I feel like sh*t -- in a good way.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yeah, I thought that title would get some attention.

Here’s the story. My job is sort of a teacher’s aide for a local high school band. We’ve had one kid in the band who goes out of his way to get a rise out of the band director. (Intentionally playing wrong notes, playing stuff that isn’t written, muttering things while the director is trying to teach, etc.) The problems are this:

*He’s one of the most musically talented members of the band.

*He’s the son of the Assistant Band Director.

*We’ve never been actually able to catch him red-handed at anything.

We have bathrooms in our band room, and lately, there had been a lot of offensive graffiti showing up in the boy’s room. Really bad. Frequently, it was about me or the band director (and sometimes both). Never about the assistant band director (clue #1). This problem came to a head last week when something offensive was written about the band director’s daughter (She’s only 12, fer crissake!)

This past weekend, the director bought some paint and painted over all the graffiti. And he and I made plans. Before band class today, we double checked the bathroom to make sure nothing new had appeared on the walls. Still clean - so far so good. As the kids came into class, I discretely kept an eye on the boy’s room. When a student went in and left, I went in again and checked things out. Two other students went in and out. Still clean. The boy in question went in. He took a long time. Then he left and I (still discretely) went in to check it out again. “P.S. fcks Mary Ross in the a*****” was written on the wall. (Names have been changed, but P.S. represents another band member and “Mary Ross” represents the director’s daughter. Also, the offensive words were spelled out.)

I called the director up, keeping anyone else who wanted to use the bathroom from going in. I told him who the guilty party was, and now the boy is under suspension, and we’re hoping that we’ll be successful in kicking him out of the band altogether.

I had the shakes for about a 1/2 hour later. I feel bad for the kid, but he stepped over the line and needs to learn that his actions have consequences. I’m certain that the worst of this is not over yet. He has a long history of lying to his father, and his father believes him. He is already telling his father that he didn’t do it, although no one else could have.

Don’t really know why I’m posting this. I just need to let off some steam…

Now with 1000 posts of pure wisdom!
(or something)

2

It can be draining to do something tough when you know it’s the right thing to do. It may not feel like it but you did him a favor.

3

For some kids, all they need is that first real brush with authority to straighten out. I’m one of them.

In junior high, a friend and I were minor troublemakers for quite a while. We’d sneak out of study hall (or band practice) and wander the school causing problems of slight consequence: rearranging tables in classrooms, stealing the occasional unattended notebook, setting the timers on the ovens in the Home Economics kitchen, etc. There was no malicious intent in our minds; we just liked the thrill of getting away with stuff. We weren’t really suspected of anything because we were good students academically and involved in lots of extra-curricular activities.

Needless to say, eventually I got caught red-handed doing something and served some time in detention. My parents hit the roof and threatened to have me held back a year “so you can mature a little.” The thought of being held back was just too humiliating to bear, so I shaped up pronto.

It sounds like your nemesis is kind of like me. Sure, the content of the grafitti is a little disturbing, but I doubt that it has any real significance outside of the sheer vandalism of it all. Yeah, the kid will lie to his father about whether he did it (I did), and the father, confronted with effectively incriminating evidence from your stakeout, will know the kid is lying. He’ll get his comeuppance, and unless he’s incorrigible, the embarassment of getting caught and the sting of a suspension will probably nip his delinquent tendencies in the bud.

4

You definitely did the right thing and at some point he will likely thank you for it.

We are, each of us angels with only one wing,and we can only fly by embracing one another

5

I may be reading too much between the lines here, based on my own encounters with spoiled bullies, so correct me if I’m wrong, MrKnowItAll. IMHO, the inclusion of another band member’s name in the kid’s graffiti implies that he’s probably causing a good deal of tension for the band as a whole, not just the director. Talented or not, he has no right to ruin what should be a fun, educational experience for the rest of the kids. He may need some kind of professional help-- hard to tell from your post if he’s just a jerk or if his behavior is something he can’t control. Sadly, I have a feeling the father won’t be the one to guide him to the help he may need.

Still, even though you may have to deal with some unpleasant fallout from this, I think you did the right thing. The other band members will probably thank you for it, and maybe the kid himself will be shaken up a bit by getting caught-- might even inspire him to clean up his act. Maybe.

Gamera is really neat, he is full of turtle meat, we’ve been eating Gam-er-aaaa…

6

Thanks for the support, people. I needed it.

For the record, Rosebud is correct in his assessment. The kid has been a disruption in the band, and many of the band members resent him a lot. But the scary thing is that he’s also very charming. By that I mean that in one-on-one situations, he’s very friendly and personable. I’ve worked with him on an individual basis before, and he’s a bright, attentive, and hard-working musician. I’ve seen students who were cursing him during band practice for his disruptive behavior pal around with him after practice. The more I think about it, the scarier his future seems.

Nurlman, I’m sure you’re right. I don’t think he meant it as an attack on “Mary”. More than likely, it was more of an attack on “P.S.” and another attempt to further upset the director. Then again, it might be that he does it just to see what he can get away with.

I don’t look forward to going in to work tomorrow…

Now with 1000 posts of pure wisdom!
(or something)

7

Make sure you keep us posted.

8

Unrelated, but it is me or is this post up twice on the board?

Louie: young guy, possibly a bit green, but smart as paint. - Greg Charles

9

Yeah, I’m getting it twice, too. Stranger still, both of them have Louie’s post. Think I’ll skip over to ATMB and point it out.

