You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.
Anybody who’s known me for a long time knows I used to have a wicked temper when I was younger. I’d fly off the handle, get angry, get in fights and be a destructive shit, all with little or no provocation. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve mellowed out considerably. It takes a fair bit to really piss me off, and even more to get me to show it. There are a few things that I’ve got a short fuse on:
1. Don’t waste my money.
2. Don’t waste my time.
3. Don’t disrespect me or the people I’m with.
Not too unreasonable, I don’t think. I’m even kind of flexible on the last one. I expect that adults will have different personalities and that we won’t all get along at all times. Hell, there are times when people really grate on my nerves, but I can take it in stride.
Kids are a different matter.
Especially, when I’m teaching. It’s pretty simple. In the classroom (and at school) the teacher is the authority figure. You can joke around a bit, but you have to know where the line is, and when the time and place for joking and playing is. (Hint: It’s not in the middle of class.) You are also not rude or disrespectful to the teacher. Most of the kids I deal with are pretty good on that bit. They’ve been brought up right – or had enough Korean teachers beat it into them – and know that teachers are there for a reason, and that reason is not to take shit from you.
There are some students who don’t quite get this though.
I had a run-in with one of them this evening. This kid’s not even my student, so I don’t know what his deal is. I was in the hallway after my last class, joking around with 3 students (2 of whom I either teach, or used to teach) when the kid walks by and says “Fucking USA!” to me, right out of the blue.
To quote J-Lo (from South Park),
“Oh no, you di-unt!”
(I didn’t say that, but that’s what was in my head at the moment.)
I spun around and grabbed him by the hood of his jacket, twisted him up against the wall and got a serious grip on his collar. It was instantly clear to him that he’d just fucked up. I got in his face and said in my sternest tone, “don’t you EVER say that to me again!” (The “sergeant’s voice” I used to use in the army is incredibly effective on children.)
He must’ve thought I was going to beat the shit out of him (which is what I expect a Korean teacher would do if blatantly insulted like that) since he went right into the “cowed” posture – head down, shoulders slumped, wouldn’t meet my eyes or say anything other than “sorry.”
I wouldn’t hit a student, since that wouldn’t solve anything, but I did want him scared. I kept at him for 30 seconds or so (crowd gathers – many of whom are my students) then my boss walked up and wanted to know what was going on. I told him and he made the kid apologize. I asked my boss to ask him (in Korean) why he said what he did, but my boss wouldn’t do it, saying that the kid was sorry. Yeah, I got that from the 15-20 times he said “sorry.”
I still didn’t buy it.
It seems that a lot of these kids think just saying the word makes everything okay. Hey, I’m not taking fucking “our fathers” here. You say you’re sorry? Show me by actually looking at me when you’re saying it.
Boss says he wants to talk to me and we head downstairs to the office. He gives me the whole “he’s just a child,” “he didn’t know what he was saying,” “he doesn’t know what that means” routine – all of it bullshit. The kid knows “fucking” is a bad word and that “USA” refers to my country. Not too tough to figure out. I tell him the kid’s doubly stupid for saying things he doesn’t know the meaning of and swearing at a teacher. Boss agrees kid is stupid.
I tell my boss exactly how everything went down, pointing out that while I grabbed the student by his clothing, I did not hit him. Nor would I ever strike a student.
Boss says this is good, as I’d go to jail if did.
What? The? Fuck?
This, from the man who goes to class with a 24 x 1.5 x .5″ piece of wood wrapped in black electrical tape.
Oh right. He’s Korean, so he understands the cultural significance of hitting kids with a fucking stick. Whatever.
He later goes and talks to dumb kid, explains the severity of what he’s done to him, and (I believe) gets his parents’ phone number. (He came back with a piece of paper in his hand and was calling somebody shortly after all this went down.) He also tells me the school disciplinarian will be dealing with the boy. (More cultural understanding, I’m sure.)
I don’t expect anything to change for this kid. He’s probably going to go home and be congratulated by his dad for “sticking up for Korea against the big, mean American.” I’d be surprised if he didn’t learn such eloquent language from dear old dad in the first place.
Now, I know where the saying comes from, regardless of who actually added it to his vocabulary. There’s a song called “Fucking USA” that came out here a couple years ago. I’ve even got the MP3. It’s all about what a horrible country America is – for everything from the No Gun Ri massacre to the 2002 Winter Olympics short track speed skating debacle – and it’s pretty lame.What concerns me about the whole situation is that some other idiot is going to try and do the same thing, to see if he can get away with it. I’m sure I’ll have a whole new rep at school by tomorrow. I’m sure the rumors are already flying through Buddy-Buddy and other chat programs about how I beat up a student, or threatened to kill him, or god knows what else. It’s not my students I worry about, it’s the ones who aren’t in my classes, but know who I am. (Not too tough, since there are only 3 foreign teachers at our school.)
My students are all pretty cool for the most part. A good number of them saw part of what went down, so I’m sure there will be questions in class tomorrow. I’m fine with that. If nothing else, it can serve as a learning experience for them as well as the dumb kid. I had a few of them come up to me in the halls at the end of school and ask me if I was angry. I wasn’t, and told them so. (I’m not going to hold a grudge against the kid – or apply my feelings about a single dumb kid to the entire student population.) The funniest thing was when one of my kids asked me, “are you okay, teacher?’ I had to smile at that.They’re not all bad. In fact, the bad ones are few and far between. I’ll go to work tomorrow, field their questions and go about my business more or less as usual. Beyond that – who knows? I’ll just keep taking on everything as it comes and we’ll see how it all works out.