Shaddup Already!
2006-10-11
If I'm outsmarted by my slowest student. . .
. . .what does that make me?Ah, the eternal question that I think most teachers have to eventually ask themselves. I just didn't expectmy turn to be from this child in this way.
D comes into class yesterday and he has FVCK written Ozzy Osbourne style along his fingers and with a highly decorate motif on the back of his hand.
So I ask him about it.
He responds:
It's not bad, it means duck in Russian. A kid told me.
I try not to laugh while I talk to him further:
Me: And you believed this student?
D: (looking incredulous that I would even ask) Yeah.
Me: Do you think that was smart?
D: (looking even more incredulous) Yeah.
So I went across the hall and asked another teacher if she had a dress code form. I figured I ought to send D down to discipline and have them sort it out.
As I'm filling out the form, I call discipline to see if it's okay for me to send him. I realize it's lunchtime and all the AP's are covering lunch duty, but I can't keep him in my room. The secretary acquiesces, although I can hear in her voice that she isn't happy about it.
I walk over to D:
Me: You need to go to discipline.
D: Why? It means duck in Russian! It does!
Me: I don't believe that you meant anything wrong when you wrote it. I trust that you believed this other kid, but it is clearly inappropriate for school. You need to go down to discipline.
D: Please, don't make me go. Why can't I stay here?
Me: We need to get this taken care of, you need to go to discipline, now. You can tell them your side of the story.
D: I don't want to go, don't make me go (almost crying). Can't I just wash it off?
I felt so very stooopid. Yeah, he could have just washed it off. Yeah, I could have saved this whole scene in the classroom. Yeah, I could have not ticked off the discipline secretary. Yeah, I'm a genius.
Of course now there is the issue of him trying to manipulate the situation. I know this kid, if I let him just go wash his hands, he will continue to push the boundaries. He has pretty much refused a directive from me and that is a bad precedent to set. I had to send him.
He was in the office for about 15 minutes and came back with a freshly washed hand. They kept the paperwork, which is good because this kid really needs some intervention. I hope someone talked to him about choices and it was at least a better learning experience than he would have gotten by me making him wash his hand.
I did talk to him when he came back and let him know that sometimes, like in the documentary "I Clavdivs," or Greek looking spellings of "Covrtroom" that the V is used in place of a U.
And although I know absolutely no Russian, I'm pretty sure that Fuh-vuck doesn't mean duck in that language.
But I could be wrong, it's happened before.
