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End of the Honeymoon

Monday 23 August 2021

Dear Terrence,

It’s been a while since I’ve written to you — well over a year, I’d say. Last year I taught only honors classes, and you don’t often end up in those classes. This year, though, with two on-level classes in addition to two honors classes, I thought there was a greater chance of meeting you.

I had my eye on you from the first day. I thought, “That kid might be my Terrence this year.” You were a bit loud, a bit talkative, a bit theatrical, but once we started working, you generally calmed down and did the work.

Today, though, you showed me that you are indeed one of my Terrences this year.

The funny thing is, I warned you all about this at the beginning of the year. I pointed out that people who work hard and are respectful of everyone around them generally get cut a little slack when they do show some attitude — we all do it from time to time, let’s face it. But the people who consistently do the little things that chip away at one’s reputation — well, we come to expect that of them. And so within a few days, you’ve shown that that talkativeness, that machismo, that bravado was a harbinger of things to come.

And just as I told you at the beginning of the year, it wasn’t what you were doing so much as how you reacted when I called you out on it.

“Terrence, stop talking please.”

“Oh, oh, okay. So you’re going to ignore them talking and call me out?! Okay — I see how it is,” you snapped back.

No, Terrence, I’m not ignoring them. I just have one mouth and usually address one student at a time. You’ve shown yourself to be the biggest disrupter in the class, so of course, I zeroed in on you. Was that fair? How was it unfair? If you don’t speed, you don’t get pulled over for speeding. It doesn’t matter if everyone else is speeding. If you’re not speeding, you won’t get pulled over for speeding.

If you don’t disrupt class, you never get called out for being disruptive. It doesn’t matter if other people are being disruptive. If you’re not disruptive, you won’t get called out for being disruptive.

It’s not rocket science, buddy. It’s not translating Sanskrit. If you don’t want to get in trouble for doing X, don’t do X. Simple.

Your teacher for 175 more days,
Mr. S

Never Thought It Could Happen to Me

Friday 20 August 2021

I was reading old MTS entries in the “Time Machine” widget at the bottom of the page, and this was the first entry.

An Agenda

I hadn’t thought of Mike, who went by the hip-hop-inspired moniker M-Jezzy, in years. I thought about him a lot a few years ago, when his case was in the news, though.

M-Jezzy

The story is a compounded tragedy. I knew M-Jezzy’s background from working with him at a program for at-risk kids. To say he’d had the cards stacked against him was an understatement. Both his mother and his older brother were setting a splendid example for him. His mother was a pusher; his brother followed her lead; they were both trying to get M-Jezzy to join the family business.

Take someone from that environment and put him with a child. It’s not difficult to see how things could turn tragic.

An Asheville man will spend at least 18 years in prison after admitting Monday that he caused the death of his girlfriend’s son, according to District Attorney Todd Williams.

Michael Antonio Dixon, Jr., 24, pleaded guilty Monday in Buncombe County Superior Court to second-degree murder and intentional child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury in the death of 4-year-old Cedric Francois.

Cedric’s mother Taquita Francois said Dixon was taking care of the boy Oct. 19, 2011 while she was at work when he called in a panic because Cedric was unresponsive.

Cedric was taken to Mission St. Joseph’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead. (Source)

The story, I thought, was that M-Jezzy had just lost control — I’d seen it happen — and literally beaten the poor child to death. I imagined blow after blow coming down on the little four-year-old’s body, and I was filled with fury. “Someone should do some basic math: determine the pounds per square inch he hits with, compare that to the weight of the boy, then beat M-Jezzy with the force proportional to his own body weight,” I ranted to K.

But in reading about the tragedy anew, I found a new detail.

Judge Alan Thornburg sentenced Michael Antonio Dixon Jr., 24, to a minimum of 225 months and a maximum of 279 months in state prison for the death of Cedric Francois on Oct. 19, 2011.

Dixon, who originally was charged with first-degree murder, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and intentional child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury in the plea hearing in Buncombe County Superior Court.

Prosecutor Rodney Hasty said the district attorney’s office agreed to the plea because investigators didn’t believe Dixon intended to kill the boy when he struck him in the face after the child accidentally soiled himself.

Dixon, who was babysitting the boy while his mother was at work, put the child in a bathtub before striking him, Hasty said. Investigators believe the boy, when struck, fell backward and hit the back of his head on the tub, Hasty said.

The boy died from blunt force trauma to the head that caused bleeding around the brain, according to an autopsy report by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill. The boy’s mother, Taquita Francois, told police she left him in Dixon’s care at her Pisgah View Apartments home when she went to work.

“It does not appear to us at the time the defendant hit the child he intended to kill the child,” Hasty told the judge.

Dixon’s attorney, Al Messer, call the child’s death a “tragic situation.”

“Mr. Dixon is accepting responsibility and is pleading guilty,” Messer said. (Source)

It was in the bath as M-Jeezy tried to clean an accidental soiling. Perhaps the child wouldn’t sit down. Frustrated with having to deal with the child’s feces and irritated that the child wasn’t following instructions, M-Jezzy did what his mother might have done to him: slap him across the face. “Do it now!” Back the child flew, his head making a sickening thud against the tub that M-Jezzy must have known confirmed the path of the rest of his life.

But such things don’t usually happen in one-off situations. It was unlikely that this was the first time M-Jezzy or someone else struck the boy.

According to the autopsy, the boy had older injuries that were unrelated to the head trauma, including rib fractures on both sides of the chest and a human bite mark on the left forearm.

Asheville police began investigating the child’s death after being notified by Mission Hospital staff about “questionable injuries” discovered on his body. According to court documents, a detective at the hospital observed numerous injuries, including hemorrhages in both eyes, bruises on his face, buttocks and around his ankles, abrasions on his chest, forehead and under his left eye, a laceration on his right ear, a laceration on his lower lip and a bite mark on his arm. (Source)

The child of an impoverished single mother, the trajectory of Cedric’s life and death had begun long before, possibly when he was born, possibly before his own mother was born: a straight line that psychologists and social workers could have plotted as the nurses cleaned and weighed the newborn. Abuse begets abuse; parents who don’t know how to raise children raise parents who don’t know how to raise children; neglect begets neglect.

Did M-Jezzy see the parallel structure of his life and the life he took? Did he have the insight to realize that his life could have ended just as quickly as young Cedric Francois? Did he feel his own mother’s hand on the back of his head when he slapped Cedric?

