the outlier

unfortunately all this mess is not just in my head. and by mess, i mean the not-so-subtle "boo hiss dr. larson" attitudes at the high school i am teaching at. my eco club committee has dwindled down to three students, my interactions with students i've never interacted with but have a certain association with a certain sports team are confrontational and aggressive at best, and yesterday i had a particularly ridiculous run-in with a student who likes sucking face with his girlfriend in the hallway. the result of my asking them to refrain from such activity was me writing up an incident report because the kid went ballistic on me. and where might all this antagonism stem from? from my being vocal about the hate-speech that was/is perpetrated by the school football team. i was really, really hoping this was all in my head, but this morning the principal told me that in his "apologetics" class, football players continue to bring up my name, that they are still confused by what point i was trying to make. hmmm... if i didn't think you were a racist, misogynistic, misguided, intellectually and emotionally-stunted person i might take the time to explain it to you. but you are, and i have other things to do. i have to say it legitimately make me sad to realize that no, i am not reading the signals wrong, and that yes, these kids are having whatever brain cells remain warped into thinking that i am the enemy here. that my intellect and fortitude are threatening and should be met with disrespectful and ignorant behavior. it's sad and frustrating and angering.

and to sort of top it off, i had an interview yesterday with a gentleman on a committee determining if discussed high school should join some association, and after our discussion he remarked "you're really an outlier here." granted, it made me happy that he should use the term "outlier" (but he is a physics teacher and thought my joke of teaching empathetic and empirical thought was funny), but my response was "well, if thinking that being nice to each other is really important makes me an outlier, i'm an outlier." and as another teacher who i really like and respect told me today, "you are the pink, commie liberal here." awesome. where can i get a huge-ass poster of stalin?