A former student, now a third -grade teacher, asked me to consider this question: "What do you do when you have a kid you can't stand?"
She made me nervous. But I'll do my best. I'm taking a deep breath and getting ready to duck when defensive parents start throwing educational toys at my head.
The irony, of course, is that anyone who's been teaching for more than forty-five minutes has been warned about exhibiting favoritism in the classroom. Teachers are always on guard, careful not to demonstrate any hint of the fact that we might prefer one of our students to another.
The policy is a good one. Nobody likes a teacher's pet.
And yet I believe the focus on favoritism eclipses another crucial pedagogical issue. This other subject is a silent enemy, one that lurks, unnamed, in the back of every teacher's mind.
Every teacher knows that every once and a while you get a student who drives you up your classroom wall (the nicely decorated wall, the one with a display of fall foliage which the Kid has already wrecked by ripping the corners off the maple leaves and sticking pins in the eyes of the cute-squirrel pictures).
Or there's a child who makes you want to scratch your fingernails across the board because any sound would be better than her endless nasal whining.
Perhaps you have one who makes you dream about using unbridled sarcasm (or worse, relentless, repetitive teasing) in order to drive home that perhaps junior or princess should take a few steps down in the self-esteem department.
This is not to say that being a child is an easy task, etc.. Seriously, if there's a line forming, let me be at the front of it, as we all collectively announce that raising children has GOT to be the toughest job in the universe.
The toughest job, that is, next to being a kid one's self.
Childhood is not for sissies.
Kids deserve the very best we can give them. That is not up for questioning.
What IS up for questioning is this: why do certain diminutive descendants of humankind get to act like little green monsters?
Actually, I shouldn't say that because it gives green monsters a bad name.
There are kids who hold court like Henry VIII--or, to be more precise, like Richard the Third.
These children will neither have fun nor be fun as they grow up. Their parents do them no favors by indulging them and regarding their selfish behavior as "independence" and their nastiness as "personality."
So parents, please trust me on this point: nobody wants to be in the company of your tiny emotional terrorist.
Yes, love him, love her, unconditionally and absolutely. Don't expect anybody outside of your family to do the same, however.
Accept, too, that you must also do the tough part: you must help your kids understand that other people also have a right to exist.
Otherwise the world will teach them and it won't be as kind.
And--to return to the original question--teachers, please trust me on this point: while it's impossible to feel the same way about every kid, your mission is to treat every one of your students as if you did.
You can, however, bring the parents into a discussion of their children's unacceptably narcisstic, mean-spirited, or bullying behavior. It'll be doing the kid a favor and the parents need to hear it.
Just be prepared to duck.
