the cocksucking bitch--- part 1
I have gotten a couple call backs at the substituting agency For which I work, Last week I returned to one of the worst schools I have ever worked at, near the [deleted] in San Francisco-on-Daly City. I told some freinds of mine about my experiences there the last time. I spent the day peeling kids off each other as they got into minor fights that escalated into threats of murder-- not exaggerating-- shooing the kids away from the fence when local gangbangers strolled by to invite the bigger, stronger looking boys into thier posses, and putting my arms around kids and holding them as they fought, kicked, and struggled to break out, attack someone, fling themselves from the furniture, etc. As the cherry on the hot fudge sundae of my day, a kid hung from a puppet theater railing and, apropros of nothing, called me a cocksucking bitch.

At which one of my friends maintained that this was why those who did not allow teachers to excercise corporal punishment were contributing to child abuse.The conversation was interrupted,and I was never able to respond.

And this remark was made many months ago, which should show how badly I need to get over it. But there were two reasons this remark stuck in my craw--

1. I don't just work under California guidelines for discipline, I agree with them. And he knows this.
2. Despite the fact that California teachers are not allowed to spank kids, there are many, many teachers I have personally encountered, even in environments that start out like the one I described, that are doing phenominal work under heartbreaking circumstances and are busting thier asses doing it. His remark was a big old fuck-you to all those folk.Their jobs are hard enough.
3. He never even bothered to ask how I handled the situation. And since my pride was wounded, I never told him, feeling that I would be offering my experiences as an apology or a defense.
[oh, and by the way, I was working for a preschool.Kid in question was about 4.]


... as it happened I was pretty proud of the way I did handle the situation.

I can still picture the little girl in question ( again, since the conversation was aborted, I never got a chance to correct the people who assumed it was a boy )hanging from the bar, leering at me with a mean-spiritedness that surpassed her age. I knew I coudn't let the remark go, but there were several factors I had to consider.

As a sub, I could have easily passed the issue off to one of the regular teachers, but I had seen their style, and knew that the next ten minutes or so the air would be resounding with gasps of horror and the child would be swooped up and sat in a chair and given a lecture that would escalate in volume long after the main point was made.Drama, drama, drama.Some instinct told me, born of having seen this kid many times over my 13 years of teaching, that the drama was exactly what the kid was hoping for. Something aboutt he glitter of malice in her eyes told me that she had already learned the power of ugly words, and that the worst thing I could do was to let that remark turn the class upside down. It would prove how well it worked.

It also occured to me to wonder where she had heard that phrase. From one of those goons that were hovering around the fence? Directed at a girlfriend, a mother,even her? From one of the songs that played in the apartments near by, songs that told that little four year old future woman what names she would be called,hpw hard she would be slapped if she talked smack, how tiny her waist should be, how shapely her ass should be, how she should dance, move, fuck? What would it serve if I showed her those words could make me crumble?

So I looked her right in the eye, shrugged, and said, "No, I'm not."

Her eyes widened, She stopped swinging."Yes, you is! You're a cocksucking bitch! Cocksucking bitch!"

I acted like I was thinking it over. "Uhm, no, I'm not. And I don't want to talk to someone who talks to me that way. I'm gonna see what those guys are doing."

With that I walked over to a group of girls that were cheerfully playing with dolls, and lavished them with attention. CSB stillhung from the rod, staring at me. After a while she dropped and wandered over, fingers in her mouth, eyes wide. I kept ignoring her for a minute or so, then casually looked up and asked if she wanted to play. She nodded shyly and joined in.

She was pretty much my little buddy for the rest of the day, no angel by any means, but suddenly eager to impress me with little songs, cartwheels, crayoned pictures. I am sure my friend would pick apart my technique and find all kinds of fault with it, but I say the proof is in the freaking pudding. Something I said got through. And if at the very least I showed her that she didn't have to believe the shit that someone might tell her her about herself, I think I did good.