One student really pushed my limits.
One Mondays and Wednesdays, I would teach English to the first graders then the sixth graders. I felt that I was sleep-walking much of the time, trying to get by as best as I could. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would teach a homework center, assisting students with their regular school work, or helping them with the assignments that they had received from their Ivy Teacher.
I look back on what I went through; If I had had any sense, I would not have put myself through such an abusive set up. But in those days, I told myself that it was more important to plug along, put up with whatever comes your way, then let the chip fall where they may.
In those days, I was so insecure, so unsure of myself, so willing to tolerate putting up with disrespect and abuse. I had not learned to walk in simple abiding majesty. I felt on the rush, on the move, always under scrutiny, trying to the best, and never getting far with what I did.
I lived in a lot of fear. I usually let students get away with a lot, and when I did hold kids at Ivy accountable for their rude behavior, I got scolded by the Administrator.
The counselor, a hurried hussif of a woman, so thin one could hardly see her, like a Chinese mad woman who would hit her cheating husband on the head, she was unpredictable and disloyal. She would compliment me for being strict with the sixth graders, then the next day she called me aside:
"Mr. S, the students do not want to come to Ivy anymore. They are so stressed. You push them too hard. You are their strictest teacher.,\"
Strict is good. Strict is the way to go much of the time. In those days, though, I second-guessed everything that I did. I was trying to please so many people because I was so unsure about right and wrong.
From that point, I did everything I could to make the kids like me, and they still never did. Respect cannot be earned or bought, let alone demanded. It would take me a long time to relearn what I had already learned in times past.
Still, this one students really got on my nerves. In the Tuesday/Thursday homework centers, kids from kindergarten to sixth grade would come together in one crowded room. I was expected to answer every beck and call of the kids.
"Mister, please help me!" one kid was always whining. I finally snapped at him twice not to do that. He would complain to the counselor, and I would explain right away that he was just too damn demanding.
"These kids are spoiled, Mr. Schaper. I understand your frustration. Just do the best you can." That was one of her better moments.
The student who whined a lot was a fifth grader, enrolled at the local elementary school, from which he could walk to Ivy.
There was another student who got on everyone's nerves, though, and mine were finally pushed to the brink. He was a kindergartner, spoiled in the extreme, though not cruel. His mother treated him like a chubby little prince, throwing big gala birthday parties in Orange County. Once, I spied him with his parents getting tennis lessons at Wilson Park -- a kindergartner!
In the homework center, he was loud and obnoxious, always out of his seat, taking things from other students' desks. One day, he started smacking his lips, refusing to be quiet while I was trying to help another student. I snapped, yelling at him, almost losing control of myself:
"STOP IT! STOP IT, RIGHT NOW!!" I held my pointed finger in his face for about ten seconds. A little tear began to trickle down his cheek. I told him next that he had ten seconds to pick out three books from the back shelf, or else! He rushed back as I counted to ten. When he sat back down, I never heard from him again for the rest of the day.
When his mother got home, the little kindergartner got scared and angry, he hid behind the door, then kicked his mother's luggage case, then ran out of the room. He was scared, and at that point so was I. I was afraid that he would cry to his Mommy about bad Mr. S, and that the counselor would then yell at me or even get me fired.
Right away I went into damage-control mode, and I called the counselor right away to my help.
I explained everything, including how this student was so rude and obnoxious, and how I yelled at him so that he would be quiet. In another of her rare kind moments, she calmed me down:
"He is a spoiled brat. His mother lets him down whatever he wants. He has no manners. Do not worry about it," she clipped out in her broken accurate but accented English. "I am going to talk to the mother. If he keeps acting up like this, then I am going to kick him out of the school."
Wow! For once, she backed me up!
But deep down, I felt kind of guilty. I had lost my temper, and I was afraid that I would lose my temper again if I was not more careful than I had been that day. I talked about this little episode with some friends, who thought it was funny. Imagine, a six-foot man yelling at a kindergartner. Still, I was a little bit worried.
Looking back on it all, though, my fear about the whole thing was unfounded to begin with. Fear is a wickedness, and evil that distorts people's understanding. I had every right and responsibility to tell off that kid. He needed the boundaries. After that episode, I became one of his favorite teachers! He even invited me over to his house -- of course, I declined, for I had no interest in dealing with parents who would refuse to raise such a child to be a young man.
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