"Do You Talk To Your Father Like That?"

Self-pity is a pit that you may never get yourself out of.

I have decided that this is the proper tack to take with students who have down-and-out home lives.

I have worked with a diverse number of student populations, but the one constant of single-parent families and broken homes is an alarming trend.

Some students live in foster homes. In juvenile hall, I met students who had at least one parent in prison. The cycle of dysfunction and failures seems to perpetuate itself without fail.

Usually, when students would set me off or challenge me, I would yell at them for being so disrespectful. That might work on some students, but for most students, that was their express interest, so they reveled in putting me out of form.

One afternoon, the secretary in the front office of local school was reading over a newspaper. Normally, she worked in the copy room, but at the end of the day she covered the front office for the head secretary, who would leave early. One students sneaked into the back to get some band-aids.

When the replacement secretary noticed that the young lady was taking an extensive, and invasive, amount of time, she pestered the student to move along. Then the girl cursed at her. I have never seen a woman get as visibly upset as this secretary:

"You will not talk to me like that! You talk your mother like that!" The woman was shaking with rage, perhaps touched with a tinge of shock. "My children do not talk to me like that!"

I would never think about cursing at an adult, when I was a student. The values  have changed considerably, and for the worse, in many schools. When in the past students would refrain from using profanity in a teacher's presence, now students routinely curse at teachers, with little chance of reprimand or follow-up.

The whole affair can be quite traumatizing. That day, I learned to start pressing kids on where they learned the outrageous habit of cursing at other people.

At Los Padrinos, I reared up into gear taking down students who justified themselves with cursing at others, especially substitute staff such as myself. I asked one student, from Hawaiian Gardes, "Do you talk to your father like that?" when he had begun to argue with me at length. This young man acknowledged quietly that he did not curse at his parents. When I pressed another young man for about his rude  behavior, he responded, "Sir, my father is in prison." This boy had either never met his father or his father had been absent from his life for quite some time.

Of course, I still insisted on pressing students about the manner in which they addressed their parents. Another student snidely chided me one day for leaning over one student's desk to check over the math assignment. "Sir, don't you think it's kind of rude to stick your butt in another kid's face?"

I refused to let a juvenile delinquent lecture me on how to behave. I ordered him to step outside.

"How dare you talk to me like that? What's the matter with you?" I blurted out at him.

"Well, sir, I am just saying that you should not be doing that. . "

"What difference does it make what I am doing? What are you supposed to be working on?" Then I reared up and fired at him, "Do you talk to your father like that?"

In a flash, the hardened  and haughty offender starting shivering and cried out, "Don't talk about my Dad!" He then shed a tear. One of the probation officers deflected the situation, saying. "OK, well, would you talk to one of your friends like that?"
While the staff was calming the sniffling student, I took some measure of pride in bringing him down a notch. I did not intend to offend the student to insulting or shaming him, but I am glad that I got his attention. The question had worked, pointedly knocking him off-balance of the rest of the day, enough to keep him quiet, as I watched him sit down, the sordid smile wiped off his face. I learned that day, however, that pressing kids on their upbringing could bring up some unpleasant memories or reactions.

Back at one of the local comprehensive schools, I confronted one young lady who just burst out at me on afternoon, "Alright, dude! What the F---! Calm down!" I guess she was expressing some quiet incredulity, but I was shook up by her little outburst. I told her to step over and speak with me for a minute. Dawdling in a petty-defiant manner, almost like a five-year old who has been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she started sulking and looking away.

"Do you talk to your father like that?" I asked.

"Don't go talking about Dad," she retorted, "He's got nothing to do with it," she fired off, swagging her head around her shoulders. I assumed that she and Dad were having troubles or were not even speaking to each other. I later wrote a referral for one of the assistant principals to take of later on.

The most forward confrontation that I remember when pressing a student about their dissolute conduct vis-a-vis their parents occurred at Lloyde High School in Lawndale. The young man was a courteous fellow, one who did not invite trouble. He did not do a lot of work while on campus. Once, I had to confiscate his phone because he was playing video games under the table.

Notwithstanding his "off" behavior from time to time, this kid, Steve, looked forward to when I came to cover a class. He would joke about the other times when I was a substitute teacher long-term at the comprehensive high school that he had transferred from. The class that he was a part of was one of the two classes that I looked forward to while working at the school, yet even then it was a slog at best that I managed to get through those six weeks without losing my mind.

That afternoon, my birthday, no less, I was covering one of his classes. He walked in grandly and gladly, shouting my last name for all to hear --- "Schaper!" I smiled meekly, not really thrilled that he welcomed me as a big brother, not a teacher. Perhaps I misjudged his kindness in months past, I thought. He had said that it was fun when I was the long-term sub. Then again, it was fun for him, but not for me. Not that it was his fault, but I was not interested in playing buddy-buddy anymore. After five months of covering classes on and off at Lloyde, I started to get this sinking feeling that I was adding to the problem rather than helping students to graduate. The same students who looked forward to seeing me were the same students who sat and did nothing day after day. If my being their clown and their babysitter was contributing to their failure, I thought, then it's for a different tone.

The first ten minutes of class, Steve sat near my desk talking with two other friends of his. The other two were getting work done, but he was just talking away. Finally, I had had enough. "Steve, you've been sitting there for the past ten minutes, and you're doing nothing. Go move your seat."

"What?" he exclaimed. "You're trippin'! The teacher lets us sit and talk all the time."

"Not like this, though, with you sitting there doing nothing."

"That's just bull----!" he shouted. "Step outside," I then told him furtively.

He grabbed his stuff calmly, smiled in a brazen fashion at the other two students, who quietly went back to work. After five seconds, when Steve had crossed outside the threshold of the classroom door, I quickly and quietly followed him.

Then I asked the stirring question within:" Do you talk to your Father like that?" emphasizing "Father."

 "I don't have a Dad," he answered feebly.

For a split second, I felt invited to pity the kid, take him under my wing, so to speak. Then I shook the notion away and pressed on. ""Do you talk to your mother like that?"

"No," he answered laconically.

"Then you will not talk to me like that." I knew then and there that I had  his attention. I also sensed that perhaps he was a little confused. I was the teacher who had no problem joking, playing around, letting him pass the time without getting any work done. Today, I was a different teacher. I wanted to be more of  a parent, less of a pal. I was not interested in this young man wasting more minute of his time at the school doing nothing and feeling validated for it by a silly substitute who put up with little effort and no referrals.

I chose not to pity him. Self-pity is a pit that people rarely get themselves out of, and I did not want to make it easier for him to define himself by the failure of another.

"Now, I am going to tell you where to sit, and I expect you to get some work done. I don't mind if you talk, but I want to see you working."

I walked back in, strong and sure-footed. I refused to brook no nonsense. Briefly, I glanced back to see him seated closer to the front of the room and near the door. He looked up at me, sad and quizzical, trying to understand the "new me" that was not playing anymore. In hindsight, I realize what a mixed message that may have been to Steve, but it was better late than never, especially when it comes to disrespect.

"Do you talk to your Father like that?" The phrase has a ring of authority around it. For a long time, though, I did not believe that I had the right or responsibility to take such a stand, to make such a point. I was so unsure of myself, that I was culling for approval from the students as much as teaching them. I am certain that many students struggle with enough inconsistency at home, single parents or otherwise. At least, I decided to myself, I would be one fewer adult permitting students to make less of themselves, no matter what they may have thought of me.