Later, Cedric’s mother offered a plea to parents:

“I just want people to know that you need to cherish every moment with your kids because I felt like something like this could never happen to me,” she said. “Whether they get on your nerves, stress you out, just appreciate your kids fullest.” (Source)

That’s the rub of it all: there are very few people out there who wouldn’t feel this way, very few parents who are just willfully abusive to their children.

And that’s the other rub: isn’t that just an assumption? A projection based on the environment I’ve spent my whole life in? The news is filled with stories of children being tortured, being abused in the most wretched ways, and the assumption is that they are a minority, but what we see in the news is only a fraction of what actually happens, of parents actually caught and, if the children are lucky, stopped before it’s too late, before the last slap that ends in the crush of skull against tub, before the privation of food and water leads to death — the thousand and one ways parents neglect and abuse their kids to the very end of their short lives.

“I felt like something like this could never happen to me,” she said.

Morning in the Hall

Thursday 13 May 2021

He comes in, earbuds screaming, slouches down against the wall, and proclaims, “I’m hungry!” Digging around in his bag, he reveals a bag of Doritos and with a rustle of ____ (Material of chips bags) adding to the chaos of the noise coming from his earbuds, he rips the bag open and shoves a handful of chips into his mouth. This is his breakfast; this is how he starts his day. He feeds his brain with aggressive hip-hop; he feeds his body with empty calories. Is it any wonder that the row of grades trailing after his name is also empty, a trail of “NHI’s” (Not Handed In) and grades in the twenties, thirties, and forties.

She sits against the wall, her head down, long hair hiding her face. She hasn’t spoken a word since coming onto the hall half an hour ago, and she only looks up with furtive glances that betray a desperate desire to remain invisible, to appear uninterested, to maintain an air of distance.

Seeing the Future

Sunday 26 July 2020

I have encounters with students sometimes that leave me wondering whether there is any good left in the word. I know there is; I see it all around me. But some interactions make me realize that some don’t see that, and so for them, it doesn’t exist. There is no good; it’s all bad. Even what they see as good is in fact probably bad.

Suzanna is a young lady who makes an impression immediately: she is, in a word, strikingly beautiful. All the teachers on the eighth-grade hall willingly admit it: she’s probably one of the most physically attractive young ladies we’ve had in the eighth grade in a long time. With a perfect dark complexion and hair that’s always in lovely curls, she’s striking. When she grows up, she’ll be the time of woman that commands everyone’s attention and admiration the moment she walks into a room.

Until she opens her mouth, for she is as unattractive on the inside as she is beautiful on the outside. Case in point: the first day of school, one of her teachers was taking roll. He called out her name, Suzanna Smith-Jones.

“Don’t call me ‘Smith.’ That’s my daddy’s name. I don’t like him. And I don’t like you.”

The first words out of her mouth. Her first impression.

“She said it with such anger, with such hatred,” the teacher explained to me later as I was checking up on her — I don’t teach her — after she and I had had a run-in one morning in the hallway.

“What kind of life has she lived to get that messed up in only thirteen years?” I asked. “What kind of a future does she have?”

The encounter I’d had with her was instructive as well. It was in the morning, before the actual school day started when students who arrive early are to sit outside their homeroom teacher’s door and wait quietly and patiently. I’d noted early in the week that she was sitting at the top of the hall, so I assumed that was where her homeroom was. I was stationed at the middle of the hall, so when she came to my area and plopped down with some friends, I politely said, “You need to go back up there to your homeroom, please.”

“I ain’t goin’ up there,” she said, her voice instantly on edge with anger.

These types of reactions — instant and unqualified disrespect when I’ve made a conscious effort to be respectful — constitute my one big button. I don’t lose my temper with students often, but this does it. Still, I’ve been conscious of it for some time now, and I’ve largely managed to get that under control. So instead of responding like some teachers would, with instant anger and disrespect in return, I simply restated my instructions: “I’m afraid I’m not asking you. I really need you to go back up the hall, please.”

“I’m just gonna sit here like I do every day.”

“Don’t do this, please. Make a better choice.”

At this point, her friends began encouraging her: “Come on, Suzanne, just do what he says.” I find that when I’m polite at all times, I earn a reputation among students for just that, and in such encounters, they often respond by suggesting that their friend is making a mistake. I was glad to see it happening then, and I really hoped she would comply. That would be the end of it. But she wasn’t giving in.

“I ain’t doin’ nothing. I’m just sittin’ here.”

It occurred to me that perhaps her homeroom was in fact in the middle of the hall, and I realized that this was going nowhere: I couldn’t force her to move, and she wasn’t complying, so I simply stated, “Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to talk to Mr. M when I refer the matter to him.”

“I guess I will.”

After some checking later in the morning, I learned that her homeroom was not at the top of the hall, not in the middle of the hall, but at the far end of the hall.

Often, with such kids, I make a special effort: I actively try to cultivate a new relationship after such an encounter. These relationships sometimes turn into some of the closest, warmest relationships I have with students. I become something of a coach to them, something of a mentor. Such students often seek me out when they’re having a conflict with another student or a teacher because they know they can vent their frustration safely with me and that the only thing they’ll get in return is a little coaching and a lot of encouragement.

I tried to cultivate such a relationship with Suzanna. She was not simply ambivolent; she was openly hostile to the idea. I waited, tried again. Still the same reaction.

A girl trapped in her own frustration, feeding off her own anger, as such a dismal future in my eyes that it makes it difficult to watch that person move through her day. She’s a pinball, batted about by the whims and accidents of the people around her.

Karma

Thursday 25 June 2020

Written several years ago during the school year.

A young man this morning had a run-in with me. I say “he had a run-in with me,” but I guess the opposite is equally true: I had a run-in with him. But in a way, it’s a matter of semantics, for it seems all our interactions are negative like this morning’s. In short, he does not like being told what to do by anyone, and though I don’t teach him, I am still responsible for him as a teacher on the hall, so I have to tell him to do things. Like get in dress code. Or take off the headphones. Or stop chasing this or that girl. Or get to class. Or get to your locker. Any number of things that he knows perfectly well he’s expected to do. This morning’s encounter was another in a long line of meaningless conflicts that arise from his instant disrespect whenever he’s told to do something.

At about six-two, Terrence is taller than almost all his eighth-grade peers, perhaps because he’s supposed to be in ninth grade. He struts down the hall and is admired by boys and girls alike. Boys and girls who see his supposed toughness as a virtue. Boys and girls for whom his probation-related ankle-bracelet adds to his prestige. Most teachers think a little less highly of him than do his peers.

