A Student Called me a "Dickrider" Part II. The Aftermath.
No such thing as a fairytale ending.
*In order to understand this post, you need to read, “A Student Called Me a “Dickrider.” Here’s What I Said.” This current post follows the story of what happened in my classroom after I had a parent-teacher-student conversation with Larry.
When a major incident occurs in your classroom and it leads to a suspension, you do what we in the education biz call a, “restorative conversation.” They don’t fix much, but if done right, they can make a student's reentry into your classroom less awkward. The conversations are time-consuming and usually mess up your flow at work, but I’d argue they’re necessary. Because if you skip it, the kid who gets suspended waltzes back into your classroom two days later with the same hate that they left the building with. You gotta air that shit out before they return to your classroom.
I did my due diligence and had a meaningful conversation with Larry and his father last week. Today was Larry’s first day back in my classroom after repeatedly telling me I was a “dickrider.” As per usual I was nervous. I’m always nervous to see how a kid reacts in my classroom after a major incident. But I was also curious, did the conversation make any meaningful changes? Would all the work of contacting the parents, talking to the dean, organizing a meeting, having a restorative conversation, and issuing a suspension make any difference?
It was time to find out.
I’m standing at my door, handing out fist pounds as the students enter the gymnasium. When Larry walks over he bumps my fist without a word and walks in. So far so good.
We go through warm-ups, and a frisbee drill without a hitch. Again. So far, so good.
Then we start the Ultimate Frisbee game. I should mention that there are some slight stakes with this game. Whenever I run a team sport unit, I have a draft day where the class elects captains, and the captains draft permanent teams. I write the student names on a big sheet of poster paper hanging designating who’s on what team. Then the students choose their team names and I add a win and loss column to the paper. That paper hangs on the gym wall for all to see.
If I announce that today is a “sanctioned game” it means that the game will be recorded on the poster. Wins and losses in no way affect anybody’s grade, but it’s the only thing anybody gives a shit about in my class. Certain teenagers will throw themselves into walls in order to catch a frisbee and keep it in play. Anything to get a tally mark in the W column. In the words of Greg Glassman, “Men will die for points.”
Today is a sanctioned game.
The game starts off well. Both teams are making throws and catches and both teams are scoring. It’s an even game, and I know my refereeing has to be on point. I assign another student who we’ll call Casandra, the role of referee as well so she can help me keep an eye on the far sideline. We make calls to the groans and celebrations of both teams.
I try not to be too harsh to the two foreign girls who are still struggling with the travel rule. Tiny steps I ignore, but large ones I call travel on. Larry shakes his head at the calls against his team, but he doesn’t say anything. The game continues and my red digital clock counts down. There’s about 90 seconds left and both teams are tied.
The other athletic competitor in the class is Larry’s friend John, and his team throws the frisbee off to Larry’s team. If I’m being honest, John has always had a slight edge over Larry. He’s smaller, but he’s also faster and shiftier. In a one on one situation John probably beats Larry 7 out of 10 times. Larry knows this and hates it. For this final point John is covering Larry,
Larry’s teammates pass the frisbee back and forth down the court. John is sticking to Larry’s side like white on rice, denying him the opportunity to even touch the frisbee. But suddenly, one of Larry’s teammates catches the frisbee halfway down the gym and Larry breaks away towards the end zone. His teammate makes a high loopy pass to him.
It’s essentially a 50/50 shot, and while John can jump higher than any kid I’ve coached, Larry is just big. Larry jumps up and makes a spectacular grab over John in the end zone. He starts celebrating.
There’s a problem though. When he made the catch his back foot dragged behind the end zone line. For a score to count, both feet have to be in the end zone at the time of the catch. I call out, “Not in! Not in! You need one more pass!”
He looks at me and yells, “Are you kidding me! How are you not going to call that in! You’re seriously not going to call that in!?!”
“Your back foot was outside the end zone when you caught it, you need one more pass!”
He chucked the frisbee on the ground and yelled, “I can’t do this no more!” Then he grabbed his stuff and stormed out of the gymnasium as the clock wound down to zero. The rest of the class left the room deflated, and I was stuck exactly where I was last week; with a student who couldn’t contain his emotions. A student who couldn’t get out of his own skull and just realize he needed to make one more pass.
I seethed with my own frustration. All that work. The calls, the suspension, the conversation with him and his dad, the nervousness and anxiety that came with all that work, all for nothing. I chucked a frisbee against the wall in frustration.
Sometimes you just don’t get to win.
Just as that last thought passed through my mind, Larry burst back in through the door. He yelled, “Talk to me! You really gonna call that out!” His hands were grabbing his hair, looking like he was about to tear it out. It had been over five minutes since I made the call and the kid was still seething.
At first, I chuckled in the back of my head - this kid really couldn’t stand to lose. But then I realized he wasn’t freaking out about the loss, he was freaking out about the call. As he paced back and forth I almost wondered if he had an autistic tic - something where if the universe didn’t agree with his sense of fairness he absolutely breaks down.
I said, “Yes Larry. That’s the call I made, I saw your foot behind the line, and I called that you weren’t in the end zone. That was the call.”
“Nah, if I was one of those two girls who you always let travel, you would have given that to me! You're always against me.”
“You don’t want me to make the right call?”
Larry was still walking around. Furious. “Whatever man. Forget it. Don’t write me up or call or nothin. I didn’t curse out at you or nothin. I’m done here.”
He walked out.
I took a moment to reflect.
