Rat

by Jane Marks

I don't remember the first words that Cory Stevens (pseudonym) uttered to me, but I remember the last:

"Rat."

A few weeks prior, Cory and his girlfriend were having a fight outside my classroom. They're a well-known couple in our high school; their tumultuous relationship fluctuates between uncomfortable lunchroom make-outs to all-out hallway shouting matches. This particular episode was mild but disruptive, so I popped out into the hallway to try to get them to go back to class. Authority was a sensitive issue with Cory, but I had him in class last year and earned a modicum of respect from him, so I had some tricks in my bag on how to handle the situation.

"Cory," I said, "I understand you two are having a tough conversation right now, but it's disrupting my class. I'm going to ask you to please go back to class now and finish the conversation after school."

It was obvious that Cory was not ready to end the conversation and neither was his girlfriend. I could see the cogs turning in his brain, figuring out how he could continue this argument and nonetheless allay me.

He said, "Yup. Give us just another minute."

I responded, "A minute. Okay, but if you're not gone in a minute, I'm coming out again."

Before a minute had lapsed, the argument had escalated. Cory's girlfriend couldn't believe he had commented on how attractive some other girl was in the lunchroom. He was defending himself and his "natural manly instincts." Egads. I went out again.

"Okay. Minute's up. You're still here. I'm asking you again to go back to class. If you don't, I'm simply going to call the vice principal to come and escort you." I don't even think they broke eye contact with each other, they were both so mad. I called the vice principal, and I didn't hear their voices again.

Flashback further to last year when I had the distinct displeasure of having Cory in class. Please understand, I am not an easily displeased teacher. For the most part, I am patient, calm, willing to compromise, and truly, truly believe in the good in people, but Cory ran me into the ground with his behavior. He was loud, came in disruptively late, dropped the f-bomb, made fun of other kids, and was just generally intimidating. I felt bad to realize that the days when he was absent were days during which I could breathe a sigh of relief. In fact, it was almost audible to hear the whole class breathe a sigh of relief.

I struggle with this question: what's more important, the education of this one student or the education of the 29 other students in the class? From the way that the administration dealt with Cory, it would seem that his education was more important than the others'. Each time I kicked Cory out, for swearing at another student, for calling another student a fag, for repeatedly ignoring my requests to put his cell phone away, turn his music off, etc, he came back the next class. He didn't apologize to me or the class; he just sauntered in 15 minutes after the bell, headphones on, giving excessively loud greetings to kids as he strolled to his desk. Often, he would get a detention for his disruptive behavior, which he would skip. After skipping a certain number of detentions, he would get suspended for a day, which to him was a vacation day that he could brag about. Did these suspensions accumulate to an expulsion? No. Was it ever suggested that the classroom setting, such as it was, was not the right setting for him? Maybe. But I never heard about it.

I tried all I could to get through to him: I was respectful towards him, treated him nicely, talked to him about his interests, tried to be strict with him, tried to be lenient with him, explained to him about why I kicked him out, was up front with him about my expectations, modified assignments, lauded him for good work, and just generally tried every teacherly and interpersonal strategy with him that I'd ever learned. Some of the time, I felt like I was making strides with him: he would turn in an assessment that showed great effort or he would accept a compliment I gave him about his creative writing. He liked to read Stephen King, and we would talk about plots and favorite scenes. For one assignment, I asked students to interview an ESL student about their experience with the English language and with America. Out of fear of his explosive personality, I sat in on Cory's interview, but when the interview began, I couldn't believe my ears. This student, who often dropped vulgar strings of words that were like nails on a chalkboard, showed himself as a supremely affable, engaging, and thoughtful interviewer. He went extra lengths to make the student he was interviewing feel comfortable. I was so impressed that I called his mom to share the compliment. These rare moments reminded me of a tenet that I hold dear: there is good in everyone that just needs a chance to come out. Unfortunately, the good that snuck out of Cory was infrequent, and before I could find the time to pull him aside to compliment his behavior, he'd be engaging in a shouting match with a kid across the room.

In retrospect, Cory was almost never directly confrontational with me; it was always with other students. Once, after he had called a girl in class a c*nt, I was walking him to the AP office, and he said to me, "I'm sorry you had to hear that. I meant no disrespect to you, but she really is c*nt." I told him that I nonetheless felt disrespected because a) that language feels disrespectful to all women, and b) he didn't have enough courtesy to keep his personal business outside of my classroom. Perhaps this lack of confrontation with me was why I continued to put up with him. Or perhaps it was because I have a bleeding heart for kids with a rough exterior who, by their very roughness, give away a certain inner fragility. Or maybe it was because I was a second year teacher who didn't know how else to handle the situation.

All the chances that I gave to Cory, and all the chances that other teachers gave to him leads me to ask the question, how many chances do disruptive students deserve? Cory's behavior prevented other students from learning and prevented them from feeling safe in my classroom (and, I daresay, in other classrooms as well). The civic and social expectations at our high school indicate that members of the community will practice appreciation of diversity in school, will contribute to their community through cooperation and leadership, will show respect for self, others, ideas, property, and the environment, and will exercise integrity and perseverance. If students don't achieve academic expectations, they fail, but what if they don't achieve the civic and social expectations? What if they repeatedly and flagrantly hurt the community? Nothing happens. So they continue to do it.

