Anthology Pieces
Learning from David
Catherine Wille
David was an angry young man. That is all I knew about him from an anecdotal conversation I had with one of his former teachers. I had received this “warning” with a pat on the shoulder and a smile. Nothing more, which was fine. With the exception of health and safety issues, I prefer to get to know my students from interacting with them myself. The decision to place David in my 1:12:1 self-contained behavior modification program was made without me. Eight grade Annual Reviews are held in the spring and almost never include high school staff or representatives from programs that the students will be entering. What I did have was David’s IEP, so the summer before he was to enter my program I reviewed his information and that of the other students who would be entering in the fall. David appeared to be a typical student for the program. He had learning issues, was classified as Emotionally Disturbed and had a history of speech and language services, along with OT and PT. David’s social issues seemed to indicate a resentment of adult authority figures and difficulty interacting appropriately with peers. His academic testing scores revealed that his reading, writing and math are below grade level. Again, David’s profile was consistent with most students in my program.
Fast forward, the first day of class. As always, I was standing outside my classroom door so that I could smile and greet the kids as they entered. The first student to enter class that day was a tall, very thin young man with piercing brown eyes. His posture was poor. His front teeth stuck out a little between his lips. He had a backpack that seemed heavy with supplies. Responding negligibly to my “Welcome!” He sat down immediately at a desk in the front of the room and put his head down. Other students rapidly came through the door and headed to the back, finding friends or claiming a specific territory. On day one I was already over my 12 student limit. I had 15 ninth graders in my 1:12:1 and I could tell immediately that this was not going to be one of those years where I enjoyed a brief but sublime “honeymoon” period with the class. It was only a few minutes into the period and they were already loud, physical and testing limits. The first argument was over desks. Everyone wanted to be in the back row, against the wall. I already had several tippers: students who tip their desks back so that they can balance against the wall with their feet suspended. Pet Peeve #1. I asked everyone to sit down and be quiet and we would discuss seating in a moment. It took a very long time for the students to follow this simple request, and I watched in silence as the students jostled, dragged desks, threw things, cursed at each other and protracted the process as long as they could. I made eye contact with my teaching assistant. We immediately knew that we were in for it. Eventually the silent stare managed to calm things a bit, but there were still students who refused to settle down. I talked over them and began my first day agenda, introducing myself and our TA and asking each student to say his or her name. We start at the back of the room with the tippers. Everyone is a wiseguy. Everyone has something funny to say. No one says his real name. All through this process, the tall, thin kid in the front row had his head down. When we get to him he slowly lifts his head and says his name, his real name, and then loudly and clearly addresses his back- of- the -room peers, “you are fu*@ing a**h**es.” The back row is outraged, returning the expletive with serious enthusiasm. In a firm and unamused tone, I instruct the class to be silent. They continue to voice their indignation and I ignore them. I quietly go to David and ask him to accompany me out to the hall. As he rises he kicks his heavy backpack across the room and tosses his desk towards the chalkboard. He is agitated and angry. He thinks he is in big trouble. This is one of those teacher moments that could end up haunting me for the rest of the year, and I need to handle it correctly.
Me : “David, I am sorry that the kids are so rude and out of control. It looks like I have my work cut out for me, huh?”
David: “They’re fu*@ing as*h**es!”
Me: “Well, those aren’t my words, but it looks like they need to learn some self-control. Why are you so upset? ”
David: “Because I know all of those kids from middle school and they have always been as*h**es. They better not mess with me or I’ll f*ck them up. You don’t know but they had to shut down the whole 6-8 wing one day when I went off! I don’t take sh*t from anyone.”
Me (………In my head), uh-oh, this kid is scary. This is a health and safety issue. Why didn’t anyone warn me?
Me: “David, I will try to do my best to keep the class sane and acting appropriately. It won’t be easy I can tell you right now. But if you feel stressed or angry or feel like you are going to blow up, just take some space. You don’t have to sit there and take their nonsense. Just get up quietly and go down to the office, it is two doors down from here, and sit in the soft chair. Or go get a drink of water. Do what you need to do so that you don’t go ballistic, O.K.?”
David: “Anytime?”
Me: “Anytime they are really getting on your nerves.”
David: “O.K.”