If I was to find the slimmest of positives from the situation, it was true, he didn’t curse me out. Not only that, he came back after he flipped out to have a conversation with me about something he felt was unfair. His delivery was in the form of a child's temper tantrum…but still. It was something.
I thought more about what he said, “if I was one of those girls you would have given that to me…” His claim that I would have given the girls a point if one of them had caught the frisbee in the end zone the way he did was accurate. I probably would have.
A voice in my head told me I was being unfair.
But a more sensible voice in my head said I was giving a kind interpretation to Larry’s argument. A normal adult…and honestly most kids could see I was differentiating. I gave girls who were new to the country, could barely speak English, and who probably didn’t even know what a varsity team was, some easier ways to find a win. I tilted the scales in their favor the same way an English teacher gives more support to a kid falling behind in class.
Sue me, I hold a varsity basketball player to higher athletic standards than two kids who just learned to hold a frisbee. I saw Larry’s angle, I just couldn’t believe he wouldn’t zoom out and see the bigger picture.
How could I fix this situation?
In the end, Cassandra, the kid who helped me ref, came up with a solution.
The next class I had worse nerves than the last one. Larry didn’t even look at me when he entered the gym. Not good. He purposely walked past my fist pound. Double not good.
We ran through the warm-ups, drills, and when we got to the game, I decided I would just ask Larry if he wanted to sit out. I breathed a sigh of relief when he agreed to not play. Though there was a guilty side of me that knew I was taking the easy way out.
Then Cassandra said, “Hey mista, can you let Larry ref?” I paused. It was actually a pretty good solution. Give him some power. Literally put him in my position, don’t just ask him to imagine it. I said sure. Larry had already decided he wasn’t going to play, (to which I figured would only do good things for my blood pressure) so why not let him find a different way to contribute to the class.
I called across the gym, “Hey Larry, you want to ref? I’ll take your spot on the team and you ref?”
“Oh yeah. We’ll see how you like it.”
“You got it.”
I figured it was probably going to be a major mistake. I imagined every time I touched the frisbee he was going to call travel. But you know what? Fuck it. I had learned long ago that whenever I got really frustrated with a class, one of the best things I could do was just jump in a game and have some fun. Sometimes the fun is the cure, even if I knew the refereeing was going to an abuse of power.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
He refereed an excellent game. I’d argue he did a better job than me, because he held the two new girls who couldn’t speak English to the same standard as everybody else. Instead of breaking down and quitting, (like I thought they might) the girls adapted and traveled less. We had a great game. And Casandra had found a way for Larry to contribute in class without crashing out.
Even better, when we had the next class I asked Larry immediately if he wanted to ref. He agreed, and I took his spot on the team again. While he reffed he got to observe me play. I purposefully modeled how I would want a leader to act on a team in P.E. class. Anytime a teammate dropped a pass or made a bad throw, I would immediately call out, “it's all good, lets get it back on defense,” or “all good all good find your man!”
The kids weren’t athletic, but it was clear everyone was having fun again. So much fun that Larry decided he wanted to play. He asked me to ref. I went up to him and looked him in the eye and said, “You sure?”
He said, “Yes.”
“You know that they’re going to drop it. You going to be alright with that?”
He smiled, “I got it Schuerch, I got it.”
“Even if I make a bad call?”
“Let me play Schuerch!”
“Aight. You got it.”
He played. His team lost. He still had fun.
On the way out of class one of Larry’s classmates said, “We did it! We had a class without an argument!” I high-fived her as I laughed, “I know! We did it!”
What felt like a million personal conversations, a parent teacher conference, a suspension, a strategic shift in team dynamics, and a relinquishing of referring power, all of that, and I had finally gotten one smooth Ultimate Frisbee game out of my senior P.E. class.
It felt like a hell of a win.
New reader here. First, you’re a great storyteller. Two posts and I feel as though I can hear you speak. Super characterization all around - the dad, the kids, everyone. I had no idea what was going to happen. As a long time teacher of a different subject to many different kinds of students, I’m telling you that your kids are lucky to have you because you care enough about them to risk being humiliated. I’m fist-bumping you. 🤜🏻
New here, love the story and love the page! A question and also perhaps unsolicited advice from a non-teacher, but someone who works in an environment where negotiation and power struggles are very common. Right after you call "Not in!" and the student starts to complain, why did you continue with an explanation? By trying to give an explanation in the moment ("Your back foot was outside the end zone when you caught it [...]"), it only opens the door for further rebuttal (which he gave by storming off). Instead, sticking to just "Not in! One more pass to score, x team needs one more pass to score!" doesn't open up the situation to rebuttal. This won't guarantee he won't storm off (as you say, he still has trouble controlling his emotions) but it at least does not INVITE the behavior. Additionally, it helps continue to teach/reinforce roles and responsibilities, as the referee makes the calls, and the players have to deal with them (by attempting another pass). I.e., the teaching moment from perhaps a sports perspective is that the ruling on the fields are not a negotiation. When you're not in a negotiation, there's no need to explain 'your side' - especially not in the exact moment when tension is high. You mention your thoughts "A student who couldn’t get out of his own skull and just realize he needed to make one more pass." but how could he? You engaged him in a debate, so he's now fully focused only on the debate of whether he's in or out. Immature people (kids and adults lol) are not always capable of self-regulating priority, so their thought process just locks into whatever is right in front of them, which in this case was "the debate". By only repeating back "x team needs one more pass!" it attempts to put this thought (winning the game) higher in their attention's priority. A small thing, but I see as worth mentioning, because as an outside viewer it really seems as if you unknowingly instigated the 'meltdown'.