FOR SCHOOL TEACHERS ONLY
IT’S ME OR HIM
“See me after class, please, Darren,” said the teacher, frustrated by his
erring student’s unwillingness to carry out his requests for the last ten
minutes.
“Why?” retorted Darren, his wiry body bristling with aggressive
defiance.
“Because I asked you to.”
Before the looming confrontation could be consummated, the school
bell began its final blast for the day and soon the corridors were
thronging with inner-city adolescents shouting and bumping their way
to freedom.
In room Twenty One two people remained, different in age, in
physique and in temperament, but alike in their fear that the coming
minutes would be painful and that there would be consequences. In
battle terminology, they both wanted and needed a win.
“I gotta get home. I can’t stay long.”
“O.K. I hope we’re not too long, because I’ve got things to do too,
Darren, but we’ve got to see how we can help you to keep up with your work.”
This was a deliberately gentle start from the teacher who was a bundle
of contradictory emotions as he tackled this interview, standing at the
blackboard and trying to look relaxed and to sound pastoral. His
heart was pumping with a strange mixture of surprise, fear and compassion .
Surprise, because Darren had actually remained; fear, because he had seen Darren explode before; compassion, because he was aware of some of the problems that Darren brought into the school with him.
“I’ve gotta get home… and you’re not allowed to keep me.”
“I’ll keep you as long as we need. Just settle down and finish your
work and then we can talk about what happens next. You know I’ve
talked to your Mum and you know she wants you to have some success at school. Just sit down and finish copying that map and then you can go. It’ll only take a couple of minutes if you get stuck into it.”
“I’m not doing that now. I’ve gotta meet me friends and they’re
waiting for me.”
The teacher had faced lots of these typical moves from wayward
students who could not countenance staying back, particularly on a
Friday afternoon. He persevered, aware that his body was becoming
more tense by the moment and that his voice was becoming softer in
inverse proportion to his anger.
Again, with a crestfallen look on his face and a “more in sorrow than in anger voice” the teacher asked, “Just finish off that map and then you can go.”
If only he could understand what was going on in that youngster,
whose eyes were narrowing, whose normally pasty colouring was
rapidly turning a bright shade of red and whose pursed lips looked
ready to snap open and bite.
Again, the soft response.
Somehow this seemed to aggravate the situation and Darren turned to
his desk, snatched up his folders - he never brought a bag to school - and looked as if he was going to flee.
“Darren, getting angry’s not going to help. If you go now, you won’t be allowed back next week and then your mother will be upset. Let’s work out why you’re messing round so much and ruining your chances.”
“It’s none of your business. I’ll do what I like and you’re not going to
stop me.”
There was a long pause while the combatants glared at one another,
both victims and yet both strangely powerful.
In the teacher’s mind, the last few months flashed by in a mini-second. Darren was one of the most frightened and angry students he had ever encountered, with a desperate need to keep adults at a distance and to play up to his peer group. Earlier in the year the school had arranged for him to attend a special small school where some gifted staff had built a relationship with him and helped him gain some self-respect on the way back to normality. The teacher had visited the home, had a profitable discussion with Darren’s mother and older brother and his return last month had been accompanied by some real hope for a better term than last year. Now this…and a sinking feeling of déjà vu and another failure.
Who was winning?
By now, they had been in the classroom for ten minutes, so the teacher had succeeded in keeping Darren against his will. What sort of success was that?
Darren was still frustrated and he had still not finished the assigned
task - filling in a few cities on a map of India.
Once more the request was made, quietly and persistently. “Come on,
Darren just finish off that map and then you’ll be free to go.”
What happened next remained embedded in the teacher’s memory for
life. He often wondered whether he had provoked the outburst by the
very deliberately quiet manner in which he had addressed his combatant.
With a sudden lunge, Darren leapt to the blackboard and slammed his clenched fist against it with all the accumulated anger he had been nursing. The sound echoed around the silent corridors along which he strode towards freedom from the oppression of the afternoon.
A winner?
