For most post-middle school teachers who are the first to face the cute 6th graders who had become the poorly established rebels with undefined principles for their rebelling during middle school that resulted from the effects of puberty in progress, the first class on the first day, or any number of first classes on the first day, a teacher enters a room full of strangers all with their own different quirks and world views, coming from families of varying degrees of success at being successful families with whom they will be gathered every day for at least 45 minutes for 180 days in one room.
Besides the usual getting to know the students and presenting enough about themselves to their students to begin building rapport, teachers also face each student’s presenting themselves as they want to be accepted and these go from the most obvious brown-nose to the rebel without a clue who opposes everything on principle.
There is usually one such student in each class who wants to be the established rebel and the introduction of this begins with the teacher simply going over class rules and expectations.
I have taught in a few places on both coasts and in the middle of the country and the rebellious first day questions regardless where asked were generally similar with a lot if “What if we do…” or “What if we don’t do it?” questions often presented as a challenge, a measure of limits. While some questions may be for simple procedural clarifications, there are those who make it clear which rules or procedures they do not agree with and will oppose.
As an English teacher who would have to read essays, one of my rules was that all final copies of their essays must be written in blue or black ink. The reasons as explained to the students was because pencils get dull and the writing becomes hard to read, sweat can smudge the pencil work, blue and black ink are more professional than using cute colored pens that match the writer’s mood, red makes it look corrected and appears as a preliminary report and not the final, and job applications called for blue and black ink and the students might as well get used to following that direction without rebelling when such is required.
Needless to say, there were students who rebelled in favor of personal pen choice and, sadly, parents who backed them, and this was actually just a part of a bigger problem.
That may have been my initial battle often, but a more universal teacher experience involved the daily Pledge of Allegiance.
It doesn’t take long for older students to see that, as foolish and meaningless as it is, the daily recital of the Pledge of Allegiance, because of Facebook memes and politicians demanding it be recited in schools even as it is said every day in school makes it an issue with which the rebel can establish a cause
The demand is totally fictitious and proven to be so by anyone who is in a school building during Homeroom.
Without fail, for 38 years, sometimes up to six classes per day on the first day, the common issue brought up was standing for the pledge. If the teachers were to demand everyone stand there would be objections from those who claimed, “I have rights!” and “You can’t make me.” If the teacher stated they didn‘t have to, the story would be brought home and a parent would demand action be taken against the unpatriotic teacher.
I addressed this conundrum be explaining the purpose of the Pledge while acknowledging that there may be those who for religious or political reasons cannot swear an oath, Quakers come to mind, or just do not see value in the practice. My advice was always that it would be nice if everyone stood and recited the pledge as it would look good to anyone passing by, but since that is not the purpose of the act, if for deeply held beliefs a student could not or would not recite the pledge, for the sake of the visual it would be nice if everyone stood while those who could not or would not recite the pledge stood silently sans hand on chest. If this was too much, they could choose to sit quietly doing nothing that would distract from the recital as there is a difference between civil disobedience done quietly and making a scene and becoming the center of attention. The students would then be advised that their choice to stand or sit quietly would most likely be accompanied by questions and possible condemnation, so it would be on them to defend their action and explain their rationale. It was their choice, but it would also be their responsibility to explain themselves.
Their choice could be defended but any distracting or disruptive behavior would have to be “punished” because of the difference between not reciting and causing a competing scene.
In 38 years, there was never an issue, and I can only recall one student who decided to counter the Pledge with noise and this resulted in his being disciplined not for refusing to say the Pledge but for bringing attention to himself in order t disrupt a relatively harmless and largely meaningless recitation of a poem.
And for those 38 years even as I stood modeling Pledge behavior and reciting the pledge, after “Liberty and justice for all”, I would mumble the word, “Whenever”.
Students never knew, but I did.
Rebellion without disruption.
Students at public schools and universities have the right to express “symbolic speech” by sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance or National Anthem. Florida among other states requires K-12 students have parental permission to forgo standing during the pledge.
So, they know that there is an option.
There was an issue recently in a Florida school when a teacher went after a Latino student who had not stood for the Pledge using racist rhetoric in the process.
In the present battle to prove who is more patriotic and to combat alleged indoctrination, in places where uber-patriotism is the goal and all policies and curricula are geared to produce one image of the United States, there is pressure to conform and prove loyalty to the culture or be out on the streets.
Sadly, in many politically run school districts teachers are pressured to act certain ways and prove they are worthy of keeping their jobs, or are hired because they will promote the political, religious, and personal beliefs of the person doing the hiring.
So, although I am horrified at the teacher’s reaction, there is a part of me that wonders if the teacher’s motivation was to appear acceptable to the powers that be, an undue artificial requirement to teach, or acted as he did because he was the person hired because of a political agenda.
The story contains two of Florida’s presently most obvious traits, uber-jingoistic patriotism and racism.
A student did not stand for the pledge but sat quietly. The teacher approached the student and opened with,
“You are gonna sit there on your butt? If you want to do something, just get up and do it. I will defend my country to the very end.”
The teacher was taunting the student to leave the realm of civil disobedience and get involved in a punishable physical altercation which the teacher implied was the student’s intention.
After the student explained that he had no intention to hurt the teacher nor did he want to get up and do something, full-Florida set in.
“Then go back to your … where are you from? Mexico or Guatemala? Where?”
“I was born here,” the student replied.
“You were born here? And you won’t stand up for the flag?”
The uber-patriotism flew in the face of the law and Constitution, but in certain places like Florida reason is lost to a bizarre form of nationalism.
The teacher has been removed from the classroom for the moment and no longer has any contact with students.
For its part the district explained,
“The School District of Manatee County strongly condemns any language or behavior that degrades, humiliates or insults any individuals — most especially the young people, families and community we have the privilege of serving,”
Sadly, in this case, there was a teacher who confused his need to prove his patriotism more so to himself than others and felt justified in basing his reaction to a legal action on racism, nationalism, and politics and in so doing violated the law by first berating the student for the exercise of an established right and then acting on the assumption that the parental opt-out was not signed or could be easily ignored.
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