Benjamin Netanyahu explained to Bill Maher that the world is still in the middle of a huge historical shift. Since the Jews are no longer at the mercy of hostile nation-states, but now in their own land with their own laws, the Israelis refuse to be bullied. They will not be victims. Still, the world has not yet gotten used to this shift, in Netanyahu's opinion. Jews are supposed to be victims, they are supposed to put up with abuse, just as the Jewish populations throughout Europe and the world had done for so many years.
"We are no longer victims," Netanhyahu told Bill Maher,
As a substitute, I made the decision that I would no longer be a victim, either. I had to make the decision: would I put up with the students' disrespect, and no one would learn?
Or would I take the risk of throwing as many students as it took so that I could get through the day?
I had tried the former method, and it just did not work. The students did not behave any better, and no one really learned anything.
At least when I took whatever steps I needed to, those students who did want to learn — got to learn!
Of course, some students never adjusted to this truth about me. I was one substitute who would not put up with any more folly.
In one AP US History class, the students refused to be quiet. After the third time shouting for quiet, I raised my voice, telling one student I would throw him out, and the rest of the class could forget about watching a movie that day. The whole class fell silent, and the student teacher watching at the back of the room covered his mouth in glad surprise: someone had finally gotten the class to shut up!
Then there was that one Spanish class, when the two girls hissed at me from the back of the room, telling me that I did not have the "right" to write up and send a student out of the room. But I did it anyway, and they just hissed "Ex-tra!" The next week, the Spanish teacher commended me for the disciplinary measures that I took, and he requested me often.
I bristled somewhat, though, when he told me how he had to deal with the same students day after day, youth who never commanded any respect at home or with others, and who felt entitled to harass teachers and interrupt the classroom experience for others.
Some of the minority students were particularly incensed with me, that I would dare to write them up and send them out for the day. "What the F—- DID I DO?!" One kid yelled at me as I picked up the phone to send him out. His crimes? He was throwing paper around the room, talking over me, and interrupting me for two days in a row. I just knew that there was no way that I would have a peaceful day as long as he was allowed to keep acting up. He had to go, and that was all there was to it.
One freshman audaciously slandered me, shouting: "This guy actually thinks that he's the teacher!" When I called his mother, she nearly tore him a new one. She cursed a blue streak, shocked that her son would act like that in class. She was very supportive, but one parent can keep one kid in line for one day, hardly enough to sway an entire class or an entire culture embedded with the wicked notion that a substitute teacher is a second-class citizen who deserves no respect at all.
A few years back, one young lady said to me: "You're not "Mister"'. You're just Art." Referring to me by my first name was the height of contempt, at least according to this person. I am well-aware that Southern Whites would treat blacks in the same contemptuous manner, referring to them by their first name, even in a court of law.
Could one say that these students were, figuratively speaking, putting me in the back of the bus?
One student snidely asked me, "So, what's it like sitting at the front of the bus?" I am a white person (whatever that means), yet a growing number of students think that they can belittle me because of my skin color. Are we really doing our students any favors by telling them to define themselves by their skin color or ethnic background? The whole mindset seems to be breeding more prejudice, not a greater sensitivity toward one another.
The last nail in the coffin, the student who made me accept once and for all that I was a "sub" who deserved to be picked on, was in an advanced French class. This kid would never do any work, and he was convinced that I was out to get him. When I had to send him out of class for talking during a test, he chose to play the victim, and snidely commented: "What's wrong with you man?"
I told him to step outside, and tried to bring him down to earth again, but he just cut me off: "You're a sub!" The subtext of this comment: "You do not have the right to send me away. You do not get to take charge."
In other words, I was supposed to be a substandard sub, one who just "puts up with it", just like the other subs. I understood why he was so angry and frustrated, in part: I did not fit into his worldview that he was so used to, and there was nothing that I was going to do that day that would change his mind.
Still, I refused to be a victim. "That's your problem, kid!" I shouted back. "I'm a teacher! And you just don't get it!"
At that point, I had given up on trying to justify myself. I never really had to before, so why should I start now?