The Good Men Project Magazine

I May Have Actually Heard That

October 20, 2010 By Suzanne Rosenwasser 8 Comments

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In the latest installment of ‘Believing in Boys,’

the class penetrates a brick wall of entitlement.
At our weekly meeting about motivating the at-risk high-school boys I teach with the
school’s principal and a counselor, it is obvious we are drained and tired.
We agreed to handle the discipline issues of the 15 boys in our class, but it has become
clear that we’ve taken on much more than we intended. These boys have been
disrupting classes and school systems like professionals for years, and a few I-love-
yous from the administration isn’t going to change that overnight.
The biggest blow to our progress is the on-campus arrest of one of our own for dealing
drugs at school. The event weighs on us, though it is not a total surprise: Clayton, the
boy involved, hasn’t looked us in the eye since day one. If the other boys were laughing
with us, Clayton was clearly laughing at us. His basic expression during class was a
surly smirk, accompanied by a posture that said “fuck you.”
♦♦♦
We had repeated conversations with him about giving the class a chance, but Clayton
was

only in school because the system required it. Kids like Clayton were offered a second
chance after serving time for a major juvenile offense, which in his case involved a
weapons charge.
We’d promised to believe in the boys without judging them for their past actions, but
Clayton had never experienced faith, so the concept was foreign to him. At our teachers’
meeting, we prepare to handle whatever questions arise about his arrest with only the
information we are legally allowed to divulge—but first we have to deal with the less
serious infractions that caused the boys to receive disciplinary write-ups from other staff
members.
♦♦♦
In class, the principal asks Thomas to step to the front of the room and explain to the
class why he gave his algebra teacher the finger in response to her request to remove
his hat. Remaining hatless during the day is part of the school’s culture, a hard and fast
rule that has been enforced with relative ease for more than a decade.
“She’s nasty,” Thomas offers.
“So, it was about her, not you?” I ask.
“Have you ever really looked at her? I mean, for 54 minutes every day of the week?
She’s two times nasty.”
The counselor saves me: “Thomas … focus. Let’s get back to how the person who gets
flipped off feels, and why it’s a crude, rude, and obnoxious gesture.”
We go around like this until the principal begins to recognize the rhythm of an Abbott
and Costello routine. He disrupts the flow of deflecting responsibility by turning to the
rest of the group and asking who else had ever given the finger to a teacher’s face. No
one responds.
“Assuming your silence means that none of you have actually flipped your finger at a
teacher’s face, how many of you have wanted to, but stopped yourselves?”
All hands reach upward.
“OK. Who wants to tell Thomas why I asked this question?” the principal asks.
Eduardo is waving his hand wildly to be chosen as the kid who gets to quote an oft-
repeated class theme. He spits it out before being called on: “Thinking about it happens
before doing it.”
Thomas musters up a lip-curling reply: “Well, I did think about it and I decided to do it.”
♦♦♦
This is our dance with Thomas. He’s a very intelligent boy who has interpreted the
comments about his potential over the years to mean that he’s so gifted, that he’s
learned it all. Couple that with a sense of entitlement earned from wealthy, divorced
parents who buy his forgiveness, and the result is a finger-flipping, arrogant teen who
believes all adults are the spawn of Satan.
Thomas has accepted little that we’ve offered him, other than a forum to express his
genuine disdain for all things school-related. There are days when the barrier he throws
up is impenetrable. For instance, the school’s guitar teacher volunteered to give the
class lessons for an hour each week. During the first class, Thomas refuses to pick up
an instrument, saying he only likes rap and “everything else is crap.”
Like the parents of a raging 2-year-old, the adults ignore him. Within 10 minutes, the
rest of us have learned to play the opening of “Sunshine of Your Love” with one finger
on one string. There is a real sense of appreciation and accomplishment in the room as
we rock our own versions of Cream’s hit for one another. I look over at Thomas, who is
pretending to be asleep.
All of this to explain that when we address Clayton’s arrest with the class later that day,
it is Thomas who challenges the issue.
♦♦♦
“Why’d you have to ruin his life and have him arrested?” he asks the principal.
“That kind of derailment might actually help Clayton,” the principal replies. “He broke the
law, Thomas.”
“Maybe the law’s broken,” Thomas snarls back.
We launch into a talk about where laws come from and how to work to change the ones
we don’t like. We compare the laws of a classroom, a family, and a team to the laws of a
society at large. The principal, who’d once taught in a school for juvenile offenders, tells
us about a boy like Clayton who’d resisted every offer to step on the right path and
ended up sentenced to life in prison just two years after leaving the facility.
Thomas pipes in with his opinion immediately: “That guy got rooked because he didn’t
hire a good enough lawyer.” Many of the boys in the class know what happens to
people who can’t afford to hire attorneys, and they burst out laughing at him.
Eduardo says: “Hey, man, your rich parents ain’t bought you nothin’ but stupid!”
♦♦♦
We all take out our journals to write about the conversation. After class, when I read
Thomas’ entry, he’s written the exact words of Eduardo’s comment in one-inch letters on
the page, with a small remark beneath them addressed to me: “Mrs. R: I may have
actually heard that.”

