A Bullying School Story

 Teaching school is stressful but not always for the reasons one might think.  It's a juggling act, complete with balls in the air while walking a tightrope, and spectators that either cheer you on or hope you fall to your death.  If you are the teacher, you are on stage, all day, every day, trying to serve each student as an individual while still maintaining the integrity of each class as a whole.  It's exhausting, but sometimes it just breaks your heart. 

Where there are kids, there is bullying.  It's especially bad at the middle school level for both genders.  Hormones, emerging personalities, home environments, etc., all come together to create...well...problems.  Particularly in 8th grade, which is what I taught for the last five or six years of my teaching career.  Some days, it seemed that all I accomplished was to put out brush fires to prevent the whole forest from going up in flames.

One particular class each year had the bulk of my special education kids in it, mainstreamed with the rest.  This actually gave me a special ed. aide for that period to help me keep ahead of learning modifications for the kids.  We made it work.  I had one young man in that class that year whose name I no longer remember.  I'll call him Paul.  Paul was notably autistic, plus he had a speech impediment that caused him to stutter and sound weird to the other students...but he was smart.  One grading period of that year, he had the highest grade in the class, and I made note of it on his report card.  Paul needed all of the good vibes he could get!  Paul had been picked on so much in his young life that he had developed anger issues.  Teachers who knew him knew when he was about ready to blow.  His eyes would get wild and his voice get loud.  Because of this, Paul had, as one of his IEP modifications, permission to be sent to a predetermined destination for a cool-down time out.  This wasn't punishment.  It was in recognition that he had been triggered and needed to get away from the source.

In that same class, there were also some good-looking, popular boys who couldn't lower themselves to be kind to Paul.  They loved to push his buttons so they could laugh at him.  I had to be ever-vigilant to keep Paul safe from his bullies, and his bullies safe from the well-earned consequences of whatever they were dishing out.  I hate that.  There is a part of me that wanted to allow Paul's temper to be unleashed on his tormentors, but (obviously), I couldn't.  

One day, I committed a teacher's cardinal sin:  I asked the students to work in groups.  I had to assign a few kids to the groups.  My excuse was to even the numbers out, but it was actually to make certain that someone like Paul would be included.  I gave them an assignment, then moved around the room, as necessary.  The next thing I knew, Paul's eyes were wild as his temper rose.  One of the "studly" boys in his group was insulting him, and he was ready to erupt.  I hadn't witnessed what actually went on but knew the dynamic.  The one I really wanted to have a "talk" with was one that I was forced to protect from Paul's wrath.  Instead, I had Paul come out to the hall with me.

We talked.  I wanted to make sure that he understood that I was sending him to his private time out spot, not for punishment but because I thought he needed a break from the stress.  I explained to him that people who pick on others are actually insecure and feeling inadequate.  And then he said:

"Then they must know how it feels to be me." 

In that moment, my heart broke.  My eyes puddled up.  I could hardly speak.  I made sure that he knew I felt he made more sense than his classmates, and when I could pull myself together, we agreed that he shouldn't return to the class that period.  I never actually got over that moment.  I was so very angry with the kids who had perpetrated this circumstance on Paul that I could scarcely be nice to them on my return to the room.  I let them know, in terms that even they would understand, that they weren't as cool as they thought they were and that they should get down on their knees to thank Almighty God that they didn't share his "imperfect life".  "Would you like to be him, being shamed for things that you can't control?"  I admit, I was nasty.  Somehow, we got through the rest of the year without further problems, but Paul didn't make it through high school.  I heard that an incident had caused him to be sent home for homebound instruction.  

All this many years later, I still wonder whatever became of Paul...