“Terrence, you need to get to your class. It’s girls’ locker time, not boys’.”

Instant conflict: “Man, you see my teacher ain’t here. You see I gotta wait in the hall!” in such a bellicose and hateful yelled tone that it’s a wonder he was surprised at all what was coming next: a reprimand for disrespect.

“There’s no need to talk to me that way…” and he turned his back on me and stood with his back to me. Fairly typical behavior.

“That’s fine, Terrence. I’ll refer this matter to the administrator.” Which means really nothing because he’ll get a day or to OSS for it, and kicking a kid like this out of school is no kind of punishment at all. It is, of course, a relief to his teachers because they don’t have to deal with his nonsense. It’s a relief to his classmates because now they can get some work done. But for Terrence? It’s meaningless, and he didn’t mind telling me so.

“Man, I don’t even care.”

That could be his mantra, and he’s not the only student like that. They’re the ones that are the toughest to care about because they don’t even seem to care about themselves or others enough to see the harm their behavior causes, to themselves or to others. Their lack of self-confidence displays itself in bellicosity and anger, and the only way to get through a protective shell like that is not to take their verbal strutting personally — much easier said than done. And so such students just jostle about through the day, bouncing from one conflict to another, all of which serves as just more evidence to their victim mentality that the whole world is out to get them.

Later in the day, he was sauntering down the hall while I was out working with a couple of students who’d asked to work in the hall to avoid a potential conflict in the classroom (Some days, it’s all about the “drama” as the kids call it). Terrence stopped briefly to chat with a friend who was returning to another classroom from the bathroom. He explained that he had a day of OSS.

“Why?” his friend asked.

“Because of him,” he said, pointing at me.

I’d written the administrative referral during my morning planning period, and the grade-level administrator had already processed it. It’s telling because of the simple fact that Terrence’s referral received top-level priority. I’m not sure he would have grasped the significance or irony. In honesty, though, none of that entered my mind at the moment. I simply replied with my own mantra of sorts, the standard response I give to students who blame a teacher for their behavior issues: “No, Terrence, it was because of the choices you made.”

“Man, I didn’t even want to talk to you,” he sneered.

There, in less than ten words, was the summation of his whole problem. In fact, he only needed four: “I didn’t even want…” If Terrence doesn’t want something, he doesn’t do it; if he wants something, he does it. Anything that gets in the way is going to cause a conflict, and Terrence has learned that if he is aggressive enough, disrespectful enough, and consistent enough, he can get what he wants from a lot of people who in fact are in positions of authority over him. Clearly, he behaves thus with his parents (or, more likely, with  his mother — statistically speaking, he’s likely from a single-parent home), and clearly it works, else he wouldn’t do it. It’s probably also worked with teachers who are just tired of the fight and give in from exhaustion. But I’ll stand my ground with a Terrence. I’ll be part of the wall that he crashes himself against. “It’s better that he learn now when the stakes are not as high,” I might even justify it to myself. Truth be told, a significant portion of it is pride — same as Terrence.

“It doesn’t matter whether you wanted to talk to me or not. I’m the one in authority, and when you don’t…” but it was useless.

What I really wanted to say was, “Well, there will be lots of people you don’t want to talk to, like the judges you’ll appear before throughout your life. But they won’t really care whether or not you want to talk to them, and if you talk to them as you speak to any and all adults in this building, you’ll have some pretty hefty consequences.” I thought of Ebony Burks and her encounter with a judge during her arraignment.

We might be troubled by the way the judge seems to antagonize the situation, but in the end, Ms. Burks is responsible for what comes out of Ms. Burks’s mouth, and she could have stopped at any moment. Terrence is easy to imagine responding in a similar fashion.

That’s what I wanted to say but of course would never say. “Less said, easier mended” our previous principal’s email signature read, and it was something I really took to heart. Besides, to tell Terrence that would be to tell him one day he’s going to sprout wings and become a flying turnip: he’d never believe it.

Terrence is the type that has such an impact on the hall that when he’s missing, it’s immediately obvious, and so in the afternoon, I noticed he was missing but assumed he’d just been sent to ISS for the remainder of the day. Perhaps he’d given another teacher trouble, and the teacher simply sent Terrence to the administrator straight from the classroom.

It turns out he’d continued making poor decisions after our first encounter, but the decisions of the morning were nothing compared to the decisions he’d made even earlier in the day, before he left for school, as he was packing his materials, such as they are, for a day of instruction — choices so dire that his hypothetical appearance before a judge I’d been imagining transformed to the afternoon’s certainty. In short, having brought a pistol to school, he is in about as much trouble as a young man can be in, and he will not be coming back to school.

And my reaction? I smiled at the thought of almost-instant karma. In fact, walking out to the car, I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin from my face. It was as if I’d experienced the greatest “I told you so” moment in my life. “Of all the kids to bring a gun to school,” all the teachers had been saying, “I would have picked him.” Of all the students to do something that would land him in front of a judge, I would have picked Terrence. Our clairvoyance instantaneously confirmed.

And now? I think to myself, why in the hell was I smiling at another human being’s misfortune? Certainly his misfortune was a self-created condition, borne of his consecutive poor decisions. In short, from a certain point of view, he got what he deserved. But for a child of that age, no more than fourteen, perhaps fifteen (if he’s been held back a year), it’s tragic to think that his worldview, his reactions, his existence has been so poorly shaped that he already has virtually no future. He had no input regarding his environment. He had no input into the involvement of his father in his life. He adapted to the laws of the street and simply never learned to turn those behaviors off when in a situation with said behaviors were no longer positive but in fact detrimental.

I’m not saying he’s just a victim, for he’s had seven or even eight, possibly nine, full years of school in which to watch other students who don’t find themselves constantly in trouble and learn to copy their behavior. Still, there is an element of victimization here that only leaves me shaking my head, determined to try to get through to the next Terrence I meet (I have a couple in my own classes every year) and thankful that I am able to provide my own children with the stability that these children never experienced.

Addendum: Background

The above was written some time ago–I held off publishing it because I really didn’t know how the story would end.

I know now.

Terrence appeared before a judge and faced charges. He appeared before the school board and was expelled. And he committed another crime in the meantime and is now locked up.

I held off publishing also because I thought he might end up back at our school if he’d been expelled. Unlikely, but a possibility, for expulsion in our county means expulsion for a full year, after which, the student can return to the school and pick up where he left off, so to speak. With his later charges, Terrence likely won’t be coming back ever again.

