A Scene From Public Education

All because Subway's credit card machine was dead.

It wasn't a bad day at work, as days go, but I just wasn't on my game today. Bleh.

So when it finally came time to exit, I decided I was due a treat. Decided to stop at Subway on the way home, get my favorite: teriyaki chicken twelve inch with sweet onion sauce, lots of baby spinach, bell peppers, banana peppers, olives, lettuce, and triple onions. Mmmmm. Like a salad, but in a sandwich! And I knew disappointment when I pulled up in front of the place and saw the hand lettered sign, CREDIT CARD AND DEBIT MACHINE BROKEN CASH ONLY SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.

Well, bugger. My mouth is set now. Where to eat? I glanced around. Mama's? No, I want something take home. Wendy's? Bleh. Schlotzky's? Neh. Fatso's BBQ?

...mmm... not what I would have thought of... but if I get take out, I can get all the free onions and pickles I want. It's not a salad sandwich, but barbecue's good. And it's cheap! So I swung over and parked.

Ordered a couple of sandwiches and fries. The young lady trotted off to get my order... and left a young black guy standing at the counter staring at me. Weirdly. In a way that kind of weirded me out. Until he noticed my casual day T-shirt and asked, "You worked at Pseudonymous Middle School?"

I looked at his face again. He DID look familiar... I glanced at his ID badge: MICHAEL

...and then it hit me: MICHAL.... pronounced "Michael." I'd first heard that name from years earlier. He was one of my first classes of kids, back when I'd first started working Special Ed, behavior unit. I remembered his name, too. At my first Parent Night, Michal's mom had screamed it in my face.

"His name is MICHAL, and there ain't no damn E in it!" she had snarled loudly, all WAY up in my face. "All them OTHER Michaels have E's. This one DOES NOT, and you better RECOGNIZE!"

I had made no issue of Michal's name. Considering some of the bizarre things parents name their children, Michal was no trouble. Hell, the longer I teach, the more I wonder if some of them specifically do that just to fuck with everyone who will have to deal with their child; we get some with names specifically spelled in such a way as to be unpronounceable on the first bounce... I've had kids who had names like "John," but spelled it "Terhorski." But apparently, Mom has dealt with enough people who tried to tell her how to spell "Michael" that she feels a tad hostile in advance to the likes of me.

I was wrong, of course. That's just how Mike's mom dealt with her fellow human beings. With hate, aggression, and a barely leashed viciousness that led most people to back the hell off because she seethed with hate, aggression, and barely leashed viciousness. Oh, she also didn't like anyone calling him "Mike." His name was MICHAL, damn your eyes!

Found out later that she'd discovered he LIKED being called "Mike," and beat the living shit out of him with a belt for it. His name was MICHAL, damn your eyes! And you better TELL those other boys that your name is MICHAL! WITH NO GODDAMN "E!" AND I BETTER NOT EVER HEAR YOU SAY OTHERWISE!

I did fine with Michal. He wasn't really a behavior kid. He was in there because his MOM wanted him there, because he was SUCH A ROTTEN, MISBEHAVING, BAD LITTLE BOY!

When I worked psych, we had lots of kids like that. "He MUST be bad," the parent would say, "because he is ALWAYS doing things that I have to BEAT him for!" There are a surprising number of parents who simply do not understand your basic child. Even worse, there are a surprising number of parents who simply assume that beating the shit out of the child with a belt or paddle or whatever is the default answer to any factor of the child that one does not like. Like making noise, being goofy, acting like a child, or in some cases, having the wrong father, breathing too heavily, having feelings, or simply existing improperly.

We had fun with Michal's mom his eighth grade year. You see, I have to submit periodic evaluation forms on all my kids. When I worked the Behavior Unit, one of the basic ones was "what's the kid done lately?" How has he misbehaved? Michal's problem was that he almost never acted out. Ever. He was friggin' angelic next to the other kids I had. Furthermore, he had no academic difficulties; he was actually pretty sharp. And that made my job harder. I was geared to stupid, poisonous children, or kids with psych difficulties. Much as I liked Michal, he simply did not belong in my class, and there was no reason he couldn't cut it in the regular ed classes.

So I said so. Finally, the department called a meeting, and we pulled him from the Behavior Unit.

His mother about popped an O-ring.

We went through a month long period where me, the principal, the secretaries, and the campus cop literally evolved a drill every time that woman set foot on campus, and she did so at least twice a week. Procedure called for her to check in at the office and get a visitor badge. Oh, HELL no, Michal's Mom could not be bothered with THAT! No, no, she'd wander in the front door and:

(a) Launch a frontal assault on the principal in her office... regardless of who else might be in there. Michal's Mom did not wait. Or make appointments. Or anything but storm the hell in and begin her strident speech.

