Applying the Work in the Classroom Part Three

Applying the Work in the Classroom Part Three

With twenty minutes or so to go all but two or three students have finished their tests. I pick up the answer sheets and booklets, and find that more than half the students have not done the summaries. Two or three students are quietly reading. Several are working on math homework. Most are talking with their neighbors and fooling around.

“O.K. those of you who are still working on the test just ignore me. I don’t think my talk will interfere. The rest of you jus’ listen quietly for a minute or so. You know, you are one of the very worse classes that I sub for, the most immature. And what makes a person mature? What qualities do you need to be considered a mature adult?”

“You tell us you want us to act like adults. Well adults drink and smoke. Why can’t we drink and smoke?” from Debbie.

“Age doesn’t make a person mature. You can be jus’ as immature as an eighth grader even if your fifty years old…”

“Yea, how old are you? You must be a least a hundred years old,” from Jeff.

“What is it that make you a mature adult?” I ask again. No answers, but a lot a mumbling and talking among themselves. “O.K. let me tell you. A mature adult has self-control. Remember when you are a baby you can’t even control your bodily functions. You have to wear a diaper. Some of you still need diapers. As you get older you learn to control your need to talk and express your self. You learn classroom manners, to raise your hand, to listen when the teacher is talking, to be quiet when it is necessary.

“Yea, don’t you wear depends?” “You never let no one go to the bathroom.” “How come you can’t control your yelling all the time?” from the students.

“Listen. Jus’ listen for a minute. What happens when you can’t control yourself in the classroom?” No answers. “If you can’t control yourself, someone else controls you, right? The teacher has to control you. So, he puts your name on the board. Sends you to support room. When you drop out of school, what happens? You still can’t control yourself so the cops control you. They put you in jail…”

‘Yea, come along, nigger!” from Jerome.

“Do you realize that you jus’ said nigger? Did you hear yourself saying that?” I ask Jerome.

“Man, I never said dat. What the hell you talking ‘bout?” he answers.

I put a third check by his name. “Yea, go ahead and send me to the office. I’ll let ‘em know you called me a nigger!” Jerome screams jumping out of his desk and knocking it over. A chorus of boos and cheers come from the students.

“Get out of the room. Wait for your referral outside,” I shout at Jerome as he rushes for he door.

“You’re dammed right I’ll get out’a here. I’m gonna have you fired,” he yells back at me. Pandemonium in the classroom follows Jerome’s exit.

“Jesus Christ,” I tell myself as I go to the phone to report that Jerome left the room without my permission. “Yea, I’ll write up the referral and bring it over during lunch break. Yea, he left the room without permission.”

“Liar!” “Liar, you told him to wait outside,” from several students.

“I told him to wait for his referral. Not to run to the office,” I tell the class. What the hell am I doing here with this bunch of retards? I ask myself and glance at the clock, still a half hour to go. I take two more minutes off their lunch, write a couple more names on the board and they settle down little. When the lunch bell rings, I begin dismissing the quiet students one at a time. Those with their names on the board I keep the whole five minutes.

During lunch, I step into Ms. Holden’s office and explain that I was trying to get the students to observe their behavior, having them write, what am I doing to affect the mood of the classroom. “I was telling them that if they can’t control their own behavior, someone else will control it for them, in the classroom, the teacher. When they get out of school it will be the cops. I heard someone say, ‘Yea, come along, nigger.’ I figured it was Jerome. I asked him if he realized that he said, ‘Come along nigger.’”

“Jerome says that he never said that. The rumor from the kids is that you called him the N word.”

“No way. I would never call a student the N word.”

“Are you sure it was Jerome who used the N word.”

“Well, I thought it was him, but I’m not positive. Some one sitting back there used the N word…”

Ms. Holden tells me that they’ll come in fifth period and call out the students who are sitting near Jerome to question them. After lunch, the students return. I pass out their word search work sheet, and map assignment and suffer through the final period adding a few more names to the detention list. With the work sheets most of the students are fairly happy, and a little quieter than during fourth period. When the bell rings for fifth period to end, I’m telling myself thank God my day is over. I pity poor Mr. Z who has to be with the little animals every day.

Over the weekend as I sit in the silence of my backyard, I realize that I lost it during the last two periods with Mr. Z’s core. I was trying to apply the Work by having the students observe their behavior, but I became so identified that I lost touch with my own inner feelings toward the students. I had begun to hate their bad behavior, and in turn to hate them. My negative emotions took control.

On Tuesday, when I’m called in to sub again I stop by Ms. Holden’s office. “Did you find out who used the N word?” I ask. She tells me that no one would admit to it. Several of the students told her that they did hear me call Jerome the N word.

“O.K. let me call Jerome into your office during my prep. I want to apologize to him for accusing him of using the N word when I wasn’t perfectly sure that he did use it. I think it might be a good lesson for Jerome.” Ms. Holden suggests that I have the new counselor bring Jerome into his office during my prep. Before hand, I tell Dave, the new counselor, that I think it might be a good lesson for Jerome if I apologize for accusing him of saying the N word. “Now, he deserved the referral. But, I’m not one hundred percent sure that he said the word. Someone back there said it, but I’m not positive it was Jerome.”

“Yea, I interviewed eight of the kids from the back of the room. They all said that you didn’t call Jerome the ‘N’ word, but asked if he said it. And, Jerome knows that…”

“Oh, I’m glad to hear that. Glad to hear that the kids were so honest.”

On my prep. period,the chunky black eighth grader comes into the office with his head kind of down. He’s wearing a red sweatshirt and Levi’s that almost fit at the waist. I sit down in a chair across from David’s desk next to Jerome. “Remember what happened last Wednesday, I think it was Wednesday.”

David nods his head yes.

“Remember I was trying to get you guys to look at your behavior. I had you write ‘What am I doing to affect the mood of the class?’ I told you that if you couldn’t control your behavior in the classroom the teacher would have to control it with checks and referrals, that if you couldn’t control it on the streets, the cops would control it. Somebody said, ‘Yea, come along N word.’ Remember that?”

“Yea, but it wasn’t me. I didn’t use the N word.”

“Well, I’m not absolutely certain that it was you. But, I thought it was you at the time. Somebody back there used the N word. So, I will apologize for accusing you without being absolutely certain. But, I didn’t give you a referral for using the N word. I gave it to you for the way you reacted to my saying that you use it. You did deserve the referral. And, remember you already had two checks by your name when I wrote the third check. And, you know that I did not call you the N word, don’t you?”

Jerome admits that he knows that I didn’t call him the N word. Dave lets him know that he better quit playing the race card to attract attention from the class. He tells him that when there is real racism in a classroom he will know it. “And, if you are so sensitive about the word Nigger, you better stop using it with your friends outside. You know I hear you use it all the time. ‘What up, Nigger!’”

Jerome nods his head yes. Accepts my apology, and we shake hands all around.