Nobody likes getting a phone call from school.  Somebody is always hurt, needs something or is in trouble.  Yesterday… was a strange combination of all three.

As a rule, when I hear a teacher’s voice on the phone, I am transported back in time, right back-in-school, where I am listening to the authority and wisdom of one who commands respect.  But, during my six minute call yesterday, not so much.

Hellos were exchanged and my son’s high school special education teacher was off, going a hundred miles a Red Bull minute.

In a nutshell, since it was a minimum day, the teacher had decided that the kids were going to try yoga during their shortened P.E. class.  My son, along with some fellow classmates in the autism program, refused to participate and were “benched” for doing so.

Out of all of the other students, my son was apparently the only one giving her “a dirty look” which escalated to “glaring” once she asked him and his pals if they thought they were “too cool to do yoga.”  Because nothing motivates the masses like having their coolness quotient questioned.

The “dirty look” business really bothered and upset the teacher and she sounded hurt and certainly disrespected (and in this moment, I feel I should add, that as a family, we could be in the “dirty look” business professionally – not that I’m proud.  We’re just REALLY that good at it).  The teacher went on to say that she then challenged my son about the dirty looks and glaring, and said she repeatedly (three times, by my count) asked whether he thought he was “too cool to do yoga.”

What happened next floored me, because my usually sweet, gentle boy — in what I believe was an effort to decidedly up his cool factor — decided to channel his inner John Bender (Judd Nelson from the movie The Breakfast Club).  He walked away, giving the Universal Hand Sign of Intense Disapproval.  [And at THIS moment, I would now like to go back on a statement I made in an earlier blog, about the Job of Parenting, and say that it continues to suck.]

The teacher, the one entrusted with the job of tending to special needs students, went on to talk about how it bothered her that all these kids seemed to think that they were “too cool for yoga” and how my son gave her some lame excuse, saying he didn’t want to do yoga because his bones hurt and how she told him that yoga was the very thing that would help with that and he didn’t need to give her dirty looks and and and and…

Oohwee.  I had not had nearly enough coffee for this conversation.

When a pause finally arrived in the unnatural course of conversation, at about the five minute mark, I told the young woman that I thought perhaps my son’s initial resistance to participate was because he knows mom does yoga and that maybe he thought it was just something girls do.

Let me put this next section in script form, to give you a clearer picture of what came next:

Wide Shot – Living Room

Mother sits on sofa, legs crossed, talking on the telephone.

Teacher (Voice-Over)

Or, maybe because you do it, he thinks yoga is an older person’s…

Medium Wide Shot – Sofa

Mother grimaces, uncrosses legs.  She grips the phone tightly.

 Teacher (Cont.)

…thing.

Extreme Close Up – Red face

A face that is now sporting a nuclear version of the aforementioned “dirty look” – silently mouthing: “OH.  NO.  YOU.  DID.  N’T.”

Animated fantasy sequence —

Fireworks!  Thermometer reaching highest mercury level!  Tea kettle boiling over!!

Swish Wipe – Medium Wide Shot –  Living Room

Mother smiling the smile of the weary and worn.

 

Me

No.  No, I’m pretty sure he has it in his head

That yoga is the thing his sister, mom and

mom’s friends do.  Not “older” folk per se.

 

This next scene, while not animated, has a cartoon-ish high speed feel to it, only because information now spews forth in rapid fire succession, since adrenaline is involved.

 

Me (Cont.)

See… I am pretty sure that even if you were to

poll neurologically typical males, their knee jerk

reaction to yoga might be that it is something

heavily dominated by females* and to that end,

my son has just not had enough exposure and

education to realize that yoga is something that

is good for everyone and is greatly beneficial to

the body.  So, the idea that he thinks it is something

that “girls do” and then being challenged about

his “cool factor” – well, it was likely all too much

for him.  To continue to challenge him about the

staring and the dirty look thing – well, I just think

that was the straw that broke the inflexible (due to

lack of yoga activity, I’m sure) camel’s back!

 

Fade to black.  For a moment.

I’m not sure why the “dirty look” thing escalated the way it did.  Perhaps my son’s teacher was emboldened by the recent (July 2012) firing of Alice Van Ness, a Yoga Instructor, who lost her job for “glaring at a Facebook employee who used her cellphone during class.”  [That’s the actual headline, I swear.  You can Google it.]  According the woman’s termination letter, she was fired because she “made a spectacle of [the employee]” during a 30 minute yoga class she had been hired to teach at the company’s Menlo Parkcampus.  With no other provocation, the instructor was let go because she gave the Facebook employee a “dirty look” when she pulled out her phone in the middle of a half-moon yoga pose.

Wow.  I guess I have just always seen (pun alert!) the “dirty look” as a pretty tame activity, unless, of course, it is accompanied by loud harrumphing, arm flailing and toxic spittle.  I don’t know how you feel, but in and of itself, being glared at is just kind of irritating.  Maybe it’s just me that thinks this, but shame on us that we have become a society that has made staring down bad behavior the worse behavior of the two.

The teacher and I wrapped up our phone call with the subject of disciplinary action.  I told her that campus discipline probably wasn’t necessary, because the threat of “Wait ‘til your mother finds out” was plenty good enough to assure that my boy would never, no matter what, be that disrespectful of a teacher again.  Ever.  Because having to speak to me after they have done something wrong has always struck fear into the hearts of both of my children – and, for that matter, anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of my mouth (or pen) when they’ve behaved badly.

And, just so we’re all clear – I know that my son definitely behaved badly, no doubt about it.  When he did get home, there were tears of remorse and regret.  We sat on the sofa and had a very long discussion about how it was one thing to give someone a dirty look, but we never, ever employ any body part in anger.  I made him promise to never again use the ridiculous Universal Hand Sign of Intense Disapproval (which is such a silly go-to response, when you think about it – that weak ol’ itty bitty wimpy finger in salute.  Puh-leeze).  I also let him know that I understood his frustration, but that it is sometimes best for everyone if we keep our sassy opinions to ourselves, especially when it comes to teachers and authority figures who are trying to educate us about something. Even yoga.

I then went on to tell him that I really did not have much of a problem with the business of the “dirty look”.  Because, despite what those young’uns with power over at Facebook headquarters believe, I stand firm that glaring should still be an acceptable form of self-expression.  The “dirty look” is so much less inflammatory than what goes on inside the head, what is liable to fall out of the mouth or worse… down to the hand.

***

“The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed ‘Off with her head! Off! – ‘Nonsense!’ said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.”  — Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)

No dark sarcasm in the classroom / Teachers leave them kids alone — “Another Brick in the Wall” – Pink Floyd

No more pencils / No more books / No more teacher’s dirty looks — “School’s Out” – Alice Cooper

*BTW this is not me generalizing the sexes – a few years ago the ratio of men to women in a yoga class was 10 to 1.]