the word "bitch" is a severe word. it's a word that for different women evoke different emotions: anger, disgust, fear.... it's a word that for me is not easily shaken off. hearing the word "bitch" hollered at me is not something i am unfamiliar with: boys in grade school and high school loved using it because i didn't find their sexually-depraved advances cute or endearing, girls used it because i wasn't afraid to speak my mind during class or elsewhere. it's a word i heard over and over again during those years... and when i wasn't hearing it in the hallways at school, i was hearing it in the hallways at home. so, needless to say, hearing it, even at this age, causes an immediate reaction of anger, but that anger very quickly is replaced by a feeling of apprehension, a fear of not knowing what could possibly happen next... and yes, those feelings have much more to do with events of the past, but convincing myself of that is not an easy thing. so today.... today, when attempting to take a cell phone from a student, a senior boy student, i was met with resistance not only from him, but from his assembled crew of friends. this gave way very quickly to he and i making our way to the assistant principal's office, with his friends in tow, applauding every attempt he made to tell me what to do, and yelling "bitch" at me as we made our way up the stairs. this darling striving academic eventually took off running once i asked his name and we made our way closer to the office.... because he's a noble and courageous guy like that. so yeah, that sucked. having a large group of large, football player-style men yelling "bitch" at you is not a comfortable place to be. and when i finally made it to my 5th period class and my students asked where i was, the tears welled up and i looked down at the floor and said "something bad happened" and couldn't speak ..... the kids kept asking me what happened, but all i could do is take big breaths and not talk... and when i finally did i said that if i told them the story i was going to start crying. hard. you know you've officially freaked your students out when the super hardcore, tough-as-nails girls you've given 200 detentions to are telling the other kids to shut up and to stop asking crying science teacher questions.....
but that... oh that was not the worst of it.
later that day, after having informed my amazing head of the science department what had happened and i had perused old yearbooks and checked our some possible suspects, the AMAZING head of the department asked me to head to a couple of classrooms to check out some groups of kids. so i did. i knocked on the door of one of the classrooms and looked in. it was full of senior girls. not awesome. they proceeded to shout "don't let the bitch in, don't let the bitch in" and refused to open the door. some poor white kid finally came to the door and let me in, at which point the lovely dainties started yelling "hide your phones, hide your phones! she's out of get everybody." (which was actually funnier than it should have been considering they were kind of saying the lyrics to the "they rapin' everybody up in here" song... "hide your kids, hide your wife").... but the real punch in the face: the teacher was sitting in the back the whole time, heard these flowers of eloquence saying these things to me, and said nothing. nothing. he uttered a "is he in here?" as i took a step in, but reprimanding kids for having phones? nope. responding to the "bitch" comments? nope. holding those girls accountable for speaking that way to a teacher? apparently too much work. THAT was the final insult. having a fellow teacher, a coworker, a peer, allow that type of behavior to occur. and by not saying anything, anything, to these students, he's not only condoning the behavior, he's making sure it continues. and making the jobs of those instructors who work hard to enforce rules and make the school a safe place that much harder.
so tomorrow? tomorrow i get to watch videotapes of hallways to try to figure out who these knuckleheads are.... and ask mr. flaccid spine why he didn't respond when his students spoke to me that way. and thank my 5th period class for being the best students ever.
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