monstrosities: middle schoolers

 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/21/us/new-york-bullied-bus-monitor/index.html

News:
Karen Klein, a bus monitor in New York, is taunted, ridiculed, and threatened by four seventh grade boys.  A video recording of the occurrence is uploaded and goes viral.  Everyone in America feels awful for Karen, and lots of people send her money so she can retire and go to Disneyland.  The boys are suspended from school for a year and claim to be very very sorry.

Why this makes me feel weird:
My first reaction upon hearing the very bare bones of the story was, "Good.  Good for her."  And I still feel that way.  I am glad that Karen Klein doesn't have to deal with the verbal demoralization of seventh graders anymore.  But the thing is, lots and lots of people still do.  Every day.  I did for a year, and no one seemed much fussed by it.

During my year with TFA, i was verbally abused on a daily basis.  i had objects thrown at me almost every day.  on one really bad day, i stood against the chalk board while markers i bought for the classroom were thrown at my head by nearly every child in that room... even the "good" kids.  i stood there, the only adult in the room, counting the minutes  until the bell would ring and they would leave.  i was legally responsible for these children and i was absolutely powerless.

i had firecracker poppers broken open IN MY HAND.  i had a student lean into my face, stare into my eyes, and whisper, "you will quit by the end of this week."  i was threatened, pushed aside, and the focal point to humiliation.  and the thing is, no one really batted an eye.  the veteran teachers tried to teach us how to toughen up- how to yell louder- how to make it through a day without crying.  they tried.  all of us first years walked around with sunken in faces- horrified and telling ourselves that it was probably our fault- that we just had to try harder.  set more goals.  make more phone calls.  have a better plan for discipline.  we were taught to blame ourselves first.  we were taught that we must hold them accountable, but we must first look to our own teaching methods.

hold them accountable.  but when security never came or when parents never answered the phone or when the girl who gave you a bloody lip while you broke up a fight the day before was back in your classroom the next day, there seemed to be no power strong enough to hold them accountable.  however, you could always doubt yourself. 

maybe i wasn't a good teacher at all.  maybe i didn't really understand them well enough.  maybe i was too white or too naive or too young to be taken seriously by them.  maybe it was me.  it was probably me.

and these are the things you start to tell yourself when other adults in authority don't seem to be phased by the cursing or fighting or urinating on the walls or smoking weed down the hallways every day.  these are the things you start to believe about the world.    maybe it's me.  clearly there is something about this world that i do not understand.

and it's true.  i didn't understand.  i don't understand.  and it makes me feel weird that after being in the middle of it for a year, i don't understand it any more than the middleclass suburban housewife who watches karen klein's experience on cnn and is just horrified and outraged.  they are horrified because they think this is a horrifying and tragic singular event.  i am horrified because i know that it is a horrifying and tragic event that happens every day, and there seems to be nothing to do about it.   

people want to blame poor parenting or poverty or liberal america.  people suggest spanking or prison.  the comments make me feel even weirder than the whole situation in some ways.  everyone wants to think there's an answer, or even an identifiable problem,  but it's more complicated than that.  it's not just a handful of rotten kids- i've seen even the most angelic kids turn into monsters under the right circumstances.  there are a million sides to all of them.  even the cruelest kids would show a soft side once in awhile.  they could surprise you a million ways a day, for better or worse.  they were human beings, afterall.

but in those moments- in those moments when a seventh grader has reduced you to tears and has ENJOYED it, has made a GOAL of it- they seem monstrous.  it is hard to call them human- because it means admitting to the part of humanity we are not proud of. have you READ Lord of the Flies?  it is easier if they are monsters.

when karen klein doesn't want to press charges, just wants them to learn a lesson- i get it.  she's seen all sides of these kids.  she knows they are just weird human beings still trying to figure it out.

i wish it were easier to figure it out.