Right before Christmas break this year, I received an e-mail from a guidance counselor, informing me (not asking me) that Cory would be entering my junior English class. His schedule was being revised, she wrote, "in order to provide a better learning environment for Cory in some classes." Not usually an explosive personality, I almost threw my laptop out the window. I had failed Cory last year (not because he lacks ability but because he couldn't cobble together enough work to show me what he was capable of), so he would be entering a class with the same curriculum and work that he had already failed. Not to mention, he was entering a class that I really enjoyed - in which a good environment had been established where all students felt comfortable speaking. The guidance counselor mentioned that she was hoping to provide a better learning environment for Cory, but HE was his own learning environment. He was like the Tazmanian Devil of learning environments. What she should have said was that she was looking for a dumping ground for him where the teacher wouldn't complain about being walked all over. Not me. Not this time. In my third year of teaching, I had started to exercise my voice. I e-mailed her back.

In the end, due to my e-mail (and e-mails from other teachers who had had Cory before and hedged at the thought of having him in class again), the schedule revision did not go through. Instead, a conversation was set in motion for Cory to be moved to an off campus program. As the vice principal put it, "Cory has burned too many bridges to be successful here. Teachers who were willing to give him one, two, three, four, and more chances are not willing to work with him anymore due to his consistent disruptions." The alternative off-campus program is geared towards students who have difficulty finding success in the regular classroom setting. The classes are smaller, the days are shorter, and the focus is on basic skills that will be useful in the students' futures.

When I heard that Cory would be going to this off campus program, I thought, "Off campus seems like a great fit for Cory. Why wasn't this alternative put into action earlier?" As a fourth year student, Cory only had sophomore-level credits. He had been arrested his freshman year and put into a juvenile detention center for the remainder of that year. Sophomore year, he pulled his act together, but junior year, he was suspended 20 times or more due to offenses as minor as skipping an office detention to as major as punching his fist through a window. As the vice principal explained to me, Cory is an "engager": a teacher would confront him about being late to class, and instead of letting it drop, Cory would cause the situation to escalate and eventually get kicked out of class or suspended for swearing at the teacher, punching a locker, or otherwise being insubordinate. These frequent suspensions should have been an early indication that Cory needed another setting to be successful, but no viable motions were made for making a change until this, his FOURTH year of high school.

This brings me back to an earlier question: what should happen if students regularly disregard civil and social expectations? In the school rules, it is written that habitual infractions of school policies may lead to expulsion by the superintendent. If 20 suspensions isn't "habitual infractions," then I don't know what is. Why was Cory allowed to remain in school to disrupt other students' educations and to scoff in the face of his own? When we promote the democratic motto, "All students can learn," are we saying that "All students will be given the opportunity to learn even when they repeatedly fail to treat the school community with any respect"? If so, we might as well just throw our futures in the fire: that's no way to build a successful community. It's not sending a healthy message to the offender ("do what you want and we'll slap your wrists then invite you back for tea") or to the offended ("your education is going to be put on hold indefinitely until this character cleans up his act").

Although I continued to wonder why Cory hadn't been moved to the off campus program earlier, I was truly happy that he was transferring to an alternative setting where I hoped he would find some success. Unfortunately, he hadn't been at the off campus program for a month before he got suspended for two weeks. In receiving his consequence, Cory had explosively called the vice principal a "motherf*cker" and then went on to say that he had f*cked his wife. Such appalling language and hurtful intent is almost absurd enough to be funny, and yet, the humor hits a brick wall when we consider that this young man is a hurting/hurtful member of our community. To add insult to injury, during the time he was suspended, Cory was arrested, together with his father, for theft and assault. It was around this time that it was confirmed what had long been suspected, that Cory was actually a resident of a different town, so after he gets out of the juvenile detention center, he will be another school district's problem. How convenient for our district, and yet...what justice has possibly been served? What preparation have we given to this student for the future?

The vice principal, who had multiple interactions with Cory throughout his school career, holds the strong opinion that Cory's best placement would be a day treatment center with a therapeutic component. When Cory was in the juvenile detention center as a freshman, he received therapy as part of his sentence, and he found some success with it. Unfortunately, when he was released, this therapy did not continue. In order to make treatment "necessary," Cory would have to have a handicapping condition, and although the vice principal is quite certain that Cory would test positively for a "conduct disorder," such a disorder, although considered by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry to be serious enough to necessitate treatment, is not considered a "handicapping condition," and thus, treatment cannot be required. When I expressed in a conversation with the vice principal that I couldn't imagine how a therapist, in good faith, could let a case like Cory just walk out the door knowing he had such unresolved emotional turmoil festering inside of him, the vice principal reminded me that these therapists in the criminal justice system have a revolving door of patients. When Cory is walking out the door, there's another Cory walking in.

Therefore, the question remains: how can we provide equity for this student, and still ensure equity for the school community?

When it's all said and done, I think that Cory himself struck upon the answer the last time he spoke to me, when he was angry that I had called the vice principal to escort him out of the hallway: RAT. We rat on the students who disrupt our classes vulgarly and incessantly. We rat on ourselves if we are unable to provide what the students need to be successful in our classes. We rat on the schedules and systems that are not supportive of the needs of some of our most challenged students. We rat on the community that is not willing to pay extra taxes to supply much-needed funding to the education of our youth and the hope of our future. We rat on our government for sending the message to our country that bombs are more important than books; for it seems that the less we tattle, the less good we do for the Corys in our schools. The Corys are either begrudgingly passed through the grades because no one wants to deal with them for another year, or they drop out. Neither of these options do a service to the student, the school, or the community, so isn't it time that we rat and rat and rat until we gnaw a whole in the system so big that administrators and taxpayers and senators can't ignore it anymore?

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