening to you talk about what your mother does when she gets drunk, hearing your stories about how your grandmother can curse with the apparent fluency of a cliche sailor, I begin to understand how it is you have so few social skills. You've had no one to teach you these skills, through words or example.

Yet I'm still troubled. You've been in school now for nine years (counting kindergarten and this yet-to-be-completed year). Surely you've seen other students model these social skills you're missing. So what's missing in the equation? Recognition. You see these successful students as simply have a different nature than you, and to an extent, they do. They've learned and internalized behaviors that make them seem like they have a different nature, but in fact, you could be just like that. You just don't recognize it. And unfortunately, no matter how many times I and other teachers tell you this, you won't believe us.

Ever frustrated,
Your Teacher

Others’ Business

Thursday 02 May 2013

Dear Teresa,

I overheard your comment to another student today about "going on down the hall before that teacher says something" because "she's always in other people's business."I'm assuming you're referring to the fact that the teacher in question will tell you to move on down the hall, probably interrupting any conversation in which you might be engaged and disregarding the potential impact of such an interruption. In case it had escaped you, said teacher is on hall duty when she tells you that. You, as a student, are in her charge; you are her responsibility. She is not getting in your business; she fulfilling her contractual duties.

What would getting into your business look like? Showing up at a social gathering you're attending and bad-mouthing you to others might be a good example. Making desparaging comments about your personal life and the decisions you've made might be another example. Gossiping about you would be a third example. Telling you to move on down the hall is so far from "getting into your business," though, is most decidedly not an example.

If you're going to gripe about teachers, at least make an attempt not to look foolish by mislabeling your gripe.

Regards,
A Teacher Up the Hall

Beauty

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Dear Terrence and Teresa,

Have you ever experienced true beauty? Your lives sometimes seem so lacking in it — the fruits you show in class make me wonder if you’ve ever been struck dumb by something truly, deeply, and unquestionably beautiful.

Listen to this if you haven’t experienced that kind of beauty.

Sincerely,
Your Teacher

Effort

Friday 12 April 2013

Dear Terrence,

There’s really only one thing that’s required to pass my class: effort. There’s really only one thing required to be successful in life: effort. There’s really only one thing necessary for happiness: effort. There’s really only one recipe for healthy relationships: effort. There’s really only one path to riches of any sort, be they fiscal, emotional, intrapersonal: effort.

Yet you don’t tend to put forth any at all. I have to fight with you to keep your head up. I have to fight with you to keep a pencil in your hand. I have to fight with you some days even to look at the paper you’re working on.

“You won’t be able to do this in high school and pass,” I explain one day. “Certainly not college. And you won’t last a second on any job with this level of effort.”

“I know,” you respond. You say you’ll put forth effort in high school.

But you’ve created for yourself a habit that will be difficult to break. You certainly won’t be able to do it all at once, “cold turkey.” You’ll need to set milestones and achieve them, moving the goal line a little further back each time. And you have to begin now: high school will be too late. You’ll get so far behind so quickly, and you’ll reach an age at which you can make the decision for yourself about continuing your education, that I’m afraid you’ll just drop out.

And then what?

Concerned,
Your Teacher in Room 302

Handful of Hair

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Dear Teresa,

jerry-siegel-hairI cannot imagine what it’s like to feel the kind of uncontrolled rage you felt today. To be so out of control, so boiling with rage, that you don’t pay attention to who is around and whom you are swinging at that you strike not one but two teachers — that would terrify me. I would be afraid about what I might do to those around me, to those whom I love, to those with whom I work. And yet afterward, you were so calm, so matter-of-fact about it.

“That girl said such and such,” you explained as I escorted you down the hall to the office, “and so I,” and your arms began swinging wildly in imitation of how you initiated the fight.

It scares me to think of what your life might be like if this is your reaction to something as petty as a literal “he said that you said” situation. Gossip brings out violence in you? What a miserable life you’ll have, then, if you can’t foster at least some slight self-control.

Worried,
Your Teacher

Tabula Rasa

Tuesday 09 April 2013

Dear Terrence,

PyramidInvesting_DfnFig1_3DPyramidI handed out report cards today along with the notices to your parents about which classes some of you guys are failing for the year. Of course we only include the core academic classes in that list: English, science, math, and social studies. You’re failing all four.

