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#benedict cumberbatch

This Got Long--But I Guess That Shows Just How Bad it Was

I can say, with near certainty, that I enjoy 98.5% of my students. They are great kids, entertaining, funny, smart, capable. The one student that makes that number less than 100% is also quite smart and entirely capable of doing the work. His classmates think he is hilarious, but he isn’t. He is rude, crude, and just mean.

When I gave the class new seating assignments every single female I tried to seat him in a group with had a legitimate reason (i.e. he picks on me all the time—which I have seen and heard personally) why he couldn’t sit with them.

Today, he started the day with his hood up—which he has been told to not wear every single day of the year. Then he had to be told twice to put his laptop away when the entire class was reading silently. Later, as my co-teacher was instructing the class to go to his profile on the school webpage, which had a picture of the teacher on it, this student said loudly, “Eww, why are you wearing girl glasses?” The glasses in the picture were the same ones that teacher wears every single day. And they don’t look feminine in anyway.

After that I was walking behind him when he picked up a piece of paper, got one girl’s attention, and said, “This is what I think of you,” as he tore the paper up, “Trash.” I took the paper away and told him plainly that we don’t call anyone trash, whether as a joke or not.

He needed help at one point and whistled at me to get my attention. Later he had his music turned on and I reached over and hit the mute button on his laptop. His response? “Hey, girl, don’t touch my laptop.” I told him that I could touch his laptop (school issued) anytime I needed to when he wasn’t following directions. The class had discovered that in some cultures different fingers mean the same thing as giving the middle finger here in the United States. As one girl explained to another classmate what the two meant, this boy puts up the two fingers and goes, “Hey, Ms. K,” calling my attention away from another student. “I just heard her say what that means,” I said, “And you better stop right now.”

One of the last things I remember him doing today was covering his nose dramatically as I leaned over his desk, again to help him at his request, and proclaimed, “God! Something stinks!” It was clear he was trying to imply that it was me that stank, though the room smelled perfectly fine, as did I.

I finally walked away from him and practically ignored him for the rest of class. Thankfully I had my co-teacher and he dealt with the boy the rest of the period. My mom asked me when I got home why I didn’t write him up or send him to the office. I’ve figured out that what he wants is to be written up or sent out of class. He doesn’t want to be there and knows, from previous trips to ISS, that he won’t have to much work there. I refuse to give him what he wants in this case.

My problem is going to be keeping the kid in the classroom while at the same time ignoring his quest for attention and keeping my cool all at the same time.

Taylor Swift should date Cole Sprouse...

Her break-up song would go like “she wears short skirts, i’m just a sociology experiment…”

Since when did "attention-seeker" become synonymous with "pathetic loser"?

Doing anything for attention, whether it be self-harm, drugs, excessive drinking, being promiscuous, or generally just acting out, is a completely valid reason for this kind of behavior.

We are social creatures, whether we realize it or not, and when we don’t get the individualized recognition that we naturally need, we behave in ways that will get someone, anyone, to respond to it. It doesn’t matter if it’s negative or positive at a certain point. And it’s a tragedy that people would rather point fingers at these poor victims of alienation, calling them “attention-whores” or “drama queens” than actually recognize this lack of nurturing as a legitimate problem.

I can’t even begin to think of the horrific numbers of people who have taken their own lives because the people around them had convinced them that their problem wasn’t real, or wasn’t a good enough reason to feel the way they do. How dare they. Shame on some people.

If you feel like you’re alone and have no one to confide in, of course you would react badly. So, please. If you want some attention, just send me a message and we can talk. :) And don’t you ever feel like your problems aren’t real. Recognizing the equal severity of every issue is the first step to getting through it.