You little bastard!

The BBQ Pit
1

Sometimes I love being a teacher.

My car was getting serviced today. I hung out in the wait room for an hour and change, grading papers, getting lesson plans done, etc. During this time a woman and her two sons–aged 10ish and 7ish, I’d say–came in. Big brother began torturing little brother. First, they wrestled in the middle of the room briefly (um…hello??), before sitting down across from me.

Big brother snags little brother’s toy from him, and the two become entangled while little brother tried desperately to get his toy back. He repeatedly whimpered and whined for mom, who was seated next to them, reading a book, and never once lifted her eyes to acknowledge the little one’s complaints. Big brother–who, overhearing, I learned was CJ–holds the toy out of reach from the other, and then starts talking like he’s the toy: “I don’t like you anymore. I want to be CJ’s toy, not yours. You’re blah blah blah” (listing all these reasons why little kid doesn’t deserve his own toy). CJ’s bro began wailing now, very upset, and mom finally looks up–just in time to take a swing at the kids, miss, and demand the toy. She takes the toy away, and returns to her book.

Little bro begins wailing, sobbing, and the CJ–that little bastard–is sitting right next to him, grinning with great pleasure over the misery he’s caused the kid–and the fact his mom did nothing about it. I’m furious over this entire exchange, and so I did what I could: I locked onto CJ with the Teacher Death Stare[sub]tm[/sub]. CJ glanced at me once, realized I was looking at him evilly, lost the grin. Looked back at his bro, began smiling again, then looked to see if I was still sending laser beams out of my eyes. I was. He stared back, realized I was NOT pleased, and the smile completely faded. I locked onto him for long enough to make the brat uncomfortable–and to wipe that self-satisfied grin off his face–and then I returned to my grading.

Mom, of course, never looked up from her book that entire time.

sigh

What a little bastard. Of course, I wanted to bitch-slap the mom around a bit, too.

Ugh.

2

The “Teacher Death Stare”, huh? When’s the instructional video comin’ out?

3

Well Ice, there isn’t much to the TDS. All it takes is about two years’ classroom or child-raising experience. You learn it quite naturally that way.

4

Well, damn, that means I’m out. Guess I’ll just have t’ make do with The Glare.

5

TDS, also known as “The Look”.

'Tis a beautiful thing. Especially when it causes fear in the hearts of kids you don’t even know.

6

I totally fucking LOVE you Ruff!

YOU are the teacher I want my kids to have, not some touchy-feelie-new-age bullshit dipstick. There is ALOT to be said for a well placed glare.

Well done. :slight_smile:

7

here’s the real trick to the TDS / Ultimate Glare Of I-Hate-You-I-Hate-You-I-Hate-You…

don’t blink.

that’s all there is. just stop blinking, make eye contact, and frown. don’t look away. just stare. it crumbles any resolve.

i may be but 15.5, but i can use this on my friends to scare them, or to protect myself.

i am hoping to someday reach the skill of my mentor, an Enrichment teacher. she could literally kill with a glance.

mayhap soon i will no longer need matches to start a fire…

heh heh.
thank goodness i am a “good” kid, and i do not wield the Glare in evil…

8

Funny post saepiroth!

9

One of my teachers in Jr. High always tried to do that, but he always managed to make himself look more like a dumbass more than anything else. One time a kid actually had a staring contest with him when he got in trouble. I guess it only works depending on who you are.

10

thank you, thank you…

11

unfortunately, a great number of so-called parents today cannot control their crotch-monkeys. i’m not sure what happened, but the current crop of glass-eyed moms increasingly turn a blind eye towards their offspring.

anyway, not that it will do any good in the long run, congratulations for taking a stand.

my mom would have given me a swat on the ass for that sort of behavior. it’s so, so sad that too many parents today don’t teach their offspring proper public behavior. it’s no wonder they grow up to blow the heads off their classmates while their clueless parents stand doe-eyed wondering what went wrong.

12

Oh! Oh! I know what happened!

Someone told them “Oh, they’re just doing it to get attention and negative attention is attention. Ignore them and they’ll soon grow bored and stop.”.

:rolleyes:

Screw that. When my brothers and I acted anywhere near that bad it resulted in The Look, followed if necessary by a swat on the ass. It didn’t take long for just The Look to be sufficant.

