For a while after our meeting with the principal, things were better. But Joe came home on Thursday feeling glum. He had been drawing during a read-aloud, which is okay during normal read-alouds but not during this one, for some reason. And then later, during some down time, he had been folding origami. He didn't get in trouble for folding origami per se, but for folding it too loudly. (This baffles me. I listen to a lot of origami being folded at my house. It is not a noisy affair.)
This pair of infractions meant that he would miss out on the next lunch in the classroom. While his classmates stayed in their room, he would go alone to the cafeteria, where he would sit alone to eat. He said he didn't think it had ever happened to anyone else, all year. At bedtime he said, tearfully, "Sometimes people have to clip down twice in one day but she always gives them a chance to clip back up. And I tried all afternoon to clip back up but she never noticed when I was doing anything right."
For a moment I wanted to go to her house and ring her doorbell repeatedly and point my finger in her face and say, "You, Mrs. Rutabaga, you are the embodiment of all that is wrong with American public education." I wanted to pick Joe up at lunchtime on the day of his scheduled exile and take him somewhere extravagant and feed him lots of garlic so he would stink up her classroom for the rest of the afternoon.
Because Jesus was all about shaking his finger in people's faces and plotting passive-aggressive stunts.
The next day Joe came home with two further minor infractions: while waiting for a lesson to start, he had been folding a Post-it note in quarters. Neither of us can remember the other one now but it was exactly the same kind of thing. He said, "It doesn't really matter. I wasn't bad enough to get a pink slip and she already took away my chance to eat lunch in the classroom."
You shouldn't work with kids for years if you don't know a basic truth: when you come down hard on their minor infractions, when you don't let them find a way back, they stop caring about your rules. (Especially if they are rules about loud origami.)
This is exactly what I meant when I told the principal I wasn't sure their relationship was salvageable. The thought of him sitting there hopefully at his desk, doing his best to please her all afternoon and getting exactly nowhere, makes me very sad. Also wrathful and disgusted, but mostly sad.
Elwood wants me to email the principal. I feel like That Parent emailing the principal without listening to the teacher's side of the story. The thought of listening to the teacher's side of the story makes me want to swear pre-emptively. So! I am complaining about her on the internet instead. Jesus probably did lots of that too.
This is one of the hardest things about being a Christian woman, I think: how do we balance meekness and assertiveness? What should our stance be toward people who don't treat our children as we think they ought to be treated? The extremes are easy to figure out: you do your best to send the predator to prison (while seeking grace to forgive), and you teach your child to extend grace to, say, the blind person whose cane trips him up as he's walking down the street. And then there is this vast uncertain middle ground. My kids need to know that they do not ooze sunshine and rainbows from every pore, that sometimes they goof things up and life is hard and they have to suck it up with all the good cheer they can muster. My kids also need to know that I am always, always there for them, and that I will not let people mistreat them or bully them.
(I am writing in haste because I should really be working, not blogging, and because a deadline approacheth. Please pardon any murkiness in my writing or thinking.)
Elwood is right, I think. I should write to the principal, just to let her know what's going on. I will do that today, internet, even if it leaves me feeling like That Parent, because my previous exchanges with Mrs. Rutabaga have left me reasonably confident that she and I are unlikely to see eye to eye. Here's the deadline part: do I leave my office hours early so that I can go and have lunch with Joe? Nothing fancy, just a friendly sandwich somewhere outside of school? I think I do, internet; I think I do.
I was walking to the office this morning thinking, "This is exactly why people get so caught up in dictating others' behavior, because it's easier than addressing our own shortcomings." For today, the plank in my own eye is feeling like plenty to deal with. (Hey, does anybody need a little mote-ectomy? It might be a welcome distraction.) For today, my path to holiness requires me to love my son, tenderly and fiercely and in a way that will help him to grow. It requires me to love my enemies patiently and forbearingly (shut up, spellcheck), even when I would rather buttonhole them and gossip about them. And do you know what? I'm not finding it easy to walk that path today.
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