Man to Man

So we have an advisee system in place at school. A teacher has a group of 12 students who s/he is responsible for: emotionally, academically, socially etc. In their freshman year of High School students are placed with an advisor and at the end of each year they can either choose to stay with the same advisor or choose another one. Teachers have no say in the matter. Students who lose an advisor have first choice, then incoming Seniors, Juniors, and Sophomores.

I had the same advisee group, give or take a few, for four years. I had taught all but 3 students of the class of 2006. They were MY class.

Anyhow, as BH left and all my advisees had graduated and moved on to college, BH's advisees chose me as their advisor.

One of these students is in AP English Lang, in his Junior year. His English teacher is also my Department chair (RW). He did poorly on his English Mid-term and RW did not write a progress report. I asked her for it and she overreacted like she does to everything else. She's so hyper and volatile; it cannot be healthy. Everything is a crisis and in "all [her] years of experience of 34 years [she's] never experienced something like this...." and so on and so forth.

She felt this student needed more time to complete tests. So, I informed her that there was documentation at home but the student was "morally against extended time."
She was enraged. "But he should take it...Oh, oh, oh, something just needs to be done!"

I let her know that his parents, tutor, and I had spoken with him, but he still refused the extended time.

I smiled and walked away politely.

Cut to library.

I'm sitting in the library with my study hall group and JL approaches me, "Ms. T, may I borrow you?" (No. You may not borrow me. I'm not a library book.) "Sure, Mr. L, what's up?"

He proceeds to ask me why I told RW that the said student gets extended time, when there is no paperwork at school. I told him my side of the story: the paperwork is at home, mum, dad, and tutor want him to take the time; student refuses. RW sees us in the hallway and joins the conversation.

OK, so she's in her late 50s early 60s tops. She's shorter than I am (yes, that is humanely possible!) and JL is over 6 feet tall. We're standing there, two short women and a tall guy having this conversation.

RW starts stroking JL's arm, smiles, and laughs coyly!

"Oh you should speak to him. Man to Man. Guy to guy. You're the big man. You're the boss. He'll listen to you."

JL is a little embarrassed and says,

"R. stop! You should be my publicist! Oh come now, as if Ms. T isn't influential!"

She continued fawning over JL. Agghhh. I felt sick. We adjourned. Now I was angry! I'm a f****** great advisor and the insult was not going down well. I could have let it go, but I chose not to.

I went to her office and I asked to speak with her. I told her that I felt insulted and that she insinuated I wasn't a good advisor because I was a woman.

She told me she was a card-carrying feminist (Honey, you don't need a card to be a feminist, you either are or you're not!). How she had been left out all of last year (what are WE in High school now? I know we teach in one...but seriously. Is this retaliation for some wrong you think I did you?), how difficult it was to be new at the school. (Ummmm, you're missing the key points here: you didn't write a progress report and you called me an ineffective advisor because I'm a woman.) I apologized for any harm I may have caused her emotionally last year, I know what it is like to be new and I felt a little bad that she was sad; but I believe she was being manipulative and playing the "oh I hurt you, see, you also hurt me in the past" card. Also the "I completely f***** up and now I'm changing the focus of the discussion ..." card.

She stated that her point was that boys needed to speak to men. Granted, there are certain things that girls need to speak to women about and other things that boys need to speak to men about. But this?

I stated that the boy's father was a MAN, the boy's tutor was a MAN, and they had spoken to the student and he didn't want the extended time. That's when she said that JL would be the right person to speak to him as he is the principal!

"So, R we want to intimidate the student to take extended time?" Uggghhh. It was painful. Let it be said, she gave me a hug and we both apologized to each other.

JL spoke to the student; he refused the extended time, once again.

I never did get that progress report.