The Taming of the Shrew

There are often students who wake me up at night. Sometimes it’s because I’m worried about them, but sometimes it’s because they’re annoying. Back in the past, I had one student who I would truly classify as evil; he liked making other students cry, like, that made him happy. He kept me up at night, especially worrying who he was going to hurt next. We had to have a mediator for him to work out a problem with a teacher who he was being rude to.

Now, there is a situation going on with a student who never shows up to one of my classes and got a bad grade. Her father is an assistant principal somewhere, and he excuses all her absences. She is also personally very disagreeable. I’m guessing that she always gets her own way, and she is really aggressive when she can’t.

This bad grade in my class is added to bad grades in other classes, and she’s failing for the moment. I was asked to change part of her grade because the school felt that this particular part of the course was graded differently than we do in other classes, and I agreed to this as long as it still reflected that she was failing.

The way it was asked for, though, annoyed me. The whole situation annoys me. I don’t care if she comes to class; she’s pretty horrible and I’d prefer to never see her again. 

So I woke up the day after these interactions and wrote an email, taking parts of the school rules and highlighting them for everyone involved, and restating that I’m not doing something odd, or special. And I realized afterward, how much it had gotten to me.

I could not just let it pass. I was angry. A little bit at the student, a little bit with the administration who I felt was not supporting me. And in the end, a lot towards myself, for letting myself get emotionally involved. The “shrew” is me.

So I’m going to have a long talk with Foro today, my own personal wisdom counselor.

The other shrew, the student, I will leave to her own devices. She is not worthy of the attention, other than as yet another tool to help me learn more about myself and become a better person. Given how she’s starting out in life, it might already be too later for her. I can only feel pity, which is an appropriate response. Anger is not.

Now I need to learn my lesson, and try to move on.