A Restorative Conversation with THAT Kid

Even when he doesn't deserve it.

So I have an asshole of a student. For now, let's call him David. 

David is the quintessential class destroyer. Teacher’s breathe a sigh of relief when he’s absent, and white knuckle the forty five minutes of the day that they have him in their classroom. David’s typical entrance into my gymnasium room sounds something like this, “Word to my motha, fuck all ya’ll lame as n*gga’s. Ya’ll can all suck my dick. Word to.” He’ll spit those words out faster than a machine gun. By the time you actually comprehend the fast staccato insults he’s slinging for no particular reason, he’s usually started mouthing off on a specific kid. Each sentence starts with “word to my motha” and ends with “word to.” 

I should mention that I’ve been teaching David for three years. I’ve attempted to build connections with him through conversation and basketball games. I’ve let him run teams in my sport education curriculum. I’ve tried to have serious one on one talks with him. Some of those talks have borne fruit. Most have not. I’ve even let him participate in the weightlifting program which is my pride and joy and my place of peace. I let him enter that sacred gym ground in an effort to build connections and see if he was coachable. At the time he was not. 

The main problem is his relationship to his peers. He lashes out at everyone and brings them down the moment he thinks someone is getting more attention than him. He is needy and narcissistic. He reminds me of a small dog always yipping for attention. Unfortunately this yipping is usually towards his peers and he’s hurt some of them. I can take the taunts he slings at me, and on occasion send it right back, but when he hurts my other students, that's where I draw the line.

A couple of weeks ago I made a conscious decision to declare war on this kid. I rarely do this. War means a whole lot of paperwork. It also means I’ve accepted defeat. It means that my efforts to build connections and support this student have completely and utterly failed and my only option left is punitive. Well, that and a final hail mary of a conversation. When I declare war the process looks like this. First, I text the dean and give him a heads up that I’m going to start performing the necessary paperwork against David so the dean can provide evidence and reasoning for a classroom removal/suspension. The dean sends a thumbs up, “get after it.” He knows the deal when it comes to David. Then I wait for David to do what David always does. Act out. 

The initial class David starts his bullshit in my fifth period class where I’m trying to film my kids performing a discussion based protocol so I can share with my colleagues for professional development. David immediately starts yelling, “Gang Gang Gang!” Who knows why? Possibly because we’ve bumped heads before about his behavior and possibly because he is the direct spawn of satan. In any case, it's ruining the video I’m trying to make and I make it abundantly clear that if he continues his behavior he will be removed from my class and written up. He continues his behavior. I respond in kind.

The second class he decides to destroy is the very next day. He breaks into one of my closets and takes a frisbee. I ask him to put it away. He ignores me and continues to throw it to one of his friends. I ask again, and he throws it one last time before letting it clatter to the floor. He doesn’t put it away. Then he puts on a pair of boxing gloves (where in god's name did he find a pair of boxing gloves!?!) and begins to square up with his friend. I ask him to take off the boxing gloves and he ignores me. I ask three more times before he finally puts them away. The only reason I don’t call security is because he didn’t actually throw a punch. Finally while I’m giving directions for badminton he suddenly has a basketball and he’s bouncing it while I’m speaking. That punches his ticket for his second classroom removal that week.

The third classroom removal is textbook David. The moment he enters my gymnasium he starts shooting off at the mouth.  Suck my dick this, suck my dick that. I sigh a very very deep sigh. I tell him to stop cursing or else I’ll have to have him removed from the classroom. Again.  He proceeds with a very standard, “N*gga suck my dick, I don’t give a fuck what you say I’ll beat you up act like I care bitch.” Well then. Word to. I’m immediately on the phone chatting up school security - it's fifth period, they were expecting my voice. 

All three of these incidents are written up in heavy detail, and forwarded to the dean. Each of these incidents includes a phone call home to mom, and text updates because she has asked for them. (Btw, even his mom admitted her own child was an “asshole” in our conversations.) All of these complaints are then copied and written up with the dean’s own take on the situation before being forwarded to the principal. All said and done, I had to endure David disrupting three classrooms, two hours of paperwork between calls, texts, write ups, and communicating with the dean, and a whole lot of head stress before the administration finally has the ability to step in. This is the bureaucratic nightmare process every teacher has to go through before the administration can actually deliver consequences. 

I’m finally ready to let the sword fall. All it takes is one more incident in the classroom before I write up a fourth scenario in which David disrupts the class and the dean can follow through with a suspension. This kid has been a pain all year. The very tiny amount of pleasant times I have experienced with this child are so heavily out weighed by his constant stream of gray-hair-causing-behavior that giving this kid anymore leeway is kinda like convincing yourself the poorly trained rescue dog you bought isn’t going to poop on the floor for the hundredth time. But whatever, let’s roll, I’m a sucker for ugly pups and at the end of the day he’s an 18 year old kid…no matter how hard he screams, “I’m a grown ass man!” at the top of his lungs. Another one last chance. Here we go.

