| Some Good Page 2 This was not part of the rules of engagement in a program like Prescott. So when Kayla, or anyone else, took the pose of civil disobedience I would just move on, sometimes using the �your grade will be hurt� line of argument for a bit before packing it in. So there were plenty of times when students refused to do work or put their heads down and fell asleep. A problem would develop, however, when the student didn�t just want to withdraw from the class, but wanted to distract others in the class or enlist their cohorts in distractions. Kayla wasn�t stupid by any means. She wasn�t a good student, but she did just enough work to merit a C. She could be the nastiest person in the program, but she could also be funny and even a bit charming, and she used those traits when it was most to her advantage, like with the director or the head teacher. She was sly. She was also looked up to by a few of the younger girls. One of these girls, Amanda, was also in first period English class and, as the fall went on, Kayla made it a practice to incite Amanda each day. I guess Kayla found this entertaining, but the pair of them caused me quite a bit of difficulty. In Amanda I saw a clear case of someone with attention deficit and hyperactivity problems. I had made a few rudimentary diagnoses of such things in my head when I was teaching in a high school, but this was on a whole other plane. Amanda could not stay still. She would constantly fidget, pull papers out of her folder, rearrange her materials, turn pages, write on any paper in front of her, and�when things got stressful for her�Amanda would rip up paper with a vengeance. It didn�t take me too long to realize that Amanda had little control over these impulses, and yet I still found myself saying, �Amanda, stay still.� After class I would shake my head at the futility of such a request. Amanda could no more stay still than she could make it rain on Mars. In fact, the girl took medication to combat her inability to be still. I could not imagine what she�d be like without the meds. Kayla understood Amanda�s tendencies and exploited them. She would egg the younger girl on, encourage her to act out, and laugh when she did. All for a little entertainment. One day I passed out a simple vocabulary quiz and Amanda grabbed the sheet, scribbled across it and pushed the paper toward me. This took, perhaps, three seconds. I stood looking at her. Kayla burst out giggling, and then Amanda looked up at me and said, in an agitated tone, �What?� I wasn�t sure how to respond. She knew that she was doing very badly in English class; she knew there was a quiz scheduled for that day; despite this, she chose to not even try, but to scribble on her paper instead. As I silently formulated what I wanted to say, Amanda picked up a notebook and started rifling through it. �Did you study for today�s quiz?� I asked. �No.� �How come? You knew we were having a quiz today, didn�t you?� �No.� �No!? I--� �Yeah. I knew. But I don�t KNOW any of them.� Now she was pulling stuff from the pockets of the notebook. She did this in a frantic manner, as if she were looking for a hidden key that would save the universe from imminent demise. �Well you have to study mo--� �I DON�T KNOW THEM,� she said through clenched jaws, pausing from her notebook inventory. I took the quiz from the table, placed it on my desk and then put a blank quiz in front of Amanda. �Just try. Do your best,� I said. She looked at me, and then pushed her notebook and all of the papers now scattered before her to the side. She took her pen and went down the first column of multiple-choice questions and, without even reading the question, circled random answers. Then she did the same to the second column. When finished, Amanda slammed her pen down, slid the quiz across the table and went back to her papers. Kayla had been quiet up to this point. No need to instigate when the show had already begun. At this point, however, Kayla said, �Amanda, you�re nuts,� and laughed. Amanda said something under her breath then and, though I acted like I didn�t hear it, I did. �Well, he fuckin� doesn�t get it,� is what she said. On another occasion, Amanda�s daily taking apart and reassembling all of her school papers, notebooks, pens, books and folders became particularly disruptive and our usual exchange resulted in her shouting at me. �Go sit in the hallway,� I told her. �WHAT?� Kayla laughed. �Go and sit at the desk in the hallway. You�re disrupting the class.� Amanda gathered her materials, dropping a pen here and papers there, and left the room. After getting the other students back to doing their assignment, I went into the hall. She was there, continuing to fiddle with her stuff. She looked up when I shut the door to the classroom, but lowered her eyes after that and didn�t raise them while I spoke. I told Amanda that I didn�t want to send her out of the room, but when her actions disrupted the entire class I had no choice. She said little; just sat reshuffling her papers. |