Personal versus Professional

I don’t know how my dad did it. He was able to keep his personal life separate from his professional life. If you are reading this right now, you already know that I live one *wholesome* life on this blog as well as in real life, and I am all over the place … I am talking about my life at work, and I am sharing stuff about work at home.

Last school year, Hans heard me talk about my work almost every single day. He heard some anecdotes several times as I repeated them for my parents, my brother and some friends. So, when he had an opportunity to volunteer at my work last June, he was determined to find that student who made my life a little miserable. (I mentioned this student first time in a July post.) My 17-year-old was on the warpath until I reminded him that this was a 7-year-old kid, and he should let it go! I had never seen my boy so angry, and it reminded me of the 9-year-old Hans I wrote about in ‘The Last One Digit Birthday’. Even at that age, I could see him standing up for me regardless of whom he was standing up to!

In this scenario, he would have been looking down at that kid, both literally and figuratively.

Today, I almost clashed with Michael over this same kid. Michael is enchanted with her, and he truly believes she is this unique little thing. She is. I think she is supremely talented and incredibly imaginative. However, she is also manipulative and mean. Her classmates are terrified of her, and she is our youngest in age and smallest in size. She has not spared anyone with her hands and words. And she has the most excellent expressive and receptive communication skills. Out of the other 4 students we currently have, 2 of them simply echo and one of them shouts random words and the other talks to herself. So, this kid is the only one who can have a conversation.

In a Special Education classroom, we need people who have the utmost patience to speak with a child who cannot reciprocate in any way. The silence can be deafening and sometimes it gets drowned by YouTube videos of endless singing of the songs of childhood. So, when a child comes along with speaking skills, that child has a captive audience. Such is the fate of Michael. Today, I had to take the other 4 students and walk them to a safe space while Michael dealt with this one kid. While I was gone, she trashed our classroom and needed time to calm down. The main reason I evacuated the classroom was because of a rain boot that was deliberately thrown at one of the other 4 students. If we hadn’t left, more bodily damage would have ensued.

At the end of the school day, I send personalized email updates of our students to their parents. This takes me about an hour after work. Michael has requested me to CC him on these emails. I have been doing that since September 2^nd. Today, for the first time, for no good reason, he decides to respond to my email to this kid’s parent. Here is what he wrote:

She just wants to be seen and be heard for who she is (and there is nothing wrong with that).  She just needs a little help controlling her impulses sometimes (and I have every confidence she will continue to do so in time).  … she earned more than a sticker today.  She earned my respect.

What the heck?! Michael wanted to know if I thought his response was alright?! I told him that it was more than alright … it was spectacular! I didn’t know what else to say! This was the kid who tried to silence another by placing a beanbag over the latter’s face, and today, she threw a boot at the same kid. On what planet is such behaviour deserving of respect? I am baffled. Right now, I feel like going back in time and letting Hans know that I respect his feelings … he was just being protective of his mother!

This is something I feel like I cannot talk about anywhere but here. This is my safe space. No one can silence me here.