Thievery and Trust
As you may or may not have gathered, the two of us are teachers. Image has been lucky enough to have some full-time work before being laid off, both in difficult schools. Currently we are both substituting.
I (Mirror) substitute in two districts. One is small-hick-town and I've been there for several years. The other district I sub it is best qualified as inner-city. It's a MUCH larger school than my other one with double (triple?) the amount of students. There is also a fair amount of poverty, which means there are more kids who have, shall we say, too much energy. When I started subbing there, one of the schools gave me a well-organized, informative substitute handbook. Now I'd imagine that when most people get a handbook, they tend to ignore it glance through it for whatever is pertinent, but I read it cover-to-cover.
One of the things mentioned in there is to be aware of your personal items as students can, rarely, steal in order to test boundaries.
I didn't think much of it. I don't keep a pocketbook (don't have enough stuff for that) and keep my cell and wallet in the pockets of my coat, which hangs on the back of the teacher's chair when I'm in a single room for the day. The only way anyone can even see my wallet is to move the sleeves of my coat and go looking. I've never worried about it. I've been subbing for years and it's never been found. The times I worry more are in the warmer months and I don't have a coat, but I more actively hide things when that occurs.
And yet, despite all these precautions, Wednesday a student robbed me.
Yes, you read that right. A student dug around my coat, found my wallet, and took all my money out of it.
...
I'm not really sure how to feel about this. On the one had, despite my parents insisting that whoever the kid was wanted drug money, I doubt that. I can't even guess motivations, but I always see the best in people, even my worst students. I can't fathom a student wanting my money for drugs, especially at 7th grade. High-school I could probably be convinced, but not middle-school.
Maybe I'm just naive. I look at students and, aside from behavior problems, I can't see them as bad. They have too much potential, they smile and laugh, they dream about the future. How can I look at them and see devil-horns waiting to pick my pocket? I was careful and even that still failed. But was my failure because I trust the students too much? Is it wrong to trust students? I can't think so. Nor can I just use the blanket statement "kids will be kids" or "boys will be boys" because that type of logic can also be used to excuse behavior that really isn't excusable. But if I don't offer some trust for kids, how can they trust me to teach them? A classroom is always a place of safety and trust. If the students sense that I expect the worst of them, they'll live to that expectation. I don't want that. I want my students to always thrive to be better.
... It's not about the money I lost. Money has never really mattered to our family. As long as we've had each other, material things might be nice, but they don't make or break things. I've never cared about money more than trying to make enough to live and maybe hoping for more.
My tangled mess of feelings isn't about the money. It's about the fact that a student thought it was okay to steal from me. That whoever the student was didn't have any respect for me to think that this might be wrong. And I'm left wondering if that's just me being arrogant, because I'm just a sub they see once in a while, so how can they respect me if I'm only a parttimer in their everyday life?
...*sigh* My feelings are a tangled knot and all I really am is sad and disappointed and hurt. I'm trying not to blame myself and just focus on not letting the kids know anything the next time I'm in that building.
;-;
I (Mirror) substitute in two districts. One is small-hick-town and I've been there for several years. The other district I sub it is best qualified as inner-city. It's a MUCH larger school than my other one with double (triple?) the amount of students. There is also a fair amount of poverty, which means there are more kids who have, shall we say, too much energy. When I started subbing there, one of the schools gave me a well-organized, informative substitute handbook. Now I'd imagine that when most people get a handbook, they tend to ignore it glance through it for whatever is pertinent, but I read it cover-to-cover.
One of the things mentioned in there is to be aware of your personal items as students can, rarely, steal in order to test boundaries.
I didn't think much of it. I don't keep a pocketbook (don't have enough stuff for that) and keep my cell and wallet in the pockets of my coat, which hangs on the back of the teacher's chair when I'm in a single room for the day. The only way anyone can even see my wallet is to move the sleeves of my coat and go looking. I've never worried about it. I've been subbing for years and it's never been found. The times I worry more are in the warmer months and I don't have a coat, but I more actively hide things when that occurs.
And yet, despite all these precautions, Wednesday a student robbed me.
Yes, you read that right. A student dug around my coat, found my wallet, and took all my money out of it.
...
I'm not really sure how to feel about this. On the one had, despite my parents insisting that whoever the kid was wanted drug money, I doubt that. I can't even guess motivations, but I always see the best in people, even my worst students. I can't fathom a student wanting my money for drugs, especially at 7th grade. High-school I could probably be convinced, but not middle-school.
Maybe I'm just naive. I look at students and, aside from behavior problems, I can't see them as bad. They have too much potential, they smile and laugh, they dream about the future. How can I look at them and see devil-horns waiting to pick my pocket? I was careful and even that still failed. But was my failure because I trust the students too much? Is it wrong to trust students? I can't think so. Nor can I just use the blanket statement "kids will be kids" or "boys will be boys" because that type of logic can also be used to excuse behavior that really isn't excusable. But if I don't offer some trust for kids, how can they trust me to teach them? A classroom is always a place of safety and trust. If the students sense that I expect the worst of them, they'll live to that expectation. I don't want that. I want my students to always thrive to be better.
... It's not about the money I lost. Money has never really mattered to our family. As long as we've had each other, material things might be nice, but they don't make or break things. I've never cared about money more than trying to make enough to live and maybe hoping for more.
My tangled mess of feelings isn't about the money. It's about the fact that a student thought it was okay to steal from me. That whoever the student was didn't have any respect for me to think that this might be wrong. And I'm left wondering if that's just me being arrogant, because I'm just a sub they see once in a while, so how can they respect me if I'm only a parttimer in their everyday life?
...*sigh* My feelings are a tangled knot