Two Questions. One Answer.

It’s been too difficult to write lately and so I haven’t done it. Virtually anywhere. The thing is, I can write about anything and then I am reminded: people are watching. Sometimes they’re just looking at my writing. Maybe they’re asking questions. What’s interesting here? What’s going on? What is she really up to these days? I’ll say this about my career: it’s pretty awesome and as much as I complain about the icky parts of my job they’re what makes it more fantastic than I thought I would appreciate it for and yet I know that’s always going to be hard.

On Monday a graduate student came in to interview me for a project she’s required to do and I told her that all I could afford is about 30 minutes of my morning. It ended up being one of those mornings where I had to check in with lots of students. I mean a lot of students. Nearly 75 of them in the first hour and a half of my day. It’s part of my morning routine and it takes a lot of time. It involves tediously checking the attendance lists for my 300+ students. There was no other time to fit her into my day. She came in at a bad time, too, when there were scores of kids crowded in my office waiting area listening for their name to be called so that I could ask them any one of a variety of questions:

Where have you been for the last few days?

Why are you late to class? Why are you skipping class?

You know I have to follow the rules and give you the appropriate consequence for you behavior, don’t you?

What’s going on with your grades? How can I help?

They are the constant questions of my work with students and they allow me to learn a lot about what’s going on, what referrals I need to make to the proper services we can offer, and sometimes they end in heartbreak for the both of us. I know, it’s always more hard on them, but it’s that ever present burden of working with kids that both wears me out and spurs me onward.

There are several sides to me in my work. Sometimes, I’m all business and need to get to the heart of the matter. Other times I am inconceivably goofy with them and need to get them to laugh in order to break down the barrier. Oh, hell, sometimes I’m just silly because I want to be like last week when a boy sat across from my desk and we spontaneously started rapping a song by Lil Wayne together. It served no other purpose but to pass the time while we waited for his mother to call me back. He easily moved right into the palm of my hand and I did that on purpose so he wouldn’t freak out that his mom was going to speak with me and he was probably going to get in trouble (which he did). But the music! It bonded us for a moment! Those are the moments I wouldn’t give back EVER and that I find immensely entertaining.

My students know me. I call them “my kids”. Those kids try to pull one over on me all the time.

“Write me a pass? PLEEEEEASE? I don’t want to get a detention.”

“No. You know better than to ask me. Go get your detention.”

“Ugh. You NEVER do that for me!”

“I know. I probably never will. Now go away.”

When I run into them in the hallways later on and say Hi and smile they reciprocate. All is forgiven, but not necessarily forgotten. I’d be dishonest if I said this was all on their part. I have a pretty good memory, but I realize I’m growing up some kids here.

Last week a kid was mad because he had to give up his cell phone and he made the horrendous decision to call me a “douche”. I don’t react to students when they’re clearly looking for it. My face just screws up into that “Seriously?” face and then I do what I have to do. They get reminded that I’m not doing this to them, but that they’re getting those natural consequences for their behavior. I think perhaps he hated that I didn’t react so he continued to act like a jerk misbehave but I’m just not giving in to that kind of idiotic functioning.

“You’re not mad at me. I understand your frustration. But you’re not mad at me. You did something stupid and have to take responsibility.”

The graduate student asked me several questions about the nature of my work, what my duties and responsibilities are, and then finished with two integral questions.

Q: What part of your job do you dislike the most?

A: Starting my day with things like attendance where I find out what’s really going on in their lives.

Q: What part of your job do you like the most?

A: Starting my day with things like attendance where I find out what’s really going on in their lives.