This “moment” is not for the faint of heart as it involved a real life incident in the classroom.
I hesitate to share this story as it may shed some unfortunate light on me as a teacher and a decision I once made. Nevertheless, here it is: a true story as best as I can remember it, quite a few years having intervened between then and now . . . . I have forgotten their real names so I will just fictionalize the two students as Tanisha and Paul.
I entered a period of my life where I was, in the wonderful smart-alecky phrase, “over-educated and under-employed.” That was me: a PhD in my back pocket and no professorial opportunity on the horizon since I refused to leave the Bay Area and the pickings were slim staying where I was. Somehow I ended up working as a substitute teacher, a “temporary” condition that lasted years before I returned to school to earn a teaching credential, which turned my luck around.
The phone would ring early in the morning and a voice would ask if I wished to accept an assignment at such and such a school. That day I believe it was a fourth grade classroom assignment I accepted. Most of the time I followed the usual routine: get there early, make a seating chart, locate materials, read over the lesson plans, and welcome the kids to the classroom. There was a sliver of diversity but white kids were still in the majority and I think there was only one African-American student.
I noticed one girl whose parents were probably bi-racial due to her light skin tone. She had a wonderful attitude; she was polite and smart. And then, lo and behold, a fourth grade boy came scurrying into the room right behind Tanisha. I could not believe my eyes but Paul was overtly harassing her every chance he got. This continued long enough to prove I was not imagining things. He lived to make her life miserable, to bump into her, to knock books or papers out of her hand or off her desktop and the like.
Tanisha’s parents had probably impressed on her the need to behave well at school and never to fight since she always remained composed as though nothing out of the ordinary was occurring, when it was. I understood her choice but I also felt she had the right of self-defense if she cared to exercise it. She took all of Paul’s harassment in stride, not losing her sweet composure, although having learned a few tricks to keep him at bay, interposing her body in such a way as to frustrate Paul’s attacks and preventing him from striking at whatever she might be holding.
I was flabbergasted! Subs don’t have much authority beyond maintaining classroom order; we usually don’t have any influence on decision-making at a schoolwide level and we experience precious little chance for follow-up should something serious out of the ordinary occur. My options seemed limited; I determined to talk to Tanisha when the opportunity arose. Around 10:00am we got to the morning recess.
All the kids quickly left the room, including Tanisha and Paul, and I was left standing by the teacher’s desk mulling things over. Was this something I needed to report to the office? and if so, what would I say? I noticed that some kids had left their chairs pushed out and there was even a lone chair askew that somehow got left out by itself near the door; whose chair it was or how it got there, I had no idea. Messy rooms with chairs scattered about annoy me but this was on me, the teacher, if I forgot to remind the students to push their chairs in under their desks.
A recess of ten or fifteen minutes can shoot by rather quickly so I decided it wasn’t the right time to try and get to the office and back (those poor souls are always so busy with office work, sick kids, etc.) I decided to go outside and watch the students play, especially to get another glimpse of the on-going situation between Tanisha and Paul, since he was obsessed with the desire to harass and bother Tanisha as much as he could. That it was racially motivated was plain to see.
The bell rang ending recess and as we got back inside the classroom I looked at Tanisha; she had caught up with me and was walking by my right side, probably a defensive strategy on her part. A student, even a boy like Paul, would not dare to strike her when she was next to the teacher. Sure enough, Paul was right behind her but had slowed to leave a little space because I was there.
I still wasn’t sure how best to handle the situation so I said to her as a kind of stop-gap measure, “You know, you don’t have to take that from him.” I was taking the long view, how people must fight for their rights, etc. She looked up at me with her eyes sparkling and that sweet smile on her face. The next thing I knew she whirled around and eyed Paul who had again snuck up right behind her, waiting his chance.
She took her two little arms and hands, placed them on his chest, and gave him a shove! From the wild look in his eyes, Paul had to be the most surprised boy in the world. Whatever racist stereotypes his parents had been filling him up with dissipated in less than a second. His faced drained of all color and that surprised frightened look in his eyes became ever more pronounced.
He stumbled backwards a few feet from the push. I watched all this as if in slow motion; Paul had gotten an unexpected comeuppance and knew not how to deal with it. He tried to regain his balance as he stumbled backwards and he almost succeeded . . . but that’s when he bumped into that wayward chair by the door and suddenly he went tumbling backwards, head over heels, and fell in a heap on the floor with arms and legs askew and the chair on top of him.
All the blood was gone from his face and you could see he was now plainly scared of Tanisha. Like most bullies he had picked on someone who he thought would remain be a passive victim, a slender young girl who would always be an easy target. Tanisha’s sudden act of defiance, her “get-away-from-me!” push that sent him backwards and tumbling to the floor had defied everything he thought he knew. He was no longer in control of the situation; she was.
Tanisha again looked up at me with that sweet smile of hers but without saying anything (how much she enjoyed that push is anyone’s guess!) I looked down at her and said quietly “That’s not exactly what I had in mind” but of course I suppose it was since the outcome secretly delighted me. I decided there was no urgency in informing the office that I had a boy who was harassing Tanisha as she seemed to have taken care of the matter. The change in Paul was immediate and dramatic; I have seldom seen a kid become so meek and humble so rapidly, from boisterous bully to chastised boy in the blink of an eye.
I was a little concerned lest Paul report what happened to the office, especially if he exaggerated or misrepresented the facts and omitted his role in the situation as the provocateur who got what was coming to him. But then, being pushed like that by a girl, with an inglorious tripping-over-a-chair encounter and his final crumpling to the ground, was not something he was going to be eager to share. His whole demeanor had changed; he had been taught a lesson and he was learning to meekly accept the fact that Tanisha was a real person who could act boldly when she wished.
What a moment! I just crossed my fingers and hoped the rest of the day would go smoothly.
That is why I hesitate to share this story because I know a more experienced teacher would have found another way to have handled the situation. And yet, despite lingering feelings of complicity concerning my own role in the affair, I don’t really feel much guilt or regret. Actually, truth be known, I still feel a smile come to my lips, even after all these years, every time I think of Tanisha’s push and Paul’s futile efforts to regain his balance as he stumbled backwards until his final awful tumble over that one out-of-place innocent-looking chair waiting to deliver the coup de grace.
Who left their chair out of place I was never able to determine but it certainly played its own small role in changing the racial dynamics in one fourth grade classroom that day, that’s for sure!
From Moments in Teaching: “Black Pushes Back”
