Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Holla at my back!
There is a young lady in my last period physical science class who is what people used to call a real pistol. Nowadays they would probably call her something a lot less polite. If you were to ask me about her performance in my class, I would tell you that she was rather bright and liked volunteering in class because more often than not, she got the answers right. I would then proceed to demolish this rather friendly portrait I had created by mentioning that this girl has a dangerously volatile temper and actually had the gall to cuss me out for 5 straight minutes at the start of the semester. I guess I deserved it for asking her to move her seat...
In any case, it turns out this young lady is a cheerleader, so clever fellow that I am, I decide to chat with the head of the cheerleading squad the following week and lo and behold: a noticable upswing in behavior.
But the old saying holds true in the end—you can’t get the leopard to change its spots. Today, at the end of class, she decided to interrupt my discussion of the homework for the coming evening, claiming that if I didn’t hurry up, she’d start cussing.
I didn’t take too much longer with my spiel and let my students out within a minute or two. The way some of them act though, you’d think the world was ending at 3:05 and if they didn’t leave my classroom before then, they would never see their friends or loved ones ever again. So I pull the girl aside, and I explain that while she is one of the brighter students in my class she has to watch her temper. Even if one can’t always controls how one feels, one can control how one acts.
“No, I can’t,” she said. “I was raised to speak my mind, and if I get frustrated, I’m gonna cuss you out!”
I stammered a few words in reply...after all this time, I still have trouble accepting the blatant disrespect. She had put me on the defensive and in this game, defense equals defeat.
Despite a feeble attempt at rational argument, the end result was her storming off (on crutches no less, due to a previous injury) to meet the ride she was so sure would not wait for her another two minutes while we were talking about her success (or failure) in my class!
She would not listen.
“Holla at my back!” she yelled as her friends commended her for “givin’ your teacher shit even while you’re on crutches.”
“Holla at my back!”
Some would claim that the fault lies with me. That my rules or consequences are not strict enough...that I have been overly lax in my treatment of this student. While there may be some validity to this, I also feel this case unfortunately justifies my already pessimistic conclusion about the state of modern urban education. If students like this girl can not stomach their pride and recognize that there are people in this world who have more experience than they do and may actually know about the subjects that they teach, then there is no hope for America’s children.
The source of this delusion...that all authority figures are necessarily buffoons, charlatans, or tricksters...is perpetuated through a variety of means. Until we as a society can break down that perception, I and my fellow teachers will have no other alternative but to keep hollerin’ at the backs of our students as they hobble down the halls away from their own future, blindly celebrating a victory whose transitory nature they may never ultimately perceive.
There is a young lady in my last period physical science class who is what people used to call a real pistol. Nowadays they would probably call her something a lot less polite. If you were to ask me about her performance in my class, I would tell you that she was rather bright and liked volunteering in class because more often than not, she got the answers right. I would then proceed to demolish this rather friendly portrait I had created by mentioning that this girl has a dangerously volatile temper and actually had the gall to cuss me out for 5 straight minutes at the start of the semester. I guess I deserved it for asking her to move her seat...
In any case, it turns out this young lady is a cheerleader, so clever fellow that I am, I decide to chat with the head of the cheerleading squad the following week and lo and behold: a noticable upswing in behavior.
But the old saying holds true in the end—you can’t get the leopard to change its spots. Today, at the end of class, she decided to interrupt my discussion of the homework for the coming evening, claiming that if I didn’t hurry up, she’d start cussing.
I didn’t take too much longer with my spiel and let my students out within a minute or two. The way some of them act though, you’d think the world was ending at 3:05 and if they didn’t leave my classroom before then, they would never see their friends or loved ones ever again. So I pull the girl aside, and I explain that while she is one of the brighter students in my class she has to watch her temper. Even if one can’t always controls how one feels, one can control how one acts.
“No, I can’t,” she said. “I was raised to speak my mind, and if I get frustrated, I’m gonna cuss you out!”
I stammered a few words in reply...after all this time, I still have trouble accepting the blatant disrespect. She had put me on the defensive and in this game, defense equals defeat.
Despite a feeble attempt at rational argument, the end result was her storming off (on crutches no less, due to a previous injury) to meet the ride she was so sure would not wait for her another two minutes while we were talking about her success (or failure) in my class!
She would not listen.
“Holla at my back!” she yelled as her friends commended her for “givin’ your teacher shit even while you’re on crutches.”
“Holla at my back!”
Some would claim that the fault lies with me. That my rules or consequences are not strict enough...that I have been overly lax in my treatment of this student. While there may be some validity to this, I also feel this case unfortunately justifies my already pessimistic conclusion about the state of modern urban education. If students like this girl can not stomach their pride and recognize that there are people in this world who have more experience than they do and may actually know about the subjects that they teach, then there is no hope for America’s children.
The source of this delusion...that all authority figures are necessarily buffoons, charlatans, or tricksters...is perpetuated through a variety of means. Until we as a society can break down that perception, I and my fellow teachers will have no other alternative but to keep hollerin’ at the backs of our students as they hobble down the halls away from their own future, blindly celebrating a victory whose transitory nature they may never ultimately perceive.