We heard more about his situation as the year progressed. Apparently, his father had just gotten out of prison when all this started. I can only imagine the sense of complete failure his father felt when he learned what his son had done, the frustration he felt driving to the school to meet with administrators and police officers about the choices his son had made. I can imagine a conversation like this when he sees his son:

“Didn’t I teach you anything going to prison?”

“Yeah, you taught me plenty.”

Day 53: Changes

Thursday 7 May 2020

Schedule

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from my principal. It read, in part,

We are working on the schedule for next year, and I wanted to run something by you. In an effort to simplify people’s assignments and avoid teachers having 3 preps, we are looking at the possibility of you teaching all of the English 1 sections. […] My one hesitation is that 4 sections of E1H is a lot for one person. A lot to grade and be responsible for.

English I Honors is indeed a handful. Each class is about 30 students usually, and whereas 60-65% of students in English 8 turn in a given assignment, it’s something like 90% in English I. Many English 8 students often have issues with time management and apathy, so it’s rare for a student in those classes to turn in all assignments in a given quarter. English I is exactly the opposite thought: it’s rare to have more than two or three students in a given class not turn in a given assignment.

Another element adding to the E1 workload is the simple fact that, compared to English 8, it’s two classes combined into one: reading and writing are separated into two classes for English 8, and I have always taught the reading/literature portion. English I isn’t, so I have to teach both, which means a lot of writing to assess.

So I was hesitant to accept such an offer. At the same time the idea of working with students who have almost no serious behavior problems, who are all working hard most of the time, who all see the value of education, is pretty hard to resist.

My other concern was regarding the fact that having all the English 1 classes would mean Mrs. H, the other English I teacher, would have none. I knew how she enjoyed teaching that class, and if the tables were turned, I would not want to give up English 1 even for the tempting offer of having only one prep. I expressed my concerns to the principal, and he, in turn, discussed those concerns with Mrs. H. It turned out that for her, the thought of having only one prep was indeed enticing enough to give up English I. In fact, she was somewhat worried about the workload that I would be facing, and she emailed me about those concerns. Receiving this email and having assurances from my principal that Mrs. H would not feel as if I were somehow taking these classes away from her (because that’s how I felt: if I to take these classes, that means she loses them, and I can always say no), I agreed to take the 4 English I classes.

Yesterday the official master schedule for the 2020-2021 school year was released.

And there I am back-to-back-to-back-to-back English 1 classes.

I’m happy about this for a number of reasons, not the least of which that I will have very few behavior issues to deal with. It’s also a great joy to work with students of actually do want to learn and you actually do put forth their best effort on a consistent basis.

On the other hand, working with a class that includes a significant number of at-risk students has its own rewards. I often feel I have the opportunity to teach them even more important skills like anger management, delayed gratification, empathy, impulse control, and appropriate self-efficacy.

The change will be significant. The increased workload will be noticeable. The rewards? Well, it is indeed a trade-off.

The Fort

L decided today that she wanted to get involved in the fort.

“You guys did the hardest part,” she said, “But still — I want to help.”

She brought an interior design eye to the project, bringing ground covering (old towels), decorations (old silk flowers), entertainment (books, a chess board, and more), and snacks.

Day 1: Achievement Gap

Monday 16 March 2020

There was one overriding concern at today’s faculty meeting: we have to do everything we can to make sure that this national emergency does not expand the achievement gap any more than is inevitable. We spent the morning talking about how to prepare materials for students to work at home with one underlying assumption: vast numbers of kids won’t do anything during this time. The “high flyers” will do everything we give them; the middle-of-the-roaders will do some of it; the ones who need the most help will do the least.

“They don’t even do much work when we’re hovering over them” was the common refrain.

So as we embarked on our planning this afternoon, working to create ten days of material for students to work on while we’re closed, we kept that in mind — a frustrating project, planning materials that we know will most likely not be used by kids who really do need to use it.

And the common refrain during that planning process: “We need to go ahead and plan for the next ten days because there’s no way we’re coming back at the beginning of April.”

We’ll cross that Rubicon when we arrive at its banks…

A View into a Mind

Monday 9 March 2020

It was a difficult poem, to be sure. But I’d adjusted accordingly.

First, I’d given students plenty of footnoted definitions. Words like “smouldered” and “pungence” (the poem used British English) would have left them flummoxed otherwise.

Additionally, I’d asked a fairly simple series of questions as part of our weekly inference practice: “What can we tell about this lady? What does she look like? Is she old or young?” As always, I expect the students to back up their answer with the text, and I’ve given them a simple formula to follow.

  • Make a claim: “The lady is x.”
  • Back it up from the text: “I know this because the text says…”
  • Explain your thinking with one or two sentences: “This shows she’s x because…”

I really don’t feel like it’s all that challenging. Besides, it’s something we do every Friday — inference work.

“It’s like shooting free throws,” I tell them. “It’s the most basic skill we do when we read, inferring.” It’s why we do it every Friday, week after week.

Thirdly, I’d cut the text: we were only working on the first stanza. The rest of the poem, I felt, might confuse them more.

Finally, I am always walking about the room as students work, offering help and answering questions, helping redirect or clarify thinking or ask questions that help them see the text in a new way, and there is a co-teacher in the room as well.

The text itself was a poem by Amy Lowell, “The Lady.”

You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.
In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colors.

So given the questions — “What can we tell about this lady? What does she look like? Is she old or young?” — and the formula we’ve been using all year, something like this was my objective for student achievement:

The lady in the poem is beautiful. I know this because the poem starts with the words, “You are beautiful.” The poem wouldn’t say “You are beautiful” unless the lady was beautiful. The writer might be joking, but I don’t think so.

Also, the lady in the poem is old. I know this because the poem says, “You are beautiful and faded.” I know from my own experience with clothes that usually it’s old things that fade. So if the writer says the lady is faded, she must be old.

Of course there would be varying degrees of writing proficiency with that (I don’t teach writing — I’m the literature/reading teacher), and I would have to help some students reach that second realization. Also, that final sentence of the first paragraph requires some evidence as it makes a claim. What in the poem suggests the writer Still, most of them saw these things and wrote something similar.

Many, but not all.

There are several students who receive special ed services in that class — it’s an inclusion class, and there’s a co-teacher in there for that very reason. Many of the inclusion students have behavior issues that accompany their learning disabilities, but some just quietly do the best the can.

