Conflict and Conflagration

Have you ever had the urge to blow shit up? To exercise a scorched earth policy? To bring to bear upon others the types of hardship that have been brought to bear on you? I know I have felt that way, and I have acted on it. My actions have been detrimental to my well being.

There was this punk giving my best friend a hard time, so I confronted him. Things got nasty, so I popped him. He and three hundred of his closest friends visited my friend’s house. We called the cops. I got expelled. That was in seventh grade.

This is not an isolated incident in my life. I am the baby of three boys. My older brother was 18 months older and my oldest is 39 months older. I got beat almost everyday of my pre-adolescent existence. I learned to hit first, explain later. This became a problem.

In high school, this behavior was unwelcome, mainly because I went to a Christian school with sons and daughters of pastors who had never gone to a public school. I was a wolf among sheep, and we all know what happens when a wolf gets together with sheep. Bad things!

So now, how do I explain to my daughter that it is unacceptable to hit, to choke, to spit in someone’s face? If I do condemn this behavior in my daughter, does that make me a hypocrite?

Why is it when my daughter’s teacher tells me about my daughter’s transgressions, I laugh? Why do I find it endearing that my daughter is a thug? Why do my colleagues find this entertaining?

How do I explain to a four year old that it isn’t cool to throw down with classmates when I did the same? “Do as I say, not as I did.” But really, I want her to stand up for herself, but not be a bully. How do I teach that?

“It’s okay to hit when a teacher doesn’t respond and the kid keeps pushing you.” Yeah, a four year old is going to understand that.

I wish my life was about snack time and nap time, about arts and crafts, about letters and numbers. It would be so much easier. Remind me to ask my daughter when she is my age if she feels the same way.

Meanwhile, I have to deal with the bullys and thugs of education. Those who want to bully me as a teacher, to force me to do things that I don’t want to do. Things I don’t want to do because I know they are detrimental to my students; they are just bad practice. But, I have to tell the teacher. I can’t spit in their face, I can’t choke them. My daughter can choke and spit on the bad guys, but I can’t. How can I teach her not to when I want to?

Spike