"You're The Only Teacher I Have Problems With!"

I was a problematic teacher, no question about it. Or at least I was a teacher who was willing to give kids a problem if they wanted to be a problem.

I had decided long ago -- I saw no reason to put up with a kid's disrespect. I also did not see the value of letting kids get away with doing less than the best.

I still called parents, even when much of the time parents did not know what was going on with their kids, or they would pay lip service to following up on their kids' work, then do nothing.

This one kid, Mick, was a class act. One with little respect for anyone, not even for himself, since he felt that he did not have to do any work at all.

I called his mother at least twice, with nothing to show for it except a lot of complaining and very little action. She insisted on telling me about all her health problems, too. This mother really took every chance should could to carp and gripe about her life. What is the matter with these parents? Does anyone ever think through the long-term implications of having kids? This woman apparently got pregnant yet never bothered to marry the father, yet she was more than happy to chew off the ear of any teacher who would call up about her son.

She even outlined how she wanted to meet with me and the principal and her son in the same room in order to get all the facts straight, especially about her son still playing football while failing all of his classes. This guy was one of those football jocks, and he was attending one of those high schools where the principal would drop everything to protect the athletics program, even permitting students with failing marks to keep playing.

What a pity. How can players expect to learn any diligence and respect in this life if they are getting away with doing nothing in the classroom? How many of them go on to play competitively in college or professional sports? And even when they retire from the national field, where do they go from there?

This guy reeked disrespect, and to his own hurt. He stopped at nothing to criticize or belittle how I spoke to the class, the lessons which I lead the class through, or the fact that at certain times I was standing in front of the projector. I am a big guy, no question about it! But this guy was every-day blind, both morally and legally, as in he needed to get some class while in class, and he needed to wear glasses while in class.

I had rounded up support from his mom, who felt compelled to tell me that he had a police record and was involuntarily transferred from one high school to the one where I was working. The mother had not stepped up for this kid, to say the least, and what a shame for him, just as for many other students who leave home not honoring neither their parents or the teachers who try to teach them something.

I brought him into class during six period, as I finally had enough to confront him about an assorted number of issues. This football player was full of hot air, arguing and excusing his sloth from the moment that he sat down. I went over every F that he was earning, not just in my class.

After I finished, he remarked:

"You're the only teacher I have problems with!" He said as much, slumped over his desk, then he shuffled off with a detention notice in hand, not that it really mattered, since most of the students never honored those slips, and the administration was too busy being busy with not doing enough to follow up on the blunt defiance blunting these kids.

He was an on-and-off failure, and all off to beat the band. He liked looking at the girls next to him, the only score he would ever get in the class, since he never did his work, anyway.

Finally, too late for me since I did not get the job at the school, but still enough to prove how weak and superficial the bravado of most students ends up being, Mick's Mom came through and agreed to a conference. It was a Friday, and that day I was trying to run a Jeopardy review for a test the students would take the next week. For the first time, he was rallying the kids in his team to pay attention. He gave me no lip, guff or attitude. I was not going to be a teacher that he had a problem with, at least for that day.

Still, later that afternoon, the principal told me that Mick's mom cancelled -- a real flake, yet no surprising, since her son was so flaky in his disrespect. Such is the result of not raising your kids, I guess. The parents are unaccountable, and the children simply repeat the pattern of perversion.

Later that year, when I came back to the school after a number of months, I saw Mick, wearing glasses, shuffling along. Not once did I ever see him smile. I greeted him, yet he had nothing to say to me, downcast the whole time.

I also remember returning to the school the next year, about September, perhaps the same day that I shut down the kid who attempted to mock me for "getting me fired." It was a glorious roast for me then, and another long-term benefit of letting matters settle themselves came to my attention. I used to use the cafeteria bathroom when I needed to go, simply because I had no interested in traveling all the way to the main office in more distressing times of emergency. As I was walking toward the middle of the cafeteria, over the clean brown tiles and around the big metal refrigerators, I spied Mick, wearing a hair net and an apron. He was now the lunch lady! How about that?

Later that week, I was reading the local paper, which covers the different football games. I knew that Mick was a prominent player on the team, yet I noticed that he was not listed, not once following the two or three perusals I made of the high school sports page.

This kid, like many at that school, did not get away with the disrespect, and I had to learn to live and let live in the meantime.

Indeed, I was the only teacher that he had problems with, precisely because I expected him to work, and I at least had the insane "notion" to be incensed that he was still playing football his junior year while failing every class.

Mick -- a smart-alek wanna-be Cassanova who ended up not playing football at all the following year.