One such student produced the following in reply to the above prompt:

we know about this woman that she is beautiful and she likes an old opera tune and the perfume of her soul and she is young and her appearance is a grow mad with gazing and eighteenth-century boudior and her personality is blent colors

The lack of punctuation and capitalization is fairly typical of average eighth-grade students these days, at least in my school. That’s not my concern with this excerpt. What initially fascinates (and saddens) me is the content: it simply makes little to no sense at all past the first two clause-like elements: “we know about this woman that she is beautiful and she likes an old opera tune.” Beyond that, it seems like just a random collection of elements from the original text.

There is, however, a pattern. She clearly referred back to the questions: she explains about “her appearance” and then “her personality.” So this was not an apathetic student just randomly grabbing some words and throwing them together. This was not a vindictive act of “I’ll just put complete nonsense there because…” It’s a genuine effort at answering what was for her an incredibly difficult question.

Yet there’s more than just that. Look closely: she links “appearance” with “gazing,” a verb connected to seeing. She links “personality” to “blent colors” because the poem says “your blent colors,” so she clearly recognized that possessive pronoun and made a stab that that might be related to “her personality.” It’s not a bad interpretation, to be honest.

It’s really a valiant effort, truth be told.

But I didn’t see that at first. Grading so many such assignments, week in, week out, I get to where I’m only scanning, truth be told. Which is to say, I read it, but I read it so very fast that I’m not really reading it in the truest sense of the word. I’m not reading it like I read a book that I’m really enjoying, or even an email from a colleague. I’m looking for specific things very quickly.

I’m doing what I tell my students not to do.

Changes

Thursday 27 February 2020

Photo by susanjanegolding

A kid makes a decision to sell something at school and soon, every part of her life is sucked into the whirlpool of consequences that follows. Another kid makes a comment about violence in school and soon, every part of his life is not sucked into the whirlpool of consequences because of parental denial.

Both these kids intersect my own life, and those intersections coincide with other intersections making this web that moves on one end when you tug on the opposite end. Both these changes affect me only coincidentally and fairly significantly — the paradox of the nature of modern life.

Both these changes get me thinking about our own daughter, the same age as these two non-hypothetical kids who go to schools not all that different from our daughter with peers not all that different from our daughter’s friends. So much of these three families’ lives line up, and it leaves me thinking, “There but for the grace of God go we…”

I want to say it’s not grace. I want to say it’s better parenting. But I know that’s not necessarily the case. And I add “necessarily” because to think otherwise is almost unbearable.

Progress

Tuesday 11 February 2020

Working with eighth-grade kids, I’ve learned to accept progress in small steps. Behaviors don’t change overnight. They don’t even change over-week or over-month. But small changes can happen suddenly. Small changes that can grow. Small changes that serve as a foundation. Small changes that aren’t so small.

I have a student that I love. And hate. And hate to love. And love to hate. He’s got potential. He’s got a great personality. Everyone loves him. But he talks.

Constantly.

No, constantly.

No, I mean constantly.

No, I really mean constantly.

That is almost not an exaggeration. A slight exaggeration, but only very slight. He loves gossip. He loves knowing something someone else doesn’t know about someone they know in common. He loves telling people things they don’t know. He loves being a clearinghouse of useless personal information about others.

In the midst of this gossiping, this chatting, this constant sharing of information, he often gets called down. And this behavior he consistently exhibits makes him the focus of teachers’ attention so that they call him down for everything. And that frustrates him. Leads him to argue. Leads him to be disrespectful. Leads him to making very bad decisions sometimes.

I have him in homeroom and English class. Almost every day as he leaves, I tell him, “K, make good decisions today.”

“Yes, sir,” he says. (Did I mention he can be a perfect example of Southern manners?)

Later in the day, before eighth-grade students came back from related arts, I saw him again.

“K, have you been making good choices today?”

“Yes.” He proceeded to tell me about an instance when a teacher called him down and told him to close his Chromebook. “I was going to argue with, but I just closed my Chromebook.”

Two little actions from one decision: to do one thing and not do another. Two actions that most of us would do without thinking about it when told to do so by an authority figure. Two actions that would go unnoticed in other students. Two little actions; one little decision. And so much pride.

“See? It wasn’t that hard, was it?” I said.

“No, sir.”

“And the whole conflict — it just vanished instantly, didn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” he smiled.

Next step: get him to repeat it. Often.

In Trouble

Friday 24 January 2020

I can’t understand how some students get so fixated on some perceived slight from the teacher because they got called down for something they didn’t do or something someone else was doing at the same time and “Why are you picking on me?” type nonsense that they end up escalating the whole non-issue into a referral-able offense. It’s like someone getting pulled over because the officer wanted to give them a warning about their speed and the person ends up assaulting the officer. What could have ended in a matter of moments will stretch out to a few years as a result of their decision.

“Why am I in trouble?” she asked.

“You aren’t in trouble,” I said. “I’m just talking to you.”

But soon enough, the disrespect of her body language and tone of voice does indeed end up getting in trouble.

I just can’t understand that.

A teacher tells you to be quiet; you feel you weren’t talking then and that it’s unfair — say “Okay” while showing at least a modicum of respect and let it die a quick and natural death. Don’t start arguing about how it’s unfair or how someone else is talking, all the while letting an aggressively disrespectful edge take over your voice. It just won’t end well for you.

A police officer pulls you over and says you were speeding; you feel you were going about the same speed as everyone else — say “Okay” and be respectful and hope for a warning. Don’t jump out of the car and start cursing the police officer, threatening physical violence. It just won’t end well for you.

Picture from this Evening

And then

Tuesday 14 January 2020

the little stinker comes into class today and says, “Can I get my work so I can take it to the library? I don’t want to get in trouble again.” Not quite, “I don’t want to disturb class again,” but an apologetic self-awareness that is uplifting and frustrating.

“You what’s so irritating about working with you?” I told Y. “I like you. That’s the problem. If you were a complete jerk all the time, it would be easier because it would be harder to like you as a person.” He smiled.

In the afternoon, he came back and apologized for yesterday.

Maybe the other shoe isn’t completely off — it’s dangling on a toe. Or maybe he’s just trying to put it back on.

The Other Shoe

Monday 13 January 2020

When we get a new kid in the school, we always get a packet of information about them: sometimes it’s a thin bracket; sometimes it’s a fat pocket. But there’s always a packet.