I call the dean and I tell him I want to have a 1 on 1 conversation with David, just me and David with the dean present to add gravity to the situation. This is my final hail mary, and it’s something I like to think I’ve gotten pretty good at.

My Four Step Conversation Process for THAT kid

Step 1: Establish the facts

Step 2: Ask my favorite question

Step 3: Ask what their goals are

Step 4: Establish your standards…again

Here’s how this played out with David. 

The dean escorts David out of his 8th period class and brings him to my office. I pull up a rolly chair and ask him to have a seat. The dean sits in my comfy rocking chair I have for tough days, and I sit in my other rolly chair. David looks sullen, and doesn’t make eye contact with me. The dean starts off by saying to David that “the P.E. teacher is in a position to suspend you, however, instead of deciding to do so, he has requested to have a conversation with you instead.” This is a process me and the dean have worked out over the years. He puts the student in a position of debt to me so the student feels they have to listen to what I have to say.

I always start by seeing if the student agrees with the way I view the facts. I tell David that I’m going to read off the three incidents that landed him in my office. I read word for word the anecdotes I’ve written over the last three classes and repeat some of the disrespectful lines he has said to me and some of his classmates word for word. I repeat to him the actions that I observed and I inform him that his mom is also aware of all of this. Then I ask him quite bluntly, “Am I being fair with how I view this? Did I misrepresent anything? Do you disagree with any of this?” I expected David to protest, or at least attempt to twist the facts, but to my surprise he simply looks at the floor and nods. The presence of the dean and me reading off my computer screen anecdotes probably adds some pressure not to dispute the facts. But whatever the reason, David is admitting to his own behavior.

I say in a somewhat surprised voice, “So we agree? This is the way you acted?” He nods. He has opened the door for me to ask him my favorite teacher to student questions of all time. “Alright David, so if this is your behavior and we both agree that it is, I’ve got a question for you. If you were the teacher, and I was the student, and I had performed all those behaviors in your class and said all those words to you, what would you do? How would you respond?” David’s eyes widen, he lets out a sharp laugh, and looks down at the floor. I’ve got him. He has just empathized with me. We’ve established a connection. No doubt this kid who’s been in roughly a hundred street fights and 100 more in school has just had the thought that if someone had cursed him out as badly as he did to me he would have gone in fist flying without a second thought. The job be damned. And he has slowly recognized that I chose not to perform any of those actions myself. Even though I definitely wanted to.

Now that I have this empathy, I’m going to use it to have a real conversation with him. “David, when you go to this school, what is your goal?” I’m genuinely curious when I ask this. This is a student who is failing all of his classes. Every. Single. One. He’s also 18 years old. He comes from a helluva tough environment. Many kids who come from his kind of background simply stop showing up to school. He is an excellent example of a student who the public education system has failed (myself included). The point being, I’m surprised that David even chooses to show up to school when most kids in his position simply stop showing up.

“I want to graduate…” He shrugs his shoulders and says this as if it were an obvious fact. Personally, I’m shocked he says this. Besides the fact that he’s in school, all his behavior seems to go in direct opposition to this goal. But hey, I’m not opposed to an easy pitch. I wind up and knock it out of the park. “Then David! You realize you have to pass my class in order to graduate right?”....”Yeah…” eyes looking down. “You realize if you behave in a way that forces me to kick you out you won’t pass my class right?”....”Yeah”… “Are you in control of your behavior?”....”Yeah”...”Then dude! Help me help you.”

This is where the dean steps in. He has been listening to this conversation and moderating gently when he thinks he needs to step in. But for the most part he’s been silent. Now he speaks up, “So David. What do you need to do in order to not get kicked out of P.E.?” David says, “I know, I know.” The dean goes, “Nope, you need to say it out loud so our P.E. Teacher knows you understand.” David finally talks about the behavior that can’t be tolerated. The dean ends the conversation by reminding David that instead of suspension, his teacher decided he wanted to have a conversation before forcing a punishment. He reminds him if this conversation is ignored, then a classroom removal, and failure of the class, is imminent. I shake hands with David, and the dean takes him back to class.

Aftermath

Now, do I believe that this conversation has solved every problem I’m going to have with this student? Not a chance. However, there’s something to be said when you get a student to admit in his own words that he has been an asshole. It’s also quite something when you get them to admit that their own actions are impeding their own goals from happening. I know David is going to have a bad day in the future, and I know there’s not a whole lot that I’ll be able to do to stop it except the usual classroom removal. But best believe that when that moment comes I’ll be ready to remind him of the conversation we had. I’ll be ready to remind him of his own stated goal and his own stated words against his own behavior. And when it doesn’t work at least I’ll have the peace of mind to know I gave it a goddamn try.

As of now it’s been a week….and he hasn’t disrupted the class at all.