Why?

I think we all know, but you provided eloquently ironic commentary on this when I asked you guys to do your quarterly grade assessment. Three simple questions:

  • What are your grades like?
  • Are your grades what you expected? Why are/aren’t they like you expected?
  • What specific actions can you take to change this for the fourth quarter?

When I took up the papers, yours was blank. Just your name in the corner. Nothing else.

This has your modus operandi throughout the school year. When I ask you about it, you always respond the same: “It’s hard. I don’t get it.” Surely you can’t say the same thing about this, though. Surely you understand this. It’s simple. But it’s hard: self-reflection, honest self-reflection, always is.

As I was thinking about today’s letter to you, I was helping my daughter with her homework. She gets monthly homework tables, and she’s trying to get the whole month done in a single week. Today she had to do the following:

Remember your 3-D shapes. Draw a sphere, cylinder, cube, cone, and pyramid. List something around your house that is shaped like each one.

“Daddy!” she exclaimed, “I can’t do pyramids!”

We looked online, found a drawing of a pyramid, talked about the lighter and darker lines, and she said, “Okay, I can try.”

That’s all you need to do. I’m not looking for perfection; no teacher is looking for perfection. We just need effort. You just need effort, because you’re creating such dangerous habits for yourself with this chronic underachieving.

If I could, I’d sit by you all the time, like I sat by my daughter, but I can’t. No one can. It’s the tragedy and beauty of growing up.

With hope,
Your Teacher

Park

Thursday 04 April 2013

Dear Terrence,

I took my kids to the park today. Yesterday, too. “Daddy, can we come back tomorrow?” my daughter asked just before we left, so it looks like we might be heading back tomorrow as well.

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It’s a real privilege to be able to spend so much time with my kids. It’s one of the perks of being a teacher: I get spring break off too. And so I spend it with my family.

I wonder how many times you got to spend the afternoon at the park with your dad. I know you live with your mom, and for all I know, your dad could be out of the picture altogether. It’s not at all uncommon these days.

I know you’ll likely say, “It is what it is.” Perhaps. It is, but it shouldn’t be. I’m always a little taken aback at how cavalierly some of you guys take the fact that your parents are divorced. I cannot image my parents divorcing; I cannot imagine divorcing my wife. We’re in to for good — there is no problem we won’t work out somehow. And so I’ll always be able to take my kid to the park on sunny spring afternoons. Because it’s important — the smallest things always are.

I hope you’ll take this to heart when you start your own family. It’s likely to be difficult for you, not having any solid role model to serve as a pattern. Still, it’s possible. Just say to yourself daily, “My child will have a more stable family life than I did.” Say it now. Say it again. There — that’s a start.

Tired but satisfied,
Your Teacher

#25 — Conditioned Choices

Wednesday 13 March 2013

Man is a slave in so far as, between action and its effect, between effort and the finished work, there is the interference of alien wills.

Dear Terrence,

I've heard that a reputation is permanent, that once you teach people how to treat you -- and we do teach others how to treat us -- people will always treat you that way. Once people come to expect behavior x from you, they will always expect behavior x.

In my own educational experience, this certainly rang true. I had a good reputation; I was trusted among my teachers; I made sure I rarely got in trouble. As a consequence, I could easily ask to go to the restroom and roam the halls for a little if I so chose. And every now and then, I did so choose. When confronted by a teacher, I could simply make up a quick convincing story and move on. No one ever asked me for a pass because no one ever suspected I was up to no good, even when I was. My reputation saved me, and I used that to my advantage -- especially during my senior year in high school, when my best friend and I sneaked off campus almost every day during lunch.

You, though, have the opposite problem. Even when you're trying to do the right thing, you've taught most everyone -- teachers and administrators -- to doubt your sincerity, to suspect you're up to no good. Quite frankly, you often were at the beginning of the year.

So now you find yourself in this dilemma: you're at risk of receiving an administrative referral for something that, even if you did it, probably doesn't really deserve that level of action, especially if, as you say, one more referral will get you expelled. But because of your reputation, there's little you can say or do to talk your way into a less serious consequence.

