angry teacher

warning: salty teacher language, unkind teacher behavior

some days i am not entirely proud of how i handle myself in the classroom. i blame my parents. they raised me not to be a racist pig and they must have pounded it in pretty good in our relatively segregated hometown because when i hear kids screaming horrible things at each other, sometimes i actually feel sick. i react, shall we say, from the gut rather than from the head.

bensonhurst is a cauldron of racism. go ahead, somebody from bensonhurst. email me and tell me it's not true. you're wrong. because i look at your children all day (which is a hell of a lot longer than you look at them) and i've never seen a group of people more hate-filled and less aware of others. i suppose maybe if you put all their parents in a room together... when i hear other white people representing me the way children in bensonhurst do, i am ashamed. and i know i'm supposed to be graceful about it. i'm an adult. i can help them learn through my own good example. but i put my own good example out there all day every day and it is no match for the fact that they hear their own ignorant parents spouting off about how a black man ought to be killed because he's smart enough to run a country they're part of (yes, a child said this out loud in class). or that their daughters shouldn't date "spanish" boys. see, the boys they're talking about aren't from spain. they can't even get that right. some of them encourage their own children to violence against gay people because god says it's okay. if god is out there, he will do well to distance himself from these fools.

it is difficult to teach children who believe this stuff. because so much time is spent getting them to shut up about their racist, sexist, nearly nazi ideas there's little time left over for all the wonderful things. and there are so many wonderful things.

like today. today we were reviewing for their semester exam. it's a big deal. it's over everything they've done and many of them don't know what book we're reading right now. (i'm not joking about this. you think i don't have nightmares about what's going to happen to these kids after high school?) a girl in the class yelled across the room to a boy, "and what were you thinking going out with a chinese girl?" she quickly looked across the room to the lone asian girl in class and said, "no offense". now, you can be pretty sure when someone says "no offense" what they really mean is "hey, i'm getting ready to offend the crap out of you or maybe i just did offend the crap out of you but because i'm saying this you can't get mad about it. also, i'm too self-absorbed to realize i'm being an idiot and will probably say this again so look out." it's like when people say, "i'm not a racist, but...." i've never heard that statement followed by anything but racist drivel. not ever. and trust me, i get to hear it plenty. teachers at my school say it all the time. and yes, i do call them on it. it makes me exceptionally popular.

so for a second in the classroom i was diplomatic, turning to the girl and saying in my sweetest voice, "are you saying something that might be a little culturally insensitive?" see. i'm totally capable. but she looked up, waved her hand at me dismissively, and turned back to the boy across the room. "a chinese girl! seriously. what were you thinking. CHINESE!!!" and the good part of me, the teacher part of me, just sat down quietly in my brain and the part of me my dear parents raised stood up in my brain, hitched up her pants, and screamed in her big loud really angry voice, "SHUT UP AND STOP ACTING LIKE A RACIST ASSHOLE!" see, i told you i'm not always charm and suavity. at this point most things in the room stopped but the child turned to me, her face boiling, and said, "did you call me an asshole?" then this i learned from the folks, too, and i said, "no. i said you're acting like one. it's a subtle difference. you clearly missed it."that's right. i screamed at a teenager in a classroom. that's right. i said bad words. and yes, i brought to everyone's attention the fact that said child did not get what i was saying. i know who i am. i am not a diplomat. i am a monster. but we are not long on time. the children in my school are being taught at home how to hate and who to hate and they come to school and sit in six different rooms a day, focusing all that hate on anyone not like them because that's how their parents managed. that's how their parents soothed themselves about not being able to find work or losing out on some wonderful opportunity. and it is sad and i want to feel sorry for them, but there's no time for that. and i wish i could be a dove. the world needs folks like that who can draw others in with kindness. most teachers are doves. this does not appear to be my lot. i am not a dove. and i know i may never convince that child that what she said was in any way wrong. just like i can't convince co-workers who tell racist jokes that they're racist (how can i be racist? i have black friends! do you tell your black friends those jokes? no. you keep trying to tell me. because you think i am like you. i am not like you so cut it out.).

nobody confronts it at my school so the kids see that it's not just accepted at home, it's also okay in the larger world. which is why, after my initial snarling, i went on a bit about how children who felt hurt when i called them on this stuff could bring their dear sweet parents in and i'd talk to them about the piss-poor job they'd been doing raising their kids. this is not fair. it is a horrible thing to say. and it is most horrible because of the truth behind it. and the only glimmer of awareness today, the one thing that gives me hope, is that they get quiet. the discomfort in the room is something you can taste. and they should be uncomfortable. because they do know. they know it's wrong to hate people for all the reasons their parents told them. it is not easy to shed all that fear and smallness. i will never be able to raise them the way my own parents raised me, but i surely am going to try anyway.