I got this today – thought I’d share it with the group. My responses in italics:
Q. Today in my Spanish 2 class, I had a student name his ICI “Mike Hawk”. I didn’t get the nasty joke until I read it in front of the class and everyone snickered and laughed. I realized what happened and panicked inside. I wanted to yell at the student for humiliating me. I was very upset, but I kept face. This is also one of my best students in class, so that was even more disheartening. Teenage boys are teenage boys, I suppose.
A. No they are not. They do that because they think they can get away with it. I would have stopped class and said with force directly into the eyes of the kid while walking toward him – THAT IS INAPPROPRIATE. DON’T DO IT AGAIN. And then called the parents. In class. But that’s just me.
Q. I simply removed the character from circulation and moved on, but the mood was changed. It was tough to build a tableau after that. The class was chatty and disruptive, and I was fighting my own urges to kick the kid out and just lay into him. I’m probably wrong, but it felt like they all turned on me at that point.
A. They removed your power in that moment. It shifted back to the class.
Q. That’s probably my hurt talking, but it just seemed different like there was a pall over the class.
A. I know the pall well. We all do. It happens when the kids sense there is no real leader in the room. It’s very primitive. A male boy says something to test where the power lies, to see if he can get some of it. It’s what they do in herds of animals – the young buck locking horns (that’s what happened) to see if he can get control over the herd. What message did you send to indicate you could be challenged? I think it was no message. You didn’t act. You pretended nothing happened. Why did you do that? You didn’t address it and they all wanted you to do so when it happened and put that little shit in his place. They all wanted the restoration of order. You didn’t do it.
Q. I spoke with him after class and gave him a detention and will call his parents tonight. I thought to give him failing grade for the class period also. That too much?
A. NO. It’s not enough. Too little too late. What does it take a teacher to challenge children in the moments they go astray? Look at Trump. Nobody challenged that piece of shit and now he’s out of control using our Constitution for toilet paper.
Q. I didn’t really know what else to do, but I knew that that behavior couldn’t go without some sort of consequence. I’m happy with the way I handled it calmly because I really wanted to cuss him out.
A. Why cuss? Just deal w it in the moment and say it is not appropriate. It’s like what I see you did there, and it’s just my opinion, is that you did something I have done over four decades and which I know now was weak and ineffective. I let the kids say it and then let it slide because I wanted them to like me. I needed the approval of children. WTF?