You planted seeds that are now beginning to sprout even though you're trying to prevent it. But the seeds are there; your reputation is set. No matter what you do, you'll receive the short end because you've lost the trust of those around you. In fact, those seeds -- your reputation -- have taken such firm root that a teacher could lie about some encounter with you, could say you cursed her and walked away with a huff, and even if it's all a fabrication, the administration would believe the teacher. Why? Because it sounds like something you would do. Let's be frank: it sounds like something you've already done, several times.

So what can you do about it? The truth, at this stage in the school year, at this stage in your middle school career, is simple: not a whole lot. If you kick a dog every time you walk into the room, pretty soon that dog will get up and leave the room every time you enter; if you habitually deal with your frustrations in negative, disruptive, destructive ways, those around you will come to expect that from every counter, and their support for you walk get up and walk out with the hypothetical dog.

All that being said, there is some good news: you'll be going to high school next year. (Let's be honest: having already failed one grade, you're not at risk of being retained even if you fail every single subject, which you currently are.) At high school, you get to start over. You get the great academic reset. All counters are returned to zero. Your reputation is a blank canvas upon which people will begin to paint their expectations of your behavior as you begin to teach them what to expect. In other words, you have a chance to start over and put it all behind you.

I hope at the very least you take that opportunity seriously.

Concerned as always,
Your Teacher in Room 302

#17 — Evil and Duty

Monday 04 March 2013

Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty.

He stood in the hallway, thinking I don't really know what. Was he not aware that I'd heard the profanity coming from his mouth? Was he not aware that the profanity, misogynistic and vile. had indeed come from him mouth? Was he bluffing, hoping for some -- what?

If I had asked him what possessed him to say those things, to call the female student a b----, to become enraged, he would probably (indeed, likely, even predictably) justify it.

"She started it."

"Did you see what she did to me?"

"Nobody's going to do that to me and get away with it."

A thousand and one excuses. A million and one reasons why the evil was not evil, but a necessity. A duty.

#8 — Feeling Good About Oneself

Thursday 21 February 2013

Dear Terrence,

A brief respite from Weil, inspired by a few things in school from the last few days. It's an appropriate supplement to yesterday's post.

What are some of the things about yourself, about your life, about your future that make you feel good about yourself? What are the things in your life that are sources of pride? When you're down, feeling a little low about yourself, what do you think about to remind yourself that you're valuable, that you're worth something? In short, what can you do to give your self-esteem a quick fix?

I have many sources of pride in my life. Most immediately, I'm proud of my family: my wife and my children make me feel like I am truly a valuable person. Other things I take pride in are my job (as a teacher, my job is essentially to help people), my time overseas (an experience that was as challenging as it was rewarding), and the respect and admiration of my colleagues (something I've worked hard to develop). When I'm feeling upset about something, I can think about or interact with these elements of my life, and I feel a little better as a result.

Occasionally, one of these very elements of my life leaves me upset. A bad day at school, an argument with my wife, an unsuccessful interaction with my daughter: all of these things can leave me a bit down, feeling a little less valuable, a little less important. Those moments are tricky, because I'm feeling bad about something which usually causes me to feel good.

That is the case today, because today you showed me, in no uncertain terms, that the best way for you to get your fix, the best way for you to feel better about yourself is to make someone else miserable through mocking, teasing, taunting, threatening, and seemingly countless other forms of bullying. It's depressing to think of what your victim is going through, but it's almost more tragic to think of what you're screaming at the top of your lungs with those actions.

  • "I have no self-esteem!"
  • "I look inside myself and I see little of any beauty."
  • "I feel horrible about myself!"
  • "I hate myself."
  • "I'm so afraid of what others will see if they look closely at me that I will do everything I can to deflect attention to someone else."
  • "I am terrible."
  • "I look inside myself and I see nothing -- nothing -- of any value."
  • "I am dumb."
  • "I am ugly."

None of these things are true. You're not dumb, ugly, terrible, or worthless.

You're not any of these things, and you don't have to try to make others feel they are just so you can feel equal. Pulling someone down is impossible: you can only pull yourself down. Or up.

You're not any of these things, and insulting, threatening, and belittling others does not raise you up in everyone's eyes. It lowers you.

You're not any of these things because you're a human being, full of dignity and deserving respect. Perhaps you've not gotten enough dignity and respect yourself from others around you. But does it really help you feel better to pass that pain on to others?

Concerned and in defense of others,
Your teacher