Many of the documents included in the packet deal with the student’s behavior. Sometimes the reports in the packet don’t match the student’s behavior at the beginning. For example, a student may have information in their pocket detailing a long history of behavior issues: insubordination, disrespect, fighting, skipping class, and everything in between. Occasionally, the packet even includes information about how many administrative referrals I didn’t and the details about those administrative referrals. In general, the fatter the packet, the more there is to worry about.

The students you really have to worry about are the ones that live up to that reputation immediately. The package says there are behavior issues, and the student shows his behavior issues from the first meeting. These are the kids are going to be a challenge because they don’t even care to try to make a good first impression: Are you unaware of the fact that they are making a person brushing.

In reality, though, the really frustrating students are those who have the thick packet and show excellent behavior at the beginning of their stay in the new school. It’s a honeymoon period: they’re feeling their way around the new school and everyone else figures out what they’re all about. This honeymoon period can last anywhere from a couple of months.

Sometimes the portrayal in the packet is incongruous with the student in the classroom. It seems a miracle has occurred. Previous teachers’ comments in referrals mention insubordination, disrespect, skipping class, fighting with other students, verbal altercations with teacher, and all the student initially shows in the classroom is compliance. The temptation is to think that something has happened, that student has seen the light somehow, some way. That the student has realized the dangerous track he was on and has made a good-faith effort to change. I wish that were the case.

It never is.

The honeymoon period will come to an end. The other shoe will drop. If the kid has been described as insubordinate, insubordination will rise to the surface sooner or later. There are few miracle transformations an education.

We’re dealing with the soon in like that right now. The really frustrating thing about it is that such students have shown themselves capable of successful behavior. It suggests the behavior, to some degree or another, is a choice. If it is a choice, it’s hard not to feel some degree of negativity towards such students. One wants to say to them, “You shown you can clearly do better; you’ve shown positive traits in the class instead of disruption that steals educational time away from other students. Why? It’s hard not to take it personally that you choose the negative with us over the positive.”

It is of course much more complicated than this. But working with such kids is so tiring: it’s one step forward, three minutes of rolling backward because why step when rolling gets more laughs?

Note: This was dictated on the way home from school to a new speech-to-text app I’m trying out. I think I’ve edited out any nonsense resulting from unavoidable technical glitches, but I’m too tired to give it another read to check…

In Line

Wednesday 20 November 2019

We reached the checkout line at Aldi roughly at the same time. I had a cart filled with items; he had a package of bacon.

“Go ahead — you have so little,” I said.

He shook his head.

“Seriously, you should go ahead of me.”

“No, no, you go,” he mumbled. He was an African American man in his sixties, it appeared, with a long, white, disheveled beard, and the faint reek of body odor, alcohol, and feces.

That particular Aldi is in an area of town that can only be described as “economically depressed.” There is one particular section where, when I ride my bike to school and back, I always smell marijuana, even at 7:15 in the morning. So seeing homeless people like that is nothing all that unexpected.

I stood there in line, wondering about the gentleman there in behind me when suddenly the manager of the store walked up to the man and politely asked if he was supposed to be in the store.

“I have a couple of cashiers telling me that you’re not supposed to be here. Are you supposed to be here?”

The man hung his head a bit and started walking out as he said, “No.” There was no defiance in his voice; no anger in his voice; no disappointment in his voice — no emotion at all. He just placed the bacon on a store display as he passed by and walked toward the door.

“If you come back in here again,” the manager continued, still calm, still very respectful, “that will be trespassing, and we will notify the authorities.” The man said nothing and simply shuffled out of the store.

What could he have possibly done to get barred from the store? Perhaps he stole something. Maybe he panhandled and that was deemed as harassing customers. Perhaps he simply harassed customers. I don’t know, but I couldn’t help but feel pity for the man. Mental illness seemed a certainty, but what about his youth? Had life always been like this for the man? Did he have a family? Did they know where he was? Did they care?

I have taught so many students over the year for whom, tragically, such a life seems an entirely realistic possibility. They, too, would leave someone who doesn’t know to wonder whether they have family, whether they have anyone to support, help, or even care about them.

I have to believe that we can do better as a society. I can’t believe someone could watch such an exchange and not feel moved. And the more pessimistic side of me — realistic? — realizes that there are countless who can look at this and not feel that there must be some dark hole in the center of our society that allows such things to happen.

Big Brother

Tuesday 15 October 2019

We got access today to some new software intended to help us rein in students’ abuse of Chromebooks. Basically, it enables all teachers to become Big Brother to students: we can see every single thing they do, block sites, shut down tabs, lock computers — the whole deal short of turning off the computer remotely. Since it’s based on time of day and rosters, I see the activity of students in, say, my fifth-period class whether or not they’re in the room: if they’re on the computer, I see it.

So when I saw one of my students who was serving in-school suspension on YouTube, I closed the tab. When he started searching for Louis Vuitton shoes, I closed that down.

When he started searching for it again, I locked his computer with the message, “You won’t be able to afford those shoes if you don’t have a good job. You’ll have difficulty getting a good job if you don’t get a good education.” After a few minutes, I unlocked his computer, and he went back to luxury shoe searches. I locked it again, leaving it locked until the end of the session.

Another student who was in the room with him was talking about how this kid’s computer kept getting locked up. “He was so mad,” this kid told his friend.

If this were a kid who normally did his work, I probably would have just ignored it. If I hadn’t just gotten access to the software (and the class hadn’t been taking a test), I probably wouldn’t have noticed it as I wouldn’t have been on the computer and wouldn’t have had the program open. Then again, if he hadn’t been in ISS, he would have been in my room, taking the test.

If, if, if…

Fear

Thursday 5 September 2019

Dear Teresa,

There are some students that I would believe could be afraid of me. I do try to seem sterner in the opening days of the school year than I actually am — it’s not an accident. It’s an act, but not an accident.

You, though, try to come off tough as iron, as if nothing moves you, frightens you, or disturbs you. That was certainly the impression I got when I met you, and it was certainly the image previous teachers painted. Or at least, that that was the impression you wanted everyone to have of you.

So when Mr. Smith told me that you absolutely refused to come to my room during advisory period to get help with your work on account of being afraid of me, I had to smile a bit.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t really want you to be afraid of me. But a little fear does go a long way: It has shades of humility that you try so hard not to exhibit. It has shadows of understanding one’s place and accepting it, which you try so hard to suggest you don’t do, won’t do, for anyone. Those attributes are essential for being able to accept help. And we all need a little help.