(b) Hunt through the building until she found Michal, and then drag him out of class to scream at him in the hallway for whatever transgression she'd discovered since he left the house that morning.

(c) Invade the Special Ed office, regardless of who was in there or what was going on, and howl and froth at the department head, secretary, or anyone handy. Including, once, another parent who did not work for the district and came damn close to decking her.

(d) Stride into my classroom like she owned it, terminating any teaching, education, or anything else until such time as her grievance had been addressed, or I had simply listened to her rant for a while.

All of these eventually resulted in a nearby person running to and hitting the nearest panic button. The intercom would come on, the secretary in the main office would immediately realize that Mrs. Mike had gotten in, and the cop would be summoned and sent to collect her. She'd scream and holler and argue with any administrator, but she would actually OBEY the COP. She wouldn't SHUT UP, but she would at least motivate towards the door or the front office, spouting and foaming the whole time.

One of the more interesting incidents came when she stormed into my room that month to launch into the now-familiar complaint that we COULD NOT simply shuffle her son into any classes we thought appropriate, that SHE WAS THE PARENT AND SHE HAD RIGHTS, and I countered by blocking her way and moving towards the door, maneuvering her into the hall. By now, the kids knew the drill, and Michal got up to go hit the panic button.

"OH YOU WILL NOT!" she screamed at Michal. "I WILL BEAT YOUR WORTHLESS ASS WHEN YOU GET HOME!"

"Ma'am," I said, much more calmly than I felt, "you have just threatened your child in front of a public school teacher. By law, I must now contact Child Protective Services and report this incident."

"YOU CAN'T DO THAT! HE IS MY BOY! I HAVE THE RIGHT TO DISCIPLINE MY BOY!"

"The fact remains, ma'am, that I must contact CPS and report this. If I do not, I could go to jail."

"I WILL SUE YOUR WORTHLESS ASS AND THIS WHOLE GODDAMN SCHOOL INTO HELL AND GONE!"

"That is your privilege, ma'am. But now I must call CPS and report this incident. As well as your entering my classroom and screaming profanity."

If looks could kill, I'd have been powder, right then and there. By this time, I had her into the hall, though, and round the corner came the cop and one of the veeps, at a jog.

*************************************

And here he was, working at Fatso's Barbecue. Nineteen years old. We had a nice little chat. He wasn't living at home any more; crashing on a friend's couch, kicking in on the bills, and saving money. He was most of the way through his degree! "That's right, gonna be a twenty year old with a DEGREE!" he crowed. Just making money until he could afford to jump back in and leap through those last few hoops. It was good to see him. I can't take credit for his success. Only thing I ever did that was any good for him was getting him out of my class. But it still felt good.

The girl came back with my food, and we shook hands, and I paid and left. I noticed on the way out that his badge read MICHAEL.

Not MICHAL.

MICHAEL.

And as I write, I wonder: did Fatso's misprint his badge? Or did he finally tell his mother to go to hell? Kind of wish I'd asked....

The Fizzies Challenge

I ponder Fizzies.

Fizzies were basically flavored Alka Seltzer. The IDEA was that you would put some sugar in water, then drop a Fizzies tablet in the water, and a minute or so later, you would have a carbonated fizzy soft drink!

Fizzies kind of sucked. The drink tasted somewhere between Alka Seltzer and Kool Ade that wasn’t really trying. But they were useful for the Fizzies Challenge.

Two kids would meet, with seconds, on the playground. They would face each other, and Fizzies would be handed to each duelist, and a neutral party would count to three. And on three, each duelist would pop the Fizzies into their mouth, and clamp down.

The idea was to be the LAST one to spit it out. The cherry ones in particular were grueling. Imagine extremely sour Pop Rocks that are foaming like mad and WILL NOT STOP! And when your mouth fills with insane fruit sour foam foam FOAAAAAAM, you simply let it dribble down your chin, because spitting at THIS point could contain the foaming tablet, and you could LOSE... or worse, be accused of TRYING TO CHEAT!

So you stood there clenching your teeth and trying not to cry and spewing bloody red foam out of the corners of your mouth and praying that the OTHER bastard would give up FIRST!

More than two could play, and it was a fine way to prove your mettle to your peers without actually having to beat each other up. The grownups did not care for it, though -- they’d see a ring of cheering children, assume a fight had broken out, and break through the crowd to see a couple or three combatants, standing rigid, bug eyed, with tears streaming down their faces and gory red foam leaking from the corners of their mouths, and they were never sure WHAT to think.

My old elementary school eventually outlawed Fizzies for this very reason. It wasn’t fighting, but apparently required SOME sort of adult regulation for ... whatever reason.

And you know what? It might have been weird, but we sure’s hell weren’t eating detergent pods.