3. Don't Tattle on Your Teacher

“She dragged me down the hall by my neck!”  Boy Boy faced the Assistant Principal of Discipline.  His illegal book sack synched tightly at its mouth and molded the curve of his twelve-year-old spine.  His thumbs hooked its straps, and his hips cocked to the left as he impatiently waited for justice to be served. 

I stood inside the doorway and looked over his head of tight, black curls that puffed in rows like dark patches of cauliflower.  I knew that if Boy Boy made it to the end of the school year, his pre-teen hormones would stretch his legs like putty, and I would be forced to look up to him.  But for today, at a mere five foot four, it was still apparent who was the teacher and who was the child.

“Man, this lady trippin’!”  Mr. Shelton, our mediator and nearing seven feet, crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows and smiled a little.  Not even a month into the school year, we were both slightly amused at the drama presented so early.

“Mr. Shelton, if you don’t mind, let me explain the situation,” I said.  As a second year teacher, I felt seasoned and prepared to take on this small body of defiance. 

“Man, shoot, you dragged me down the hall!”  Boy Boy’s feet were restless on the tile floor, and he looked as if he were positioning himself for a free throw shot.

I turned in Boy Boy’s direction.  “First of all, I am not a man,” I began.  This had become a famous line of mine, as most of my students prefaced their grievances with “Man!” (pronounced: “Maaain!”), and I especially enjoyed asking slowly and softly if I needed to explain why I wasn’t a man.  Aware of the consequences upon answering yes to the inquiry (“I have a vagina, Darnell, not a penis.”), this unexpected question silenced them long enough to allow me to route the conversation back to my dominant word.

“Second of all, Mr. Shelton, Boy Boy here has disrupted class all hour and hasn’t completed any work.  When I asked him to step into the hallway for a chat, he belligerently stormed away and I gently guided him into your office, where we stand right now.”  Belligerent was a word that seemed to always get an administrator’s attention.  Belligerent assumed violent, or at least volatile potential.  I used it frequently.

“Maaaain, she dragged me!” I didn’t tell Mr. Shelton that I had yanked his book sack gently correcting his choppy path to the correct office.  Technically, I didn’t touch him at all. 

   “Well, Boy Boy,” Mr. Shelton sighed, “lucky for you we have security cameras, and I’ll go through them to see if Ms. Field really did yank you by the neck."  Boy Boy shut up.  “And, Ms. Field, this child has taken up too much of your time.  Go ahead back to class, and I’ll deal with him.” 

#  #  #

Security at Southeast Middle is as advanced as its video cameras.  Positioned above each major artery of the building, they avoid hidden pockets suited perfectly for a quick pre-teen blowjob or joint hit.  These cameras, spliced in six gray cubes on the principal’s computer screen, normally pick up class transitions: flooded halls of adolescent hugging, note delivering and moseying to the next period.  This is the movement, the predictable ebb and flow that plays out in repeated increments and gives its viewers a false sense of academic normalcy.  What happens inside classroom walls, around a bathroom stall, under the gym bleachers, however, is the authentic recordings of a middle school.  The true crimes are rarely caught.  And, meaningful security is usually left to those who just want to teach.