With hope for a fear-free, help-filled year,
Your Teacher

A Letter to Students

Tuesday 29 May 2018

Dear eighth graders,

As a teacher, it can sometimes be hard to remain optimistic. Every year there are those students who try one’s patience, who test one’s resolve, who feel they are incapable of doing anything good and seem determined to bring everyone down with them. And then there are just the immature attention-seekers who do anything they can to be the center of attention. Within the first class period or two, I can usually tell who all these folks are, and the rest of the year becomes a battle with their stubbornness as I try to help them see that their behaviors and choices are not only not helping them but in fact detrimental. Some never see the light, at least during this school year, and that’s why it can be difficult to fight the pessimism: those students left just as they came in, and I wonder if I helped them at all.

This year is one of the few in recent memory that is devoid of any such students. Sure, some of you tried my patience at times. Some of you sought attention in inappropriate ways. Yet all of you—each and every student—showed growth and maturity this year, and it has been a true privilege to work with you this year. I can honestly say this has been one of the best years I’ve experienced in my nearly-twenty years of teaching. I’ve seen growth in reading skills, gains in emotional maturity, a surge of confidence in cognitive ability, and most importantly, an increase in maturity in so many of you that it gives me real hope for the future.

Many of you developed new reading and thinking skills that help you approach problematic texts in new ways. Instead of throwing up your hands and saying, “I don’t get it,” you dig in and figure out some meaning, understanding that you don’t have to comprehend everything perfectly in order to understand the text as a whole. That kind of persistence will serve you well in the future, and I am very pleased to see that so many of you developed that newly-found tenacity.

Several of you noticeably grew emotionally over the course of the year. You learned to keep your anger in check, to keep your frustrations from determining your path, and to see yourself as in control of your own life. This is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching eighth grade: kids genuinely mature in a very clear way over the course of the year, but some of you seemed to grow emotionally two or three years. Belligerence gave way to cooperation; fatalism gave way to self-confidence; apathy gave way to self-concern. Instead of worrying how you’ll make it emotionally in high school, I find myself calmly confident about how you’ll handle the challenges of high school.

Many of you became observably more confident in your cognitive abilities. You came into the class thinking that perhaps you couldn’t do the work, that perhaps things might be a bit more challenging than you’d expected, or that it would be just the same struggle as it always is. Instead, you found that your success doesn’t come just from your intelligence, which most of us underrate anyway. Most success comes from behaviors and decisions, and as your behaviors and decisions changed, so too your view of your own intelligence, and that self-possession produced still more confidence.

Finally, almost all of you grew more mature as the year progressed. You began handling challenges like an adult. You started accepting disappointments with calmness. You learned to set goals and priorities, understanding that achieving those aims often requires sacrifice.

To those of you who chose not to live up to your fullest potential, I can only say that I hope at some point in the not-too-distant-future you make the changes necessary for your success. Hard work and focus are never wasted, and it is through challenging ourselves that we grow stronger. Fortunately, you’re only a young teen: there’s still plenty of time to grow into this adult thing.

To those of you who did your best in this and other classes, thank you. Your focus and hard work are rewards in and of themselves, and they bring rich dividends, but I’ll willingly (and somewhat selfishly) admit that they make my job easier.

I have only one wish for you as this year closes out: I hope that you can look at your life at any moment and truthfully say to yourself about yourself, “I am doing the best with what I have where I am.” If you can always say that about yourself, the brightest of futures awaits. Thank you again for a wonderful year.

Best regards,
Your teacher

Enemies

Thursday 17 May 2018

Sometimes, the Boy can be his own worst enemy. It’s true of all kids his age — and older. He’ll get upset about something, fuss about it, then escalate it when the resolution doesn’t appear to be going his way. The trick is to get him to see that habit and stop it.

Today he was upset about something. About what, it doesn’t really matter, but it involved L, who was helping me clean the bathrooms in preparation for the Boy’s birthday party Saturday. We have too much to do in too little time, so some of Friday’s cleaning shifted to today. The incident spilled over to a whine-fest with his mother, then with me. I sat him down and talked to him about what was going on.

“We’re all getting things ready for you. For your party. Every single thing we’re doing, we’re doing it for you. I think if someone was doing this much for me, I wouldn’t be upset because they weren’t paying enough attention to me at that moment. I’d be thankful. I’d say, ‘What can I do to help?'”

He calmed himself down with the little breathing exercise I taught him — basically, slow, measured breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth — and then went to ask K if there was anything he could do to help. She set him to washing dishes, a chore he adores.

“Thank you for showing me how fun it is to work together today,” he told me in the midst of his toothbrush session. “If I’d kept fussing, I would have missed out on a lot of fun.”

Later that night, as we read Tashi in bed, Tashi had an opportunity to escape from bad guys who’d kidnapped him. He ran by the river, where he saw the wife of the Chief Bad Guy drowning. I stopped.

“Do you think Tashi should stop and help her?”

“No!” the Boy said incredulously.

“Why not?”

“Because she’s his enemy. If he helps her, she might just grab him and take him back to the other bad guys,” he explained earnestly.

“Or,” I said, thinking carefully how I could explain it, “she could be so impressed and touched that he helped her that she stops being his enemy.”

“Yeah, but in Smurfs: the Lost Village, when [some character whose name I don’t remember] fell of the boat and the Smurfs helped him out of the water, he said, ‘Yeah, but I’m still bad!’ and captured them. And it was their boat. They made it themselves!” His patience in explaining that was enchanting.

“Yes, that happens sometimes,” I replied, “but sometimes, something different happens. Sometimes they stop being enemies.” I knew this was going to happen in the book, and it rings true in my own life.

Just today, I had an encounter with a student that made me feel I was in Groundhog Day. During morning duty, I’m charged with keeping all the kids sitting in the hall quietly and the hall calm and to do this, we teachers enforce a basic rule: “You can whisper, but you can’t talk.” Suzie — not her real name, of course — always talks. She speaks in a fairly low voice, but she’s engaging her vocal cords, which means she’s talking. Plus, I can occasionally hear her thirty or forty feet away.

“Suzie, whisper please,” I said calmly. Respectfully. As I’ve done every day I’m on duty for the entire school year. Her response is to quiet her voice at first but to continue talking, not whispering. Her response to being redirected again is to suggest that because other people are also talking, that I’m unfairly targeting her. Today I explained the simple fact: “That’s because you’ve taught me to expect it from you. The other people are not consistently disobeying me. The other students do it once and a while; you do it every single day.” Again — quietly, calmly, respectfully.

