If She Only Knew...

I live an awful lot of my life in "disguise." I travel out in the world looking like your garden-variety, fifty-something, school-teacher (unattached older lady). I'm darned good at what I do. I handle my kids without breaking a sweat most days, and I deal with their parents with the sure touch that only comes with years and years and years of experience.

Every class, every year has its share of kids with stories. Their lives and their personalities and their needs wrap themselves around my head and my heart until I come to live and breathe the work and art of making their learning experience one that will change their lives.

This year, one of those kids is G. Physically, he is an awesomely beautiful youngster. He has an amazingly nimble mind, especially when the subject is related to mathematics. He also has a pretty significant level of Attention Deficit Disorder, and without the prescribed medication that helps him focus, he has trouble initiating the most elemental tasks, or sustaining almost any activity long enough to complete it. We've put all sorts of interventions into place to try and support him and help him succeed, but we've not had much success. He's in some pretty significant academic jeopardy at this point, and so we convened a conference with the principal, the school psychologist, and his mother.

His mother, M, is divorced but planning to remarry soon. She's got a famous last name that everyone recognizes. She has an "important" job, and a thousand excuses why she can't seem to follow through with the kinds of supervision and support that would probably go a long way toward making G a more successful student. Those who've been around the school longer than I have tell me that she wasn't much use with either of G's older siblings either...

And so it happened that the very first afternoon back from the Christmas holiday found us all gathered, discussing G's grades, behavior, and performance. After going round and round with "mom," the principal finally brought young G in and gave him the talk: "if you fail this class and this class again, you are going to repeat 6th grade..." Who knows whether any of it made any impression. Without his medication on some regular basis, his odds of success are minimal -- and his mother seems unwilling to assure that he will get it.

At any rate, as we wound down after nearly an hour, I mentioned that G needed two 2-liter bottles, and a dollar for a science project that we were starting in class. Mom was obviously surprised at this news even though the assignment had been made before the holiday break and posted on my website. Thinking quickly, she reached into her purse and handed me a five dollar bill. I rose to get her change, but she said, " Just take it and get the bottles he needs. Keep the change."

I was too stunned to say anything which is probably good. There are times when it is probably a blessing that there is no speaker that would broadcast the thoughts that run through my mind straight out into the room. I was furious. I ended up taking the money and buying the kid the bottles he needed.

At lunch on Friday, in the teacher's lounge, we were chatting about the whole exchange. The school psychiatrist was there and mentioned how well I'd handled "M." One of the young teachers (she's probably 23 or 24) was interested to hear the story. She was amazed that I didn't put up more of a fuss about the offhand way M handed the money to me and expected me to just run her errands for her. I said, "The calculation in my mind went very quickly like this: if I bitch-slap this woman, will it get G the materials he needs for class, get him a more effective parent, suddenly enlighten M as to how inappropriate and rude her behavior is, improve the standing of the school in the parent community, or make me feel better? I figured I probably feel better for a few seconds, but none of the other four was likely to happen, so what was the benefit?"

The young teacher's eyes got as wide as saucers and she exclaimed, "You said bitch-slap! I can't believe you just said bitch-slap! Write it down, everyone; on January 4th, Sue said bitch-slap!" She was just hysterical over it. Meanwhile the school psychologist was practically rolling on the floor with laughter.

I just looked at her. It was an educational moment for her I'm sure. Clearly, she never imagined that her garden-variety, fifty-something, usually quiet, school-teacher colleague even knew the expression "bitch-slapped," let alone ever said such things -- not everything that comes into your mind has to come out of your mouth. Or should. Part of being professional.

Part of being slave. The discipline of knowing when to speak and when to remain silent.

What an interesting confluence of my public and private lives. Plenty of things about my life would surprise my young colleague if she only knew.

swan