Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

I AM A HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE PERSON. not.

did i tell you this story? forgive me if i did. i can't find it. so here goes ...

when the jackal was in 8th grade, often his favorite thing to do in the mornings before school (at that time he was not home schooled - he attended what i like to call the abercrombie and fitch school of assholes. really i don't mean that in a bad way) was play a little guitar. invariably, he'd show up at the breakfast table chewing on a guitar pick. don't say "ew." it's not unusual for guitar players to chew on guitar picks.

he'd put the pick in his pocket, eat breakfast, and then put the pick back in his mouth. i never made a big deal out of it, having played the guitar when i was younger and tasted a bit o' the pick myself. don't hate me.

jackson's first class of the day was english. his teacher was / probably still is an asshole. matty had had her also. she taught neither of my kids a thing. not a thing. bill and i spent a lot of time teaching matty how to write when he had mrs. asshole. [it worked out pretty well for him no thanks to mrs. a who had not one clue. his senior ap english teacher at saint ed's wrote on his college recommendation letter that matt was "the single most talented writer he'd had in senior ap english classes in 15 years."] mrs. a was wrong a lot in what she taught the kids. she was nasty. and a self-righteous prig that believed the hype about all teachers being saints, despite what they really DID. she would denigrate kids in class. not just my kids. she had issues. she was / probably still is a bitch. [shocker: teachers can be bitches, too. yes, they can.]

anyhoo. at the time, jax was not doing what you'd call real well in school. bill and i had asked each of his teachers to fill out a daily form for us. basically, the form was a check list inquiring if jax had handed in homework, participated in class, was prepared for class, alla that shit. and there was a space for comments. each day, jax brought me the signed forms from each of his teachers. so one day, mrs. a sends home the form. he'd done what was required of him that day basically, BUT. mrs. a. writes that jax was in the habit of "eating guitar picks."

i think i was in a pretty bad mood that day - you may have noticed that that happens once in a while here in "nothingbutlove" land.

so i sent back a note to mrs. a that said pretty much this:

dear mrs. a: thank you, THANK YOU, for the note about this disturbing behavior. you'll never know how much i appreciate your attentive supervision of jackson. i will always be grateful that you clued me in to this frightening and possibly pathological behavior. i am immediately making arrangements to have jackson psychologically assessed. a less observant and conscientious teacher may have mistaken this behavior for the benign, albeit annoying habit of merely "chewing" on a guitar pick. indeed, i, myself, am guilty of that. but "EATING" guitar picks! that's an entirely different pathological can of worms. i'm on it right now. thanks ever so much."

i got called into school the next day. actually, bill and i BOTH got called into school. the principal, mr. h, jackson's counselor, AND THE SCHOOL SYSTEM PSYCHOLOGIST were in attendance. mr. h, said to me when i walked into the office, "stacey, stacey, stacey. what did you have to go and do that for?" i told him that mrs. a was just jealous cuz i was a better writer than she'd EVER be. mr. h. agreed that that was a pretty good bet. and i turned to the school psychologist and asked her if she'd read it, cuz it was pretty good.

the meeting was NEVER going to accomplish what mrs. a had hoped. the principal, counselor, system psychologist, and bill and i pretty much agreed that mrs. a was a jerk. they all recommended that jax be moved to a teacher that they thought was a better fit. bill and i politely declined the offer. we had no real expectations of any real academic progress for jax for that year in english, given what mrs. a had to offer. but we felt that he might as well learn to deal with jerks in authority. so he stayed. we worked with him ourselves on writing.

go ahead. yell at me. i was mean to a teacher.

Posted by Stacey at November 17, 2004 03:53 PM