Oh, seventh grade! How wonderful and frustrating. It is the year where most young bodies begin to transform, and voices begin to drop an octave. Albeit these are natural occurrences that everyone experiences, the transition is not always easy for some children.
As a teacher, you must have memory recall about your own experiences growing up to understand the natural growth process of your students. As adults we tend to forget how much these growing pains impacted our lives. Then we question the things children do as if we never encountered that behavior before. That is, until someone reminds us of our own pubescent mood changes, forgetfulness and silliness. As a woman I could relate to the girl’s puberty angst, but I was completely caught off guard with some of the boy’s behavior.
During my first year teaching seventh grade, I had a rude awakening. Some of the students were my size and bigger. At times I felt as if I was going through puberty with them. In one of my classes there were two boys who stood close to six feet. These guys, I’ll call them Michael and Ariel, had surpassed most of the boys in their grade as far as the physical stages of puberty. They were also intellectually sharp, which made them confident. Still, they had boyish faces and occasionally acted silly like most boys their age. While I saw them for just who they were, little boys, they were persistent in letting me know they were on the brink of manhood.
Every couple of months I would rearrange the desks in my classroom. This was to keep the children engaged and focused. On this day my desks were arranged in an open-ended rectangle, with the attention drawn towards the blackboard. I was standing in the middle going over the lesson when out of the blue, Michael interrupted me and said, “Yo Miss, I wear a size twelve shoe.” I thought I was going to choke on my own spit. Somehow, I kept it together and seamlessly responded, “Wow! Your parents must spend a lot of money on your shoes.” Then I quickly returned to the lesson.
The only reason why I even acknowledged his statement is because I did not want to embarrass him in front of the class. Also, I made a quick benign response, letting him know that I wasn’t interested in his foolishness. Because of the age of the students (twelve and thirteen), the statement flew over most of their heads, so I was able to avoid any backlash from the peanut gallery. In no way did I acknowledge his behavior after that point, thinking the situation would go away on its own. Oh, how wrong I was.
A few days after the incident, when all was forgotten, Ariel entered the class and immediately began to show me the peach fuzz that was growing on his chin. It took everything in me to keep from laughing, but I congratulated him on the discovery that was exclusive to him. Not to be overshadowed by Ariel, Michael made another announcement to me as well. This time not in front of the class. He must have thought I was playing coy the first time. So, he tried a different approach. I asked him to pass out some work to the class. When he approached my desk he said in a matter-of-fact tone, “My father is Brazilian.” I handed him the papers and responded, “Okay?” I had no idea what he meant by that statement. In the days that followed he said it to me a few more times until finally I asked, “What do you mean by telling me this? Does your father need a Portuguese translator if I ask him to come to the school?” Michael just looked at me and smirked. Again, I went on about my business thinking nothing of his strange outbursts of useless information.
One day, Michael and Ariel arrived ahead of the class. As soon as they walked in, they announced to me, “We’ve changed our names. From now on call me Stiffer and him Adonis.” Again, this was Michael talking. Ariel was smiling like a Cheshire cat in agreement. At this point I became annoyed. These little boys didn’t know that the road they were trying to travel on had many potholes and detours. This time, with irritation in my voice I told them to, “Sit down and cut the crap, because you are being disrespectful.”
I thought I had done everything possible to get them to understand that I am an adult, and I don’t play with children. Sexual harassment is a tricky area between students and teachers. I was trying to avoid going to the principal because I didn’t want the tables turned on me. Here was the slippery slope, I was a new teacher to the school and the district, so no one knew me or my history with children. In addition, these two young boys, were intelligent and had spotless records. I thought if I ignored them, they would stop. I should have done the exact opposite. When Michael made that statement about his shoe size in front of the class, I should have pulled him to the side and given him a stern talking to. Then, I should have followed up with a call to his parents. That would have stopped him.
It was spring 2001 and people were beginning to communicate regularly via email. In my teacher training, one of my instructors suggested that we give our emails to our students to communicate with them about lessons or missed work. It was also a way to communicate with the parents. The instructor was from somewhere in the rural south, so I should have known better. What may have worked down there was not going to have the same outcome in the South Bronx or any big city, U.S.A. Still, against my better judgment, I issued my email to my students and parents at the beginning of the year. Up until that point, no one ever used it. I was corresponding with a few of my friends one evening when an Instant Message popped up on the screen (thank God, they did away with IMs on email). It was a message from Michael that read, “When are you going to stop playing and give me you?” I was horrified. I learned that night that I could not save an instant message and there was no screen shot app at that time. I had no proof. It was time to take major action before this child ruined my career and reputation.
The next day I approached the principal before school started and told him about everything. This was the same principal that scolded me about my classroom management without first asking what was going on. See blog “Principal or Princifoe.” With the same attitude as that incident, he got on me about knowing better than to give out my email address to students. After his vitriol, he told me to contact the parents and set up a meeting. I did just that. Turns out, Michael’s father spoke perfect English and agreed to meet me the next day after school. The mother was deceased, and the father was raising Michael as a single parent.
When I met with Michael’s father, who seemed very concerned about the situation, he assured me that I would have no more problems from Michael or Ariel. Apparently, he knew Ariel and said he would straighten him out too. I was relieved to finally get this monkey off my back. The next day Michael and Ariel apologized for their behavior. They never acted out like that again. My job and my reputation were saved.
*** On a lighter note, I finally understood the references Michael made about his father being Brazilian. After some inquiry, I was informed of the fact that Brazilians are known for their exotic beauty. In a nutshell, the man was gorgeous. He looked like a black Mr. Clean, muscular build and all. He was so fine that I signed up for capoeira classes, a Brazilian form of martial arts. LOL
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A Paige from my Book 