Student Disrespect and Cruelty

I am 71 years old. In the last two years I have gone from being able to walk and run to the point of scarcely being able to walk. I have to take a vicodine in the morning before I go to school. Then I can sit on my butt most of the day until it is time to leave. My condition is progressively becoming worse, and I hope that I will be able to last another 5 weeks with the students I now have before taking a rest at home for a few weeks and having my hip replacement operation.

I have been substitute teaching in the same school now for about 2 1/2 years, with about six months off last year when I came back from West Africa and became seriously ill (not from the traveling).

I have a good relationship with lots of my students, who see me as someone who has wanted to help them in their education. A few troublemakers, however, dislike me -- and I have to admit I dislike them, too.

Here and there any teacher meets nasty students. I haven't had encounters with many, but on about four occasions I have been the object of their nastiness.

The first occasion that comes to mind was about a year ago, when I was walking down a crowded hallway -- I did not use a cane at that time the way I now do -- and someone deliberately tried to trip me. I couldn't tell who had tried, but I absolutely knew it was on purpose. The attempt, fortunately, was not successful.

Another time when I was going to a deli across the street from the school, I said "Hello" in passing to a student and he began talking to me. I did not understand what he was saying, so I told him I had not understood. He repeated something. Again I did not understand and told him so. When he spoke a third time I realized he was talking nonsense syllables in oder to irritate me.

A third -- and perhaps the most peculiar example of student disrespect came to me just a few days ago when I was leaving my classroom. These days I walk with a cane. I don't use a wheelchair. The hall wasn't crowded and a student came by me. I nodded and said, "Hello." He turned and came back to me and got in my face and said "Hello." I said "How are you doing today ?" He said, "How are you doing today?" I said, "Never mind." He said, "Never mind." Then he added. "You need someone to push your wheelchair." And he quickly walked away.

All this, I suppose, comes with the territory. In a school of 2,000 students, many from the ghetto, there are bad to be a few angry, prejudiced nut cases and bad eggs. The key to success and survival seems to me to be not allowing anyone to push your buttons.