13

As a brand new teacher, I am beginning to master the Teacher Death Stare. What I’ve found is that I can use it on high schoolers quite effectively. Looking over the rim of my glasses can even boost it up a notch, as does lifting one eyebrow in a "yes, I can see you’re a defiant shit. Now, guess how fast I can write a referral.

However, I need to calibrate it to the 8th graders I now have. They need to be properly cowed.

14

yes, you have to tone it down a little for middle schoolers… leave the setting up too high and you get reddish wall paint that starts to smell after a few weeks, and the parents of the aformentioned wall paint can be SO unreasonable…

15

My husband (a middle school teacher) and I were watching a TLC show on spontaneous human combustion. One person profiled was being touted as being able to cause things he focused intently on to burst into flames.

Hubby said “That’d be so cool! I want to be able to do that! I want to set fire to things just by focusing on them! NEAT!” I said that it wouldn’t bode well in the classroom with a misbehaving student receiving The Glare. His response?

“Oh, no one would ever believe I could do that! They wouldn’t suspect me!”

Evil, evil husband. :wink:

16

One thing about having kids of my own to deal with is that I can use them as a way of sending a message to other parents who aren’t minding their own kids.

Example: My kids are running around while other kids are running around and being obnoxious in an inappropriate spot. I stop my kids and say, “Look. You cannot run around and yell like this. It will disturb the other people here.”, and I make sure to say it loud enough for the other parents to hear.

Ah yes, the Teacher Death Stare. The last remnant of the American teacher’s arsenal of student management weapons that still exits. Of course, it will eventually happen that the TDS will become outlawed as well when “Brandon’s” mom takes the teacher to court for “looking at him wrong” and causing psychological damage.

17

In our family, the TDS (aka the Look, the Glare) was also followed by the three step voice.

  1. “Go to bed. NOW!” Firm, medium volume.

  2. “Go to Bed! NOW!!” More Firm, high volume.

If neither voice 1 or 2 worked, out came voice 3.

  1. “Go to bed. Now.” Firm, extremely quiet, with ice chilling the edges.

We learned voice 3 meant real business. Amazingly enough, I’ve tried it on my nieces and nephews, and also when I babysat. It still works. Combine voice 3 with the TDS and you have a most formidable weapon.

18

The best part, and I know because I had an older brother, is that one day, little bro won’t be so little anymore. Big bro will stop that shit as soon as little bro kicks his ass. It only happens once, and it is the day all the big brother/little brother crap comes to an abrupt end.

19

Teacher Death Stare! I love it! Sadly, I had only just started to learn how to use it, when I quit my job as a pre-k teacher. I learned that the thing to do was to stare at the kid, and KEEP STARING, as Ruffian did, because the kid will look away and then back at you at least once. And the fact that you are still watching them, and aren’t going to let the behavior slide, is enough to cow most kids. It seems like more and more, the only people that seem to expect good behavior from children is teachers. And usually we got it, too. When I went on a field trip with the class, there was always at least one kid who wouldn’t listen to his mom, but would listen to me or the other teacher. And there were the kids who, when their mom was there, regressed in age and acted bratty. We got to actually dread some parents coming on a field trip, because we knew that their kid was going to act up for the rest of the day. Maybe someday these parents will get their act together.

20

Ruffian, as a former teacher, my hat is off to you [sub]that is, if I had a hat on right now, it would be[/sub].

I too have mastered the TDS[sup]TM[/sup], as well as having remnants of the HEY![sup]TM[/sup] voice (modified from several years of Tae Kwon Do, found to be useful at getting the students’ attention on the playground). True, both need to be modified according to the age of the ‘recipient’ and the situation, but the outcomes can be quite amusing, per se.

Not long after quitting teaching, I was at one of the local malls when a bunch of pre-teenagers decided to have a noisy race through the main corridor, nearly knocking over a few children and elderly patrons. Forgetting for the moment that I have absolutely no teacher authority on private property, I let loose with a “HEY![sup]TM[/sup] QUIT RUNNING IN THE HALL!” that brought every one of them (plus a couple of toddlers) to an absolute dead stunned stop. Damned if they didn’t behave themselves the rest of the afternoon (I followed them for a bit just to watch). Not to mention the look of relief on some of the mall patrons.

Hall/Mall, same difference. I was a hero, if but for one brief, shining moment.