Me: “Do you want to go to the office now and chill out?”
David: “Yeah.”
Me: “O.K. Just go on down and I will bring you some forms to fill out, your emergency info and first day stuff.”
David goes down to the little office and I return to the room. The kids are still talking about his outburst and are eager to hear if he got suspended. I ignore them, move the desk back into place and put David’s backpack on the seat. I announce our seating assignments. Divide and conquer. They complain, refuse to move, and are generally obnoxious. I do not back down. I do not argue. I do not raise my voice. If I lose this challenge, if they see I am frustrated or weak, I will have no credibility, ever. They know the vulnerable spots and they find them and attack them like a heat seeking missile. I give the long silent pause.
Me: “Sorry guys, but I’m the boss. You sit where I say you sit. I can change your seating every day if I choose, because it is my job to make sure you learn. Case closed.”
They snicker, they mumble, they laugh, they move very slowly, but they eventually move.
I pass out the forms they need to fill out for the office and nurse, and write some words on the board to assist their spelling: Hyde Park, New York, Poughkeepsie, Clinton Corners, Staatsburg. Our TA takes David’s forms down to the office for him. She reports that he is calm and settled in the soft chair. Fifteen minutes later the period is finally over and I collect the forms. Their hand writing is appalling and often illegible, and the words I spelled for them on the board are largely misspelled on their forms. David comes into the class and hands me his forms.
Me: “Thanks David. Are you O.K. for your next class?”
David: “Yeah.” (no emotion)
Me: “ O.K., I’ll see you 3rd period after you go to P.E. The gym is down this hall and right around the corner to the right.”
David turned and walked away. Period one, day one is over. I spent the next 45 minutes of my prep period arranging the room, trying to keep the desks as far away from each other as possible. This turned out to be a pointless maneuver because instead of handing each other items and smacking their neighbors, they threw things and actually got out of their seats to hit each other.
We played “musical chairs” each and every day for the entire year. There was the usual revolving door of students, some leaving my program for BOCES, others entering from out of district or from mainstream where they were wreaking havoc. We finally end the year with 10 students. David spent lots of time on the floor outside of our room, sprawled on the hall floor because he could not make it to the little office. There are dents in the metal wall where he punched it with his fist and rammed his elbows in. I am very happy to report that he never had a nuclear meltdown in my class, but he had plenty of those in the halls, the cafeteria, in P.E and in the assistant principal’s office. He had In School Suspension many times, especially his freshman year, and he was suspended out of school a few times as well.
David was a very dedicated student. Despite his obvious learning issues, he always had his homework and always tried very hard to learn. Not once was he ever disrespectful to me. He worked after school the entire four years of high school, sometimes until closing time at 11:00 P.M. “Braces are expensive,” he said. By junior year David was out of the self-contained model for most of his classes, with the exception of English. He enjoyed the small peer group that had made it this far together and we were a sort of family. We sat casually in a circle, eating lunch and discussing books, current events and our writing. We were famous for getting off-track but we always were able to relate our detour to our lives and our work in class.
Senior year, June. David passed all of his courses and exams and earned a Local Diploma. His senior project for my 12th grade English course was a memoir, his choice. We spent senior year reading, discussing and writing about memoirs. We read Speak, The Glass Castle, Surviving Hitler, supplemented with lots of poetry and short stories. David and I conferenced many times over the year and he went through multiple rewrites and drafts before submitting his final copy. I learned the history behind David’s rage. I wish I had known that first day in his freshman year why this intelligent, sensitive young man was so angry, and so hurt and so terribly wounded, why he didn’t trust anyone and why he responded so violently when he felt there was injustice. He said that reading and discussing memoirs helped him to retrace his own life and come to terms with what had happened to him.
The last day of school David stopped in to say goodbye to me. I told him how proud I was of him. I told him that he was the kind of student that makes teachers want to come to school and do their jobs. He thanked me for helping him, and said he would come to visit often. He saw I had tears in my eyes. I flashed back to that first day and our conversation outside of the classroom door, and I realized how much working with David enriched me, as a teacher and as a human being. David was not a angry young man any more. I hugged him and gave him my best smile. He returned the smile, revealing an impressive set of braces, and then he turned and left.
