Walter

I have been at my new teaching position for 3 weeks now. Incoming freshmen, 1600. Exiting Seniors, 600. Need I say more?

Walter had been pointed out to me as a kid who nobody likes; he's chubby; they love to pick on him. He's been inappropriate and disruptive only because when they pick on him randomly, he fights back like he's punching his way out of a paper bag.

Yesterday, Walter was playing with a gameboy, a kid in the back of the room quietly pointed him out to me. I was almost going to ignore it and just let him keep playing (at least he was not interrupting me), but I somehow felt that I had to do something to uphold the school rule that if you have anything electronic out (cell phone, beeper, CD or mp3 player, video game player) the teacher must take it away.

I swooped in and asked Walter to give it to me. The kids were watching, and telling him he had to give it to me, and he did.

After class, he came up to me. "Please Ms. R, please give it back to me." Your mother will have to come to school to get it. "Please Ms. R, I don't want to give my mother any trouble. She has diabetes and she might die if she had to walk up these stairs. Please Ms. R, I do my work." (3rd floor; it is kind of breathtaking, but sorry, not my problem.) "Please Ms. R, it's not mine. I have to give it back to someone." (Not my problem, you've been disrupting me since day one and I'm sick of it.) "Please Ms. R, (crying now and almost throwing up onto my desk) you don't know how sick I am." (I can see that you are not well, just don't throw up on me, go to the garbage can by the door.) Please Ms. R., I have this breathing problem, when I take a shower I get hot outside and cold inside and I have trouble breathing. When I was little my mom dressed me in a rabbit suit and I got a fever and she rushed me into the shower and now whenever I take a shower it happens again and I dream about it all the time and I'm always so afraid and I've never told anyhone, not even my mom...."

OMG. I've just witnessed a kid spontaneously releasing a trauma.

What do you mean the gameboy belongs to someone else?
"I have this friend who's poor, you know, poor. And he can't afford to buy a gameboy so I lend it to him every friday and every Wednesday so he can play. And I was going to sell it to him today, and he got permission from his mom to buy it and I'm supposed to bring it to him today.
(Is this kid snowing me or what?)

So how much are you selling it to him for?
"Thirty dollars."
How much did you pay for it?
"Seventy dollars."
What are you going to do with the money?
"I'm going to start a savings account and when I get older I'm going to buy houses and sell them. You know, real estate? My mom teaches me. She goes on line and finds things and she teaches me."

(Walter, you really know what to say to get a teacher to do what you want.)
OK. But you have to write me a note, you have to let me know what happens with the sale and you have to let me know what happens with your breathing and with your mom.

"OK Ms. R. Can you lend me some money?"

I see. This kid was snowing me the whole time. Feeding me a string of lies. Not even grateful when I give it back to him whereas two minutes ago, he was crying so much he almost threw up. "I won't throw up, Ms. R."

No, I don't have any money to lend you. Go.

I hand it over. Hmmm. Will I get a note from him? Did he really release a trauma that has been affecting his behavior for all these years? Will he be a changed person? Or is this the continuation of a lifelong pattern of crying, lying, denying?