Ambushed
June 2nd, 2009I was ambushed in the halls.
Normally, I see ambushes coming. I’m not quite as paranoid as I used to be¹, so I’ll usually let someone say my name before I turn and run.
Today, this turned out to be a serious mistake. Someone called out “Hale!” and rather than fleeing in panic, I turned around. Turned out it was two of my “mighthavebeens”,² and they had a small problem—which is to say, they had a disagreement with one of their teachers.
Which is fine—I know the teacher in question. At least, I know them as a teacher, which is different than knowing them as a student. Still, I firmly believe that the best interest of the child is always paramount for every teacher in the building, and I’m not surprised with conflict arises despite that. Personality conflicts are inevitable in any sort of team environment, especially when working with kids. The best we can do is try and find ways to minimize them.³
So there was a conflict. They happen.
But in this case—for whatever reason—the kids didn’t feel heard. They also felt like they were being discriminated against—because their teacher didn’t share their view about the subject, clearly the teacher was incapable of being fair.
I’m not going to pretend there wasn’t a certain amount—or even a large amount—of “catastrophizing” happening; as far as the students were concerned, things were incapable of getting better.
I wonder how we help them with that. I suggested they find a teacher they like to act as mediator—to go along with them so that they could have the conversation they want to have, clear the air, and be able to work out their feelings so that work—and learning—could get done.
Certainly there’s also the department chair, who I’m certain would be willing to meet with them, and help work it out. I’m sure any of the administrators would be willing to do the same—and any member of guidance.
I actually can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t be willing.
The problem is that we don’t have a structure for that. We don’t have a process in place that every teacher and student knows about so that they can use it. And we need to teach our kids how to stand up for themselves—how to communicate when they’re not being heard. If we can’t teach them how to speak truth to power, then we aren’t teaching them how to be citizens in a democracy.
So much of what we need to do is about lifting boats. There are certainly students who are more than capable of having this kind of conversation already—but our task is to enable more to respectfully engage in a way that will help them get to where they could be later in life. But it needs to be consistent, and it needs to have an avenue, and we need to do that in the midst of everything else we need to accomplish.
Easier said than done.
1 There was a time when someone needed a pass-key and a code-word to get into my classroom. Otherwise, my kids would cover and I’d be out the window. ↺
2 The name those kids have given themselves that would have had me as their teacher if I’d stuck to my previous schedule. It’s rather charming, in a knife-in-the-gut kind of way. ↺
3 Part of the problem is simply vocabulary. Try telling a student about what a virtue is—they’ve never heard the word. Or that they should display a little integrity—when they think of it as something Scotty might say to Kirk about the hull, it makes the teacher sound like they’re from another planet. Often, we never know. ↺
