Last Thursday, I was asked to stay late to keep the boundary between two of the schools in our building secure. It wasn't very difficult and I found most of the students understanding -- one even told me that he knew that our students created too much noise when they got out of gym and that was why we were trying to re-route them out of the other school's territory. One student slightly pushed me out of the way, but then he apologized. He didn't quite understand the rule itself, but he knew he handled himself incorrectly.
Then I got on the bus going home.
There's a wonderful little middle school a block away from my high school and I wait for my bus at its entrance. The girls were yelling at a boy who had broken up nastily with a girl. I joked with a stranger about how seriously these little kids took their relationships. Thinking back now, I actually DIVORCED my first boyfriend in the fourth grade. I got on the school bus and said that everyone who was my friend had to sit on one side of the bus, and his friends had to sit on the other. Most of the bus crammed into my side and my former boyfriend was nearly alone on his side. I remember him, all swallowed up by the green vinyl seats, crying.
The boy, in the middle school drama I witnessed also fled the scene and the B8 bus arrived, crammed with passengers, to my dismay. For the first two minutes of the bus ride things were fine. Then we stopped in front of my high school. I avoid getting the bus there because most of the seats get taken at the middle school. As it turned out, on this night I was standing anyway. A group of MY students got on the bus and I smiled at them and even joked that I had the "enemy" cap on (I was wearing a baseball cap with the initials of one of the other schools in the building.)
One very tall girl with a space between her front teeth began the chanting of "BAT, BAT, BAT, BAT." Then I was called a "snitch" and my every move was commented on. "You get people suspended," said the tall girl. I tried to explain that I don't -- but I stopped. It seemed, perhaps, not a good idea to dispel the belief that I had the power to do something I can't actually do. Truthfully, I only document student behavior and reach out to parents. Once or twice I have recommended someone be suspended, but my suggestions weren't taken. The chanting of "Bat, Bat, Bat, Bat" and the comments continued. I stood still, reading my book and at the next stop, I got a seat and continued to read. A student asked if I was reading the Bible. Several students said that I was "tight" (which means tense). This continued until the students got off of the bus. This was about twenty minutes.
At one point, I did say that I could call the police but that the students were "just not that important." I wanted them to understand that my life would go on despite their escapades and, sadly, that I didn't care about them as much as they thought. They didn't get it.
The next day my class went miserably. (I only have one on Fridays. The rest of the day I am a dean.) The subtitles on West Side Story didn't work and my students couldn't follow the language without them. I tried fast forwarding between active scenes -- the big fight, etc. Nothing. Students were talking and talking. Then a security guard knocked and asked me if I would take in a student kicked out of another class. This was a student who had harassed me weeks ago, but with whom I no longer had problems. So, I said, "okay." She joined in the talking with her group of friends and they became more vociferous and aggressive. One of them accused me of being "in love" with a female student because I had laughingly commented on her goofy outfit. (Friday was also "wacky tacky" day.) When they left, the girl I admitted called me "Ms. Dyke" and when I went after her in the hallway to tell her that she had just committed a hate crime, she said she didn't care about my "gay ass."
The girl was suspended. I wanted her arrested but was discouraged from doing so.
I've never been gaybashed verbally before. Sure, the same girl used to call me "Mr. Kay" but I never took that in the same way.
When friends of the same girl came into the Dean's Office for something and I asked them what they wanted, I heard one girl outside yell, "Oh no, no!" and the girls left. They weren't embarassed; they were indicating that they would take no help from me.
My first instinct was to asked to be transferred -- which won't happen. I have never felt unsafe before in my career -- not this way. I might have felt that one student was aggressive toward me, but for academic reasons. No one ever really showed me complete and utter hatred.
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