I knew the whole story. The pillow case in question had come from a home wherein resided 3 powerful women, one of them only just recently four years old. It had been placed on a pillow left in our classroom by a young hispanic boy who has since departed for a different school. A loving teacher placed it, the one and desirable pillow on the cot of a boy with the disposition of a 14 year old, the body (read: tear ducts) of a four year old and emotional responsibilities that rival those of any decent 34 year old.
He told me in no uncertain terms that he was a boy and didn't want a pillow with flowers on it. I said it was given to him to use if he wanted it.
To which he turned away and added, as though he were instructing me to add a pinch of salt to the recipe: "Then you're a b*&^#."
I needed a moment to think this over.
This is not the first time I have been called this... nor is it the first time I have been called such by this person. Questions raced through my mind:
Am I mad? Am I a b*&^#? is this laughable? Should I scold him? What would be the point? Which male figure in his life who speaks this way? What kind of power does that man hold? What would the other teachers do? What do I want to do? What does it mean anyway? Is there some translation guide for pre-K swears or do I need to write that myself? Should I move it up toward the top of the to-do list?
Yes. I should.
I took his little hands in mine. We walked away from the group of 16 busy bees readying for a rest time and I set his muppet sized shoulders back so his little posture would be powerful and proud as I spoke to him. I said to him I would sit but he should stand when I tell him this and then I told him
I'm so sorry.
If it hurt your feelings when you saw that pillow, I am sorry. You don't ever have to use that pillow. It's just like when I give you green beans and you don't like them. You remember that?
He told me that he doesn't like the outsides but he likes the little ones inside the green parts and asked me if I remember the little pieces inside the shells.
Yes. I remember the seeds inside the greens.
But please remember, I said, Sometimes I make a mistake. You don't have to use the words you used. They were not kind words and I know you are a kind person. You can just say, Miss Abigail, I don't like that pillow.
And we practiced using kind words instead of swear words.
I really was sorry to have offended such a smart and wonderful person. It's not that I'm a b*$^#... or that I'm not. The point is that he was trying to tell me something really important about gender identity forming and personal preferences and roles and rights and privilege...
and I had to figure out how to listen in between the words and my bias toward the words he has at his disposal.
Plenty of folks would disagree with my style of reprimand.
Some would say I'm too liberal, that he'll probably do it again or that he will never learn he can't talk to a teacher that way. They may say I've let him get away with disrespect and bad behavior. I say we all get away with disrespect and bad behavior every day. I say there are words that hurt more than swear words and a teacher better learn to listen regardless of how her students speak to her. I say he probably will do it again, in fact, I hope he does because it will give me another chance to pull him aside and legitimate his frustration with the way the world works.
Only when we are honest about frustration can we honestly express it and really move through it.
Besides who am I to make pre-K anything less than a social laboratory? Why not let him try to work it all out over and over again until he learns that this is not a very helpful word around these parts, even if it does carry weight at home or abroad? If this were a math problem I'd give him multiple chances. It's a social emotional problem and he needs all the chances he can get.
Even if it does feel really good to let it fly, it can hurt those he loves. I want him to learn this while he is yet surrounded by love instead of in search of it.
Had I returned his disrespect for my position of power with a disdain for his familial vocabulary or disrespect for his expression it would have been more confusing than corrective even to his little brilliant mind. All this is confusing enough even before we start limiting his vocabulary.
In my classroom there are no such thing as bad words, but there are lots of unkind ways of expressing your opinions. It isn't the opinions that offend in and of themselves, it is the disrespectful and disdainful expression of those opinions that causes such strife in our community. I don't want to defend my opinion of swears or pillows as though it is the only opinion or the most truthful. I even try to apply this logic to arguments over abortion, marriage equality and child-rearing... which is why I'm still learning how and when to tell you what I really think. I'm learning from four year olds--they are great teachers. When you look around my classroom you see little faces of real people on the front lines of these battles: there are folks who use my students as proof that their mothers are in search of a welfare check, that their parents should be denied basic rights as a family unit or that a single mother will never be able to raise a child on her own.
If you are still learning how to offer opinions about topics such as this, you're in good company and welcome to my classroom any time. That is the real moral of this story anyway.
Pre-K is a grandiose and functional place to sort things out. And I don't ever want to lose sight of that... if it seems as though I might, dear readers, you have every right to remind me; and I say so knowing that you will use any words you have at your disposal.
