9/30/02

Another busy day. The days that I go to Choiseul always seem to be busy.  But I suppose it’s better than some of the long and slow days I’ve had in the office.

There’s only really one event to note for the day.  So there’s this Choiseul group of trainees.  It’s a large group, and most of the trainees are young, around 20, I’d say.  There are a couple of clowns in the group who showed off that fact from day one.  One of these girls has since dropped out of the program, one is still a space case, and then there’s this other guy, Johnny.  Selma tells me he comes from a rough background.  He seems to be genuinely interested, and a bright guy, he’s just really goofy.  He always likes to shout out questions or comments, be they related to the topic or not.  But actually from some of the things he says you can tell that things are going on upstairs, just maybe in a strange way.  Most days Johnny would sit in the back of the class and cause a low-level commotion the whole time.  But on Friday, he sat right in the front row by me.  He was attentive for the first part of the day, but in the afternoon he was really wacky.  He was furiously writing in his little notebook.  Then every so often he’d stop and stare at me for a while.  Then he’d turn back and write another paragraph.  Every so often he’d tear out a page and pass it around for his buddies to read, then crumple it up and throw it on the ground.  At first I was thinking, "Whatever...".  Then I could see my name in the things that he was writing.  That made me a little nervous, although the other guys didn’t seem to get too riled up by what he was writing, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad.  After class I made a point to pick up the things he had thrown on the ground.  On the way driving back up north, Selma and I read these.  They were about four pages of a poem about me.  Almost all of it is pretty harmless.  It’s just stupid stuff about my golden hair, blah, blah, blah.  A couple of the lines were a little less appropriate.  It was weird, but I didn’t feel like I was as angry as I should be.  I figured I should say something to him at least to let him know that this sort of thing isn’t cool.

Today he seemed to be behaving himself, at least acting as squirrelly as normal.  The class today was on effective time management.  Selma stepped out for a minute to take a phone call, and the class was left to think about their daily schedules so we could analyze how they use their time.  Rather than just let them sit there, I decided to step in and get the group started on how they use their time, so they could get on to the next thing when Selma got back.  I asked for volunteers to share what they do on a sample day, and like always, Johnny was the first to raise his hand. He said he thought about me all day.  I almost wasn’t going to say anything to him about Friday because he didn’t seem to be writing anything today.  But when he said something like that in front of the whole class, I really let him have it, also in front of the whole class.  I told him that what he said and what he had written were inappropriate and rude.  That I was there as a teacher, just like Selma, and he wouldn’t dare write something like that about her out of respect, or for fear that she’d flatten him.  I told him that this was the time to practice respect like that, because if he dared try anything like that on a job, he’d be out on the street and with sexual harassment on his record.  The whole class was quiet, and then Selma came back.  The rest of the day was without incident from him.

When Selma and I drive back in the afternoons, about ten kids wait around and ride in the back of the truck.  They were all curious to know what had happened with Johnny that I yelled at him like that.  One of the girls and a few of the guys told me they’d "take care" of it if he ever did anything again.  Another guy (one of the top guys in the class for good attitude and participation) personally wanted to apologize to me for what Johnny did.  I thought that was pretty nice on all their parts.  It definitely makes me more willing to come back and help out their sleepy town!  I was proud of myself for not just rolling with the punches.  Hopefully it’s taken care of.