#AtoZ: P is for Paddling

A Mississippi mother sued because her twelve-year-old son was paddled at school for disrespect. After sighting a small bruise on her poor baby's buttocks, she wanted justice for "child abuse." Here's a link: Mid South Mother Seeks Answers.

Lisa McDonald, the student's mother

If my child had gotten paddled for misbehavior, I'd be livid too . . .  at my kid. Don't get me wrong; I'm not a bible-toting-spare-the-rod southerner. In fact, I've raised three good kids without spanking any of them, butt (I mean but), if my child was so disrespectful that an adult had to hit him with a board, I wouldn't broadcast my poor parenting on the news.

Maybe someone needed to beat him. In fact, I bet his underpaid teacher was the abused person. Plus, the article never told exactly what the kid did. He could have taught a kid from a foreign country how to speak English. I've seen middle schoolers do that. 

"See the PE teacher. His name is Mr. Butt Face." 

Or maybe the juvenile delinquent blew up a toilet, spilled oil on the floor, or put stink bugs in the cafeteria. The shoddy news reporters left out the best part of the story. 

What do you think the kid did to get paddled in Mississippi?

Teacher's Curse

We've all heard of the mother's curse, "I hope one day you have a kid who acts just like you," but did you know there is also a teacher's curse? Although most of my students have liked me, I certainly would not be so vain as to claim that I've pleased all of them. In fact, I had one little stinker years ago who absolutely despised me.

I'm not sure what I ever did to make her hate me so much. Perhaps it had to do with her having problems with her mother, who I was friendly with, or maybe it was that she was so gifted that I struggled to meet her needs. Whatever the mystery reason, this girl had it out for me unlike any student I've ever taught.

Now you might be thinking, No. She didn't really hate you, you just think she did, but I assure you, this child hated me enough that I had multiple conversations with her parents about how she hated me and the mystery as to why. Even her siblings would go out of their way to be kind to me just to aggravate her. She was also a sly one who was usually passively aggressive in class just enough to bend the rules without breaking them. For example, she once asked me if the dress I was wearing was one I'd worn when I was pregnant. She knew what she was doing!

I don't see most of my students outside of class, but her family tended to run in the same circles as us, so I was always and forever running into her around town. When seeing me outside of school, she would literally fling her nose in the air and walk by, no matter how her parents tried to persuade her to say, "Hello."

I ran into this beautiful, young woman about a year ago. Although she took my order at Starbucks, I didn't recognized her. She told me who she was and wanted to know how I was doing. Plus, she acknowledged and apologized for having been a nasty child. She went on to tell me how she too is now a teacher. She teaches math at an inner city high school. Knowing about her teaching situation, I really didn't need to place a curse on her. I'm sure she gets much worse than she gave me. What goes around comes around. I do, however, wish her the best.