Today, I talked to her about it again. It turns out, she doesn’t know what whispering is. “I am whispering,” she insisted. I explained again that if she puts her hand on her throat when she talks and she feels vibrations, she’s not whispering.

“Go ahead, try,” I said, smiling.

“No!” she cried, breaking into a smile herself. “It’s embarrassing!’

I pointed out to her that I wasn’t picking on her, that I in fact like her a lot and see a lot of potential in her. “As long as you can keep these little things under control.” (She also has a tendency to grow increasingly disrespectful when redirected multiple times.)

Here’s a girl that could have easily become my enemy. I could have simply snapped at her, signed her discipline card, or by this time, probably, simply have written an administrative referral. But instead of seeing an enemy, a rebellious little brat (like many adults would), I try to see something a little different: someone who just hasn’t had anyone take the time to show a genuine interest in her regarding the little things. It’s easier just to brush if off with sarcasm or a referral.

The funny thing is, in spite of the fact that she still grows disrespectful with me, I’m fairly certain she doesn’t see me as an enemy either. Sure, it’s not the same as saving the life of the wife of the bandit who threatened to pull all your nose hairs out like Tashi did, but it’s moving in that direction.

Tempers, Tacos, Chess, and a Church

Monday 23 April 2018

A day of contrasts. At school, the kids in eighth-grade English as working on performances of small excerpts from The Diary of Anne Frank, the play based on Anne’s diary. Most of the groups are doing great: they work well together; they take criticism from each other well since they know part of their grade comes from how well they’re performing as a group; they seem to enjoy the challenge. Most of them. One group, not so much. The group just isn’t getting along. One girl — we’ll call her Alicia — has a temper that could be measured in nanometers, and she has to express her thought when she finds herself annoyed, which is frequently. Another girl — we’ll call her Susan — just doesn’t care, and she doesn’t care that other people might care, and she doesn’t care that her apathy affects them. And she has a temper as well. One boy in the group likes to provoke anyone and everyone he can. And finally, a third girl has made a big turn-around this year in my class and has gone from being nasty to being a fairly well behaved, decent working young lady, but one who doesn’t like it when things don’t go her way. So while all other groups were developing their ideas, rehearsing their lines, planning who would bring what props, this group broke into fits of frustration and argument literally every three or four minutes.

How can you teach kids any subject when first they need to be taught how to control their temper, how to control their tongue, how to control their sense of self-injury?

At home, the Boy and I initiated what we’re going to try to make into a daily activity: a bit of chess together. He knows how to move the pawns fairly well now. He knows the basics of the rooks. Next, we’ll introduce bishops, the king, the queen, and finish up with the tricky knights.

He’s learning to pile up attackers and count defenders to determine if he can take a piece or not; he’s starting to think offensively and defensively at the same time; he’s eager to learn more — all good signs. His mind is growing. His body, too — faster, in fact.

Tonight was taco knight (see what I did there?), and the Boy loves Mexican food. We have a little Mexican restaurant down the street where the two of us have eaten dinner when the girls are out on their own, and he’s always eager for more.

Tonight, he skipped the beans and the rice and ate not one, not two, but three tacos. Half the fun for him is actually making the taco.

The calm and the joy of chess followed by tacos seemed so jarring juxtaposed with the chaos my one group of students was experiencing. Those who were causing the issues — what kind of jarring, chaotic home life might they have? It doesn’t seem that people who would go home to some time with their family and a bit of comfort food would have that much difficulty keeping themselves in check because it would have been modeled for them and perhaps taught explicitly.

In the evening, when the girls have gone to gymnastics and shopping, the Boy and I decided to play with Legos, and we decided we needed to make something we’d never made before. We decided on a church.

As I was building the roof, the Boy declared that he would start working on things for the inside. After a few minutes, he showed me something he’d made.

“It’s that table, where they do everything,” he explained.

“The altar?”

“Yeah.”

And he made it complete with chalices and a paten.

And Repeat

Monday 5 March 2018

I don’t know how many times I’ve told students that, nine out of ten times, it’s not what you do that gets you in trouble but rather how you react to being corrected. It’s not the phone out that’s the problem; it’s how you responded when told to put it away. It’s not the mild horseplay that’s the problem; it’s how you responded when told to stop. It’s not the talking; it’s the reaction to being told to be quiet.

Today, when I had hall duty, one young man insisted on chatting in the time before school actually begins, when all students sit in the hallway, leaning against the walls, and relatively silent. There’s always some whispering, and all teachers ignore that because it’s not a problem. It’s when the kids start talking, and then others talk, and then the first group has to raise their voices to be heard above the increasing din, and soon, it’s chaos on the hall. So we — as well as all other grade levels — insist on silence. This young man, though, insisted on chatting despite being told to stop talking.

In such situations, I take a simple strategy: I tell the kid to go to my classroom and wait for me there. “When it’s locker time and my duty is therefore over, I’ll come talk to you about this.” Most kids comply without issue. And what do I do when I talk to them? Sometimes I sign their school behavior cards (ROCK cards they’re called) on the positive side for complying without problems and tell them next time, it’s a negative. And sometimes, it’s a negative.

Today, I had a batch of kids that I’d never had to call down, so I took their names and told them I was pressing them into service for tomorrow: “You’re going to be my leaders, my CEOs, those who set the good example and get the others around you who are talking to stop and whisper instead.” I looked at them with a pause for effect, then asked, “And you know what happens to CEOs who don’t perform well, right?” One girl answered, “They get fired.” “And you know what that means for you, right?”

But one boy just couldn’t get past his sense of victimization. I told him, “P, you need to go to my room please.”

“What’d I do?” he asked indignantly.

“You just need to go to my room, alright.”

“I didn’t do nothin’.”

“You just need to go to my room, alright.”

“I didn’t do nothin’.”

“You just need to go to my room, alright.”

“I didn’t do nothin’.”

“You just need to go to my room, alright.”

“I didn’t do nothin’.”

Literally about that many times. Well, maybe not that many times: I don’t have that much patience. I just ended the encounter with him still sitting where he had been sitting, leaving him with the comment that he can discuss it with the assistant principal when I complete the disciplinary referral.

What will happen to him? He’ll get a day or two of In-School Suspension. Will that change him? Not at all. He sees himself as a victim — I don’t teach him, but all his teachers confirm this first impression.

It’s such kids’ futures that seem so bleak to me. How can someone like that hold down a job? How can someone like that even make it to an interview?

The only hope is age: perhaps in the next four years, by the time he becomes an adult, something will click.