Professor Noob's Daily Disquisitions

The notorious Ms. Mouth, darling of this pedagogical gossip column, finally landed herself in the principal's office, a story that, in its telling, invariably evokes a single response: "About time."

At least, such is the opinion of Reverend Linus (actually, he'd probably like to see her someplace infinitely nastier than the principal's office, but I am obliged to keep this blog civil), Perfect Mentor, and all of Ms. Mouth's peers. That's right - when Ms. Mouth marched to the water fountain despite my explicit and clearly overheard order for her to remain, the words "Send her to the office," were first uttered, not by Perfect Mentor, but by all the students in the class, who in unison turned against their fellow student and denounced her as the little trouble-making snot that she is. In fact, fearing that I would neglect to do so, one of the boys even offered to write her up for me.

On the one hand, such a show of support is heart-warming, not to mention pretty funny. On the other hand, being the hypercritical, paranoid creature that I am, I feel like I've failed. This one student was so out of control that the kids felt like they had to step in? They have so little faith in my capacity to assert myself that they felt obligated to punish her for me? These are the doubts that are gnawing at me now, turning what should have been a "Woot!" moment into a "Whoop-de-fuckin'-do."

It doesn't help that I've consistently been fed conflicting advice as to how to handle Ms. Mouth. There are essentially two schools on the matter: the Stomp Her line of thought and the Smile Sweetly proponents. Reverend Linus falls decidedly into the former, and of course is a great influence on me, but his persuasive rhetoric is balanced by the much more frequently reiterated opinions of the Behavioral Scientist In the Basement and Mr. Rogers.

The former is exactly who he sounds like - a behavioral scientist who lives in the basement and occasionally gives me potent wine and touchy-feely, unconditional-love-oriented advice. Mr. Rogers is the Special Ed assistant in my classroom and has some impressive credentials, including spending more than a decade teaching before becoming a principal (this gig is his semi-retirement). His advice tends to be a little more pragmatic than BSItB's, with fewer rainbows and sparkles and more patient endurance. "If you react, she wins," he says wisely - usually after complimenting me on my mad teaching skillz, which does make me more inclined to listen.

And then there's Perfect Mentor, who started out the semester firmly entrenched in the Smile Sweetly gang, and has become so irritated with all the students' behavior that she's developed a quick-draw with her pen and the write-up slips. Bang! You're suspended.

Of course, the truth is, if it had been any other student, it would never have gotten this far. I've been much quicker on my feet with other students, subjecting myself to a minimal amount of insolence before letting the principal rain his wrath upon them. But I held off with Ms. Mouth, because I felt sorry for her. I know that she has low self-esteem, and that this is the only way she can feel good about herself. I thought complimenting her and talking to her would help. When it didn't, I thought that she'd notice that she was no longer garnering positive attention, that her own classmates were turning against her, and she'd stop on her own. She didn't. And now, the only rewards for my compassion are a disrupted class, students who think I'm incompetent, and one pissed-off schoolgirl. Like they say - "No good deed goes unpunished."

Well, actually, that line is sung, not said: it's from the musical Wicked. Hey, that means I get to be Elphaba! I guess there are some benefits to this situation after all...