Now with 1000 posts of pure wisdom!
(or something)

10

Nurlman, I don’t think you and the band gremlin are quite on the same page. Pranks, like setting the home ec timers, are one thing; slander and graffiti another.

I guess I’m just better off living with my inner tensions.
—Snoopy

11

Well, I’m on my way to a rehearsal and just wanted to stop in long enough to relate what went down today.

The director talked to the principal, dean, yadda yadda yadda and said that he wanted the kid out of the band program. After hearing all that had happened, they agreed. Now I’m guessing on this part: I think the kids father, the assistant director, talked them into just giving him a two day in-school suspension if he could get the director to agree with it.

Done guessing.

The father came in and told the director that they were giving him the suspension and asked if he thought that would be enough. The director said “No, I want him out of the band.” What followed was a short yelling match during which accusations were thrown around. No surprise there.

Later, the father told the director that he was “pulling the kid from band”. The director said, “Fine.” As he told me later, it didn’t matter what it was called, as long as he was gone.

At the end of the day, the father told me to give the director a message that he wouldn’t be in tomorrow. He was taking his son to another high school to see about getting him transferred. No problem there.

All in all, it went better than I had expected, a whole lot better than I feared. Since I was the one who actually caught him, I was concerned that my honesty and integrity would be called into question. I was also worried about a one-on-one confrontation with the father. There was, after all, no way that I could avoid him since we are co-workers.

The director told me at one point that I would probably be asked to tell the powers-that-be my side of the story. I had expected that. Honestly, I had expected that for first thing this morning, but so far it hasn’t happened yet. Now that the kid is transferring to a new school, I’m hoping that it won’t happen at all.

Despite the hard feelings that are blanketing the whole work environment right now, I think everything is turning out for the best. Hopefully, the kid is learning that his father can’t protect him from everything. The rest of the kids in the band seem to have more respect for the director than I’ve seen from them in the 13 months that I’ve worked there. Best of all, the kid will now be in an environment out of his father’s eye and may be able to relax and work on his trumpet playing. (He’s probably going to study music in college, assuming he doesn’t screw up anymore.)

There’s going to be some hard feelings for awhile, but I think the worst is over.

Now with 1000 posts of pure wisdom!
(or something)

12

Bricker, I should say you had a lot of fun at 22! :slight_smile:

(Ah, yes, the 20s – excellent years!)

I had a relationship with a lady 6 years older than me and usually liked to find someone about 6 years younger. Now days, feeling like a dirty old man, I’m looking around hopefully for someone 10 to 20 years younger.

I know a lady who, when 49 was happily bedding a young man of 22 and wearing him out. (She looked good!) She liked the younger men because they weren’t as set in their ways as older men and – she said – they felt better. I met a girl of 24 who was seeing and bedding a man of 56 and said she liked older men because they were more mature and settled down and appreciated her more than younger men did. (I certainly would have appreciated her!)

As I’ve grown older, I’ve begun to think this May/December thing has merits.

13

HEY! THAT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE’D MY POST GO?

SORRY PEOPLE>

14

This is supposed to be here.

You did right. These days, kids get away with far too much and they know it. He stepped over the line when he chose to attack the little girl by slander and no doubt he told his buddies about what he did.

He got off easy. When I was in school, things could be tougher. I once got caught smoking in the bathroom, by a teacher who had caught me several times before. (I wasn’t real smart back then.) He made me put the smoke out and then I had to eat it or face suspension for two weeks. I ate it – and spent the next period in the toilet for other reasons. (Lark cigarettes. Taste like crap when chewed.)

I mouthed off to my PE teacher and got jerked off of my feet by my T-shirt front, shaken like a rag doll and asked real loudly if I wanted to apologize. (I did.)

When being a pain in the butt in English class I go shipped to the assistant principal and got paddled and my folks were called and when I got home, I got spanked again.

Being a nice kid, I wrote something nasty concerning a female teacher on the bathroom wall, got caught and spent a Saturday washing down the wall and repainting everything in that bathroom. The janitor, a huge old guy, had the task of making sure I did it right and he politely threatened to kick my little butt if I messed up.

Right after that, I straightened up. I actually appreciate those teachers today. Plus, I’m a great advocate for increasing the pay of teacher in today’s school system.

15

Okay. One last update and I’ll let this thread die a nice, peaceful death.

The kid wasn’t able to transfer this late in the school year, but he won’t be coming back into band. He’ll be spending that period helping out in the library. Next year he’ll be in the new school.

The boy’s father told me today that he actually feels kind of relieved. The kid felt like he was being picked on, and the director felt like the boy was harrassing him, which made the situation very tense for the boy’s father (the assistant director). Now the father feels like that conflict of interest will no longer exist.

The boy is very embarrassed by the whole thing, and his father has been stressing to him that this is a good oportunity to learn from his mistakes, and not let that happen again.

I’m told that the boy’s private music teacher (who is also a professor at the local university), feels that if he keeps his nose clean and continues to work hard on his playing, he’ll have an excellent shot at a scholarship after he graduates next year. So, the kid’s music career has not been destroyed.

And finally, the last couple band practices have gone very well. I think the band members have a new respect for the director, plus the distraction of a trouble maker has been removed.

It’s been a tense week, but things are calming down, now. I think the long-term benefits will be excellent for everyone involved.

Thanks again for everyone’s support. I love you guys.

Now with 1000 posts of pure wisdom!
(or something)