Mr Teacher's view:
Its grade 7, the program is sugar babies. Students must pack a round a 5lb bag of sugar for a week and journal about their responsibilities and daily routine as if the sugar sack were a baby. Some students were allowed to use a realistic baby doll that makes baby noises and similar to baby needs. Mr Teacher is lecturing the class about something or other, (my son) Mr. D gets up & is examining the babies. Mr D is somehow activating the baby dolls which entertains the class & derails the program, making the class curious about the unusual sounds. Mr Teacher is getting annoyed and asks Mr D to please sit down. As is often usual Mr D doesn't comply with the direction for unknown reasons. Mr D has been a real challenge to Mr & Mrs Teachers all year for this particular selective listening. Mr Teacher is getting frustrated & again asks Mr D to sit down, to which Mr D replies with some sort of perky attitude, "Bad Phill," (Phil is Mr Teachers first name) but does not sit down. Mr Teacher is now fed up & orders Mr D to sit down, Mr D replies, "Okaaaaayyyy Mr Screw-driver." Now Mr Principal has been summoned. Mr Principal takes his turn asking Mr D to leave the classroom, but Mr D is getting quite angry. Mr D doesn't leave the classroom immediately which brings out Mr Principal's stern authoritative voice. Eventually Mr D does leave the classroom after being grabbed by the arm & lead to another room.
Mr D's view:
Another boring day of Gr 7. Yap yap yap, Mr Teacher talks too much. Mr D was busy examining a doll, trying to stick things in its mouth. Mr Teacher says "Mr D please go sit down." Mr. D put a magnet in the dolls mouth, which activated it to make noises. "suck suck suck, Whaaaaaa!!!" says the doll. Mr Teacher firmly said, "Mr D, you have to leave Now." Mr D didn't really hear the instruction. Mr Teacher is getting frustrated & again asks Mr D to leave, to which Mr D replies with perky attitude, "Bad Phill." Mr Teacher is now fed up and orders Mr D to leave, now. Mr D replies, "Okaaaaayyyy Mr Screw-driver." On later discussion this was Mr D's clever play on words, Phill~Phillip~Phillips head screwdriver. Mr Principal appears. Mr Principal takes his turn asking Mr D to leave the classroom, but Mr D is getting quite angry & resentful of all this attention and bossy orders. Mr D doesn't leave the classroom immediately which brings out Mr Principal's wrath, Mr D thinks he's having an aneurism. Eventually Mr D does leave the classroom after being grabbed by the arm & lead to another room. Mr D is angry, blames it all on the TV being on in the morning & rotting his brain too early in the day.
Mom's view:
My first 12hour dayshift during a week day in almost a year. My husband is off work for the day, he can run the show in the morning and get Mr D off to school. Normally we don't both work dayshift since I know that if we are both out the door before Mr D, he will very likely not get on the school bus to get to school in the morning; something to do with time perception & distractions. 10am & there's a message on my cell phone from the school to please call back. Great. I call back, get the answering machine at the school and leave a message. I phone home and my husband's cell phone to find out whats going on but he's busy & not answering. The school secretary phones me back to tell me Mr D is being unsafe, he's not following direction, its a school safety issue, I need to come pick him up. I ask what is going on but she doesn't really know. I ask to speak to my son and find out he's been disruptive somehow. He was asked to leave the classroom but was refusing. I already know that sometimes Mr D doesn't comply because he didn't hear the direction; sometimes he doesn't understand the direction; sometimes he just doesn't want to follow the direction. Also Mr D has never responded well when people give him negative attitude, he throws it back instinctively. I put on my Mom voice & read Mr D the riot act: that he knows better; that he needs to stay out of trouble at school; that he owes everyone involved an apology; that he needs to think about what he's done. I talk with Mr Vice Principal who usually deals with Mr D's antics. I let him know that I am at work and unable to come collect Mr D. Mr D can write 50 lines of " I am sorry for disrupting Mr Teacher's class & will not do it again." and 50 lines of "I will try harder to be respectful towards all staff members." The lines were to be done neatly and if Mr D refused or did a sloppy job, photocopies would be sent to his father. Ironically a few days later he doesn't remember the lines, but he clearly remembers the sequence of events. He ate his lunch at school, finished his lines & was playing Scrabble with a learning assistance teacher when my husband picked him up. I asked that there be no video games, computer or TV time. Mr D had so much energy he needed to be put to work. Mr D mowed the front & backyard; dug out some plastic yard trim; found protective eye goggles & helped break out a rock to remove from the yard; dog doodie pick up. He was kept busy helping, and he enjoyed it.
There's no backtracking or problem solving that would've fixed this school day. It seems it was doomed as a sequence of events. I find out later that my husband did break the no-TV-in-the-morning-rule. TV is too distracting, everything stops when the TV is on, just square eye goggles remain. My son was exempt from the sugar baby assignment, thankfully he was given an alternate assignment. I had visions of him poking holes & eating the sugar; dipping the sugar sack in water to make sugar syrup or deformed gory sticky sugar baby; or poking a tiny hole to make sugar trails to encourage ant infestation throughout the school... Mr D was determined to not take responsibility for his actions, he's still learning about that. Journalling all this I realize, he resented being ordered about. Resentment is a nasty contender if paired with Angry. Mr Teacher is human & prone to frustration, he expects obedience from children. If he had challenged Mr D socially, by asking him why he is so interested in a baby doll, instead of ordering compliance he may have gotten better results. If Mr Principal had asked Mr D to please come help him do something, the resistance to leave the classroom wouldn't be a conflict. The operative goal of getting him out of the classroom was the goal, appealing to Mr D's genuine desire to please and be helpful would've been a smarter approach.
Mr D is very good at reflecting attitude he is given from others. If an adult is inconsistent, insensitive, rude, or bullying in authority, the testing ensues. If an adult is really unfair, he will get angry too. Mr D's testing is intuitive, maddening, and repetitive. He needs consistency, continuity, and intelligent problem solving objective fair adults leading him. Unfortunately no one is capable of filling his needs consistently all the time. Humans are like that, and judgmental too. Mr D admits later that in the morning he was bored. Now, finally after all the examination and discussion we have a real root of the day's problem. Teachers love to go on-and-on, its their job to teach. We all forget that audiences have a saturation point. Was the school system bullying Mr D with rules saying he's being unsafe, creating a school safety issue? That depends entirely who's telling the story. Its been a full school year and we keep having these these type of events, sometimes several in a week. Mr D was sorry for getting in trouble at school that day. And so, we strive forward, this was typical of a bad day. A bonus of banning all electronics for the week is that Mr D is busy reading a novel, "The Lightening Thief" by Rick Riordan and enjoying it. As for boredom, we keep discussing that if Mr D is bored, he needs to work harder, anyone who has worked hard in a day can attest, they were not bored.
