Last week, our trailers were closed due to the weather. We were sent into the auditorium, where a show was being put on. Before the show, a bunch of kids next to my class were shouting and making a great deal of noise. I walked over and asked them to be quiet.
One of the students responded by shouting in my face. I asked him for a program card. He said he didn’t have one. I asked for ID. Again he claimed not to have it. I told him that if he couldn’t identify himself, I’d have him removed.
The kid produced nothing. I called a nearby dean and had him escorted out. I had to write up the incident.
5 minutes later, the kid was right where I’d left him. As it happened, the principal came in and took a seat very close to him. I watched him get up three times to speak to them, and the third time he dragged up a very large security guard who hovered over them, as though he might do something. Naturally, I hoped there wouldn't be any confrontations.
After the show, I went to the dean’s office to ask why the kid was sent back.
“I told him to go back,” the young woman told me.
“Do you know what that means?” I asked her.
She didn’t.
“It means there are no consequences for his actions. It means he can be insubordinate to faculty members, then walk right out and do it again.”
She responded with a vacant stare that would have depressed me if it were coming from one of my students.
If she ever has kids, they’ll be the ones at the supermarket howling until she buys that box of Oreos.
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