life lessons, brought to you by your white english teacher

Early this morning I saw one of my students walk in the front doors of the school with a bloody, scabby, mangled face. He had been in a fight yesterday after school. The phrase I'd hate to see what the other guy looks like flickered across my lips, but I held back. This looked pretty serious. He had black eye, a knot on his forehead the size of an egg, a fat lip and some busted knuckles. Before he even said he was in a fight, I knew he had been.

He's a kid who is a little rough around the edges. It is apparent by his appearance that life has not been easy for him. And he's a good student. Contrary to what the young teacher I was four years ago thought, scuzzy kids aren't always dumb. R is bright and energetic, and wants to enter into the military after graduation. Both goals (graduation and military) are feasible for him, and he will be one of those students I will look for as they walk across the graduation stage.

So when I asked R if he had seen a doctor, or was checked out, he said no. I wasn't happy about that, but there wasn't much I could do about it. And I could tell he didn't really want to talk about it, so I didn't press the issue.

I saw him a few hours later in my fifth period class, and needless to say the rest of the class was abuzz with the situation. The story comes out that my student, R, promised his sister, S (another one of my students) that he wouldn't hit this other kid. The other kid was S's ex boyfriend, and R and ex got into a verbal altercation. R told the kid that he wouldn't hit him, because he promised his sister, an the other kid took a swing. And swung and swung and swung. And R didn't fight back, because of a promise to his sister. R doesn't remember much of the fight, he was knocked to the ground, and subsequently knocked out, in the first hit.

R asked to see the nurse; he wanted some tylenol for a headache (ya think?). After R left the room, the kids were up-roared that the fact that he hadn't fought back. I listened for a few minutes to them go on and on about how he should have fought back, and how he was a coward for letting that happen.

So I politely brought to their attention the fact that what R did, or, incidentally, chose not to do, was actually quite noble. He had made a promise not to get into a fight with the kid, and so he didn't. My students refused to see that the kid who was beating R, while he was on the ground, unconscious, was actually the coward, for hitting a defenseless person. No matter how many ways I tried to spin it, they still had reason after reason as to why R was the one who was weak in this situation.

Which brought on the question: Miss J, wouldn't you fight back?

Try as I might, I couldn't get these kids to wrap around their heads that I have never, nor will I ever be in a situation where I would either need to throw a punch, or protect myself from being punched. I explained to them that I live my life in such a way that these are not common occurrences, and for that matter, aren't even rare occurrences.

My students can't imagine a life where physical fights don't exist. Which is incredibly depressing. And try as I might, I can't convince them that "fighting isn't the answer." Because to them, fighting is the answer. Or, at least it's the answer when it's more important to save your face, than it is your dignity.

[P.S. It's becoming more apparent to me that I have more readers than the two that I always thought I had. And while I am a closeted blog-lurker myself, it would be nice to know at least who some of you are. Either comment here, or send me an email and let me know you're reading. Don't worry, HH, TN, SJ, SG, MA and BB, I know you read. And now I know that JP and TD read ... so who else is out there? Come out, come out, wherever you are!]