Filed Under: Boys Tagged With: Believing in Boys, Boys, entitlement, school, Suzanne
Rosenwasser

About Suzanne Rosenwasser

Suzanne McLain Rosenwasser is a free-lance writer whose work has appeared in the
New York Times. She has taught high school for 23 years and works with at-risk 9th
grade boys.
Comments
1.
2. Ingrid Ricks says:
3. October 20, 2010 at 10:46 am
4. Great story. I really enjoyed this piece. I can relate to Thomas. Every high school
needs a class like this – one where kids are just loved, not judged, and where
open dialogue occurs. Amazing how much can be learned in that kind of
environment.
5.
6. Reply
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8. Helen says:
9. October 20, 2010 at 1:30 pm
10. Fascinating … and heart-breaking. So well written. Thanks.
11.
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14. Laura Novak says:

15. October 20, 2010 at 1:48 pm
16. Clapton would be proud. Imagine, something as simple and quiet as teaching
these boys to strum a string and create a thing of beauty while their minds rage
and their bodies protest. Your stories are so well written, but beyond the clean
and direct style is a storm of a story, an almost unbelievable maelstrom of
societal and familial problems. And they land at the feet of a few people who try
to do what no one else has. Some of these kids might have been handed a
bucket load of stupid but it’s wonderful to read about those who get it, no matter
how small the victory.
17.
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19.

20. bobbyD says:

21. October 20, 2010 at 3:38 pm
22. To get one young person – who has spent his life turning a deaf ear to everything
and everyone around him – to listen and hear something is quite an
accomplishment. It speaks volumes to the commitment Suzanne and her
principal and the other adults have made to these boys. This piece speaks
eloquently to that commitment.
23.
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26. Jeremy says:

27. October 20, 2010 at 11:56 pm
28. To be honest, I didn’t really get the story for a bit. But being from a conservative
Asian country, we don’t get to see this teen behavior. The key word is ‘see’.
29. I guess there are teens who are just as contemptuous here, just that they don’t
show it so openly. It might not be a good thing (if they’re not openly expressing
their feelings).
30. I salute your commitment to kids who have taken turns in their lives that lead
them to the anti-social road. And for continuing to engage them and try to lead
them back into being part of society.
31.
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33.

34. suzanne says:

35. October 23, 2010 at 7:27 am
36. Thanks to each of you for your comments. We work with the boys to achieve
some balance of human interaction that allows them to express themselves, but
to do so without all the subtext. Of course, the adults in the class are well aware
of our own limits in these areas when we were their age and we share our own
challenges when we were teens with them.
37.
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39.

40. Leslie Droogan says:

41. October 29, 2010 at 12:34 pm
42. Suzanne, This story and your telling of it are wonderful. I am in awe of your ability
to write such an important piece and to have such commitment to these boys
who need you so much. However, I do not understand why the principal
answered Thomas the was he did. Clayton ruined his own life.
Responsibility………not blame. Keep up the good work.
43.
44. Reply
45.

46. Lynne says:

47. October 29, 2010 at 1:42 pm
48. Good job Mrs. R!!!!
49.
50. Reply