I have a new job. I am a T.A. working with the special needs kids at a charter school. I absolutely love it. The job just “happened” to show up right when I needed it, with just the right schedule for me to be able to take care of my own kids when they would be home and for me to do something that I enjoyed and get paid for it.
One of the things I love about it the most, is the fact that I get to be around so many awesome kids at the school. I like seeing all the different personalities and how they work together there.
It reminds me of when I went to Junior High. At the time, I didn’t care much about school. I only cared about being social. I remember noticing all the different types of kids there were and trying to fit in.
I was the “good girl” type. I wanted the teachers to like me. I struggled in school, so if the teachers liked me, I hoped they would give me a good grade. That was my “motivation” to follow the rules.
Some of the kids at my school, don’t have that same motivation.
On the playground the other day, I caught two students kissing on the field. It’s part of my job to catch kids that are not following the rules and to report them so they can have the consequences for their actions. It’s been an interesting part of my job. I want the kids to like me, but I also have to report bad behavior.
After noticing the two kids kissing, the girl came up to me and said, “You’re not going to tell on me are you?”
“It’s my job to tell on the kids who break the rules.” I told her as if it pained me to do so.
“But if I get another detention, I’ll…” she started telling me about all the things that were going to happen to her if she got ANOTHER detention.
I looked at her apologetically and told her, “You probably should have thought of that before you started to do something you knew was against the rules.”
She wasn’t happy with me, but I didn’t know what else to say.
Later, I was sitting in class with the young man that she had been kissing. We got into a discussion of whether or not I was a nice teacher or a mean teacher. The young man said, “Well you got me in trouble!” Another girl in the class defended me, “She’s a nice teacher!”. I thought it was funny that the kids seemed to care.
I looked at him apologetically and told him the same thing I had told his kissing partner, “I’m sorry! It’s my job to report kids that are breaking the rules!”
Another kid told him matter-of-factly, “It’s her job to be a snitch.” I looked at him and agreed, “Yep, I get paid to make sure that kids follow the rules.”
“But I didn’t know it was against the rules!” He said.
“No PDA? No public displays of affection? You didn’t understand that you couldn’t start kissing in front of that huge group of kids that were watching you?” I asked him.
His friend next to him said, “I just don’t do anything unless I’m off school grounds. I don’t hold hands, I don’t hug….”
I looked at this poor boy kindly. He’d had a hard week and it was the third time he’d gotten into trouble. For some reason I have a soft spot for the kids that get in trouble the most. I think I might be different that way. I’ve noticed that many of the teachers around me seem to get frustrated with these kids. I wonder if it gives the kids the impression that the teacher is perceiving them as “bad”. Whether or not it’s true or not, I wonder if it makes the child feel mistreated. The child understands that they are not all “bad”, so if the adult is treating them unkindly as if they were, then I wonder if it makes the child feel like it’s more about a power struggle and less about the rule that they broke.
I think that these kids really just don’t understand the rules, or why they are there. They haven’t figured out how following them will benefit them – in the short or the long run. I believe that the benefit has to outweigh the cost, and taking away the consequences or letting kids get off without owning up to what they did, just reinforces their belief that the rules aren’t important. I think that being more sympathetic and kind, but making sure that consequences are followed through helps kids learn better and faster.
I love working in a school system, where there are consequences that can easily be enforced. These kids are learning, and at least around me, I don’t think they’ll make the same mistake twice. I don’t believe for a second that any of these kids are “bad”. I enjoy working with every single one of them. But I hope they won’t choose to blame me when they get in trouble, and that instead, by my being sympathetic to the situation that they’ve made for themselves, it might help them to take responsibility for their actions.