Mac Nicoll
“See me after class, please, Darren,” said the teacher, frustrated by his
erring student’s unwillingness to carry out his requests for the last ten
minutes.
“Why?” retorted Darren, his wiry body bristling with aggressive
defiance.
“Because I asked you to.”
Before the looming confrontation could be consummated, the school
bell began its final blast for the day and soon the corridors were
thronging with inner-city adolescents shouting and bumping their way
to freedom.
In room Twenty One two people remained, different in age, in
physique and in temperament, but alike in their fear that the coming
minutes would be painful and that there would be consequences. In
battle terminology, they both wanted and needed a win.
“I gotta get home. I can’t stay long.”
“O.K. I hope we’re not too long, because I’ve got things to do too,
Darren, but we’ve got to see how we can help you to keep up with your work.”
This was a deliberately gentle start from the teacher who was a bundle
of contradictory emotions as he tackled this interview, standing at the
blackboard and trying to look relaxed and to sound pastoral. His
heart was pumping with a strange mixture of surprise, fear and compassion .
Surprise, because Darren had actually remained; fear, because he had seen Darren explode before; compassion, because he was aware of some of the problems that Darren brought into the school with him.
“I’ve gotta get home… and you’re not allowed to keep me.”
“I’ll keep you as long as we need. Just settle down and finish your
work and then we can talk about what happens next. You know I’ve
talked to your Mum and you know she wants you to have some success at school. Just sit down and finish copying that map and then you can go. It’ll only take a couple of minutes if you get stuck into it.”
“I’m not doing that now. I’ve gotta meet me friends and they’re
waiting for me.”
The teacher had faced lots of these typical moves from wayward
students who could not countenance staying back, particularly on a
Friday afternoon. He persevered, aware that his body was becoming
more tense by the moment and that his voice was becoming softer in
inverse proportion to his anger.
Again, with a crestfallen look on his face and a “more in sorrow than in anger voice” the teacher asked, “Just finish off that map and then you can go.”
If only he could understand what was going on in that youngster,
whose eyes were narrowing, whose normally pasty colouring was
rapidly turning a bright shade of red and whose pursed lips looked
ready to snap open and bite.
Again, the soft response.
Somehow this seemed to aggravate the situation and Darren turned to
his desk, snatched up his folders - he never brought a bag to school - and looked as if he was going to flee.
“Darren, getting angry’s not going to help. If you go now, you won’t be allowed back next week and then your mother will be upset. Let’s work out why you’re messing round so much and ruining your chances.”
“It’s none of your business. I’ll do what I like and you’re not going to
stop me.”
There was a long pause while the combatants glared at one another,
both victims and yet both strangely powerful.
In the teacher’s mind, the last few months flashed by in a mini-second. Darren was one of the most frightened and angry students he had ever encountered, with a desperate need to keep adults at a distance and to play up to his peer group. Earlier in the year the school had arranged for him to attend a special small school where some gifted staff had built a relationship with him and helped him gain some self-respect on the way back to normality. The teacher had visited the home, had a profitable discussion with Darren’s mother and older brother and his return last month had been accompanied by some real hope for a better term than last year. Now this…and a sinking feeling of déjà vu and another failure.
Who was winning?
By now, they had been in the classroom for ten minutes, so the teacher had succeeded in keeping Darren against his will. What sort of success was that?
Darren was still frustrated and he had still not finished the assigned
task - filling in a few cities on a map of India.
Once more the request was made, quietly and persistently. “Come on,
Darren just finish off that map and then you’ll be free to go.”
What happened next remained embedded in the teacher’s memory for
life. He often wondered whether he had provoked the outburst by the
very deliberately quiet manner in which he had addressed his combatant.
With a sudden lunge, Darren leapt to the blackboard and slammed his clenched fist against it with all the accumulated anger he had been nursing. The sound echoed around the silent corridors along which he strode towards freedom from the oppression of the afternoon.
A winner?
Mac Nicoll
posted by ledingham at 7:09 PM
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