Open Mouth… Insert Foot
I had another one of those knee jerk-big mouth reactions today. That personality trait that I so hate about myself, but yet I know which so succinctly describes me.
Once upon a time, I was a very negative person… and I surrounded myself with negative people… only negative people. I liked to grip and complain and only wanted to be around people that shared that “interest.” Going back to college and earning my degree, leading to the career that I felt was my dream deferred, lead me to a point of happiness in my life. I was no longer attracted to negative people. Sure, I had and will always have, those moments of catiness or downright ugliness in my life… but those feelings weigh me down now and I don’t try to surround myself with people that are directed by their negative feeling because quite simply it’s too contagious. I know it is my weakness that when I am associated with a person like that it will also infect me.
Well, I work witha teacher that has that “infection.” She likes misery. She NEEDS misery. She seeks it… and I think she welcomes it in a way that she cannot see or understand. I have tried to befriend her in the past, and even more recently. I invited her to church and she eventually joined, although I don’t see her around there much often anymore. There are days in which she is very pleasant to be around. She has a cerebral sarcastic wit that is quite entertaining, but those days are becoming fewer… and the miserable days are becoming more numbered. She has a LOT going on. She lives on the opposite side of the country from her family, to whom she is very close, and her father possibly has cancer. That is coupled with the fact that she has become a target for a lot of administrative attention… perhaps unfairly. As a co-worker there are days I try to be her friend… and there are days I sterr clear of her side of the hall. Now however, she is not just a co-worker, but also my son’s teacher.
This has not been an easy transition. My understanding of how difficult it is to be a mother in the school in which I am a teacher came to a crest today. Justin has SIX zeros in her class. FOUR of the zeros are for assignments that he did not put his name on. This is infuriating, but Justin has been the aim of that frustration. Then, there was a week in which this teacher was ill, really ill, and I know that it is hard to miss time and keep your class on track. It is very stressfull for me and I don’t even teach an SOL-scheduled driven class. When she cam back from being out 3 days though, it seemed like the class went into a whirlwind. There was confusion about what was due when and about the order in which certain assignments were complete. So, during that chaos, Justin earned another zero for yet another assignment that sat in his notebook complete, but didn’t get turned in on time. And of those 6 zeros, there was one which he just didn’t complete on time and has to absorb complete responsibility.
Well, it was quite obvious that this teacher had a bad day. For various reasons it was obvious the cause of her bad day was directly related to her job. He mailbox is directly below mine. As I went to get mail, I saw that she had wrote up a student for asking “uneccessary questions.” (I admit that knowing that cannot be contributed to a casual glance.) She has told me before that Justin asks a lot of questions. So, I went to forewarn Justin at lunch to just be quiet because she was having a bad day. Before I could even tell him this, he told me that him and another student were turning in their assignment as the class changed from the minute the bell should have rung until the minute after, and shw told them it was late. I don’t know if he specifically told me she wouldn’t accept them or if that was just the impression he got.
I went off. I went into the teacher workroom and rather loudly asked another co-worker if they knew what her problem was today. I don’t even remember what all I said. I know the overall impression was that I was so stressed out over her class that I just wanted to go to the boss. She stressed to me though that I really needed to confront the teacher about it first. So, skipping lunch, I walked back by her room to find her with the door closed, lights off, and head on her deak. So, of course, I wasn’t going to disturb her. Instead I went to the workcenter and called Jason, rather loudly expressing to him my frustration about the situation for all to hear. I did not like at all that the emphasis of his concern was that I needed to be a friend to her rather than an advocate for Justin. At least, that is all I was hearing from the phone peice at that time. Later in the day, I felt more assured that he would have defended Justin as needed.
Then the knee jerked. I went to the boss and told her I was having problems separating the teacher from the mother. Most of the conversation I kept vague. I don’t think I was very articulate in getting my point across. What I wanted to convey was the difficulty in knowing what was going on behind-the-scenes and seeing how that was affecting my child’s education. For example, I know this teacher was having a bad day, and I know she is taking out the frustration of that bad day on her students, including my son. I can’t make myself unknow that. I don’t think that’s how it came across at all though. I’m sure it just came across as complaining about this one teacher… which I cannot deny was my primary goal, although I did not want to be so direct in doing so. Oh how I so wish I could turn back time. The greatest outcome of that conversation was that I simply made myself look unprofessional. Boss Lady gave good advice, but it was logical and not anything that I didn’t already know myself… about how to be a teacher at school and a parent after school.
She did say one thing that has nagged at me. She said that I had Justin under a microscope at school. I have gone back and forth on trying to decide if she was directly telling me I was watching over Justin too closely or if she was making a general statement over working in the same school your children attended. That’s going to nag at me for a while.
The situation resolved itself in an unexpected manner, after going back to the co-worker from lunch to discuss the issue more and calling the mother of the friend whose notebook I assumed was rejected also. She graded the assignment. She gave Justin a 100. There was a Post-It with a note along the lines of ‘It is your responsibility to turn your work in. No excuses,’ which sadly makes me wonder if there was more to the story than Justin told.
So Justin got his 100 and went on with his day while I burned bridges and raised fences. Had I not said anything, I would not have cared so much now. Obviously the root of my anger was Justin getting another ZERO, and I wanted to believe it was UNJUST. Had I just taken time to let the issue settle I would not have to worry about something being said to this teacher about my rage now… something that only lead to Justin being targeted. In trying to what I thought defend my son, I may have did the exact opposite and mae him a target.
I absolutely must learn to hold down that knee and not be so quick to react and open my mouth. I must learn tact, decorum, and patience. I cannot be a person of value without these traits. It is nothing but trashy for me to go around running my mouth as I did in this circumstance. I took the low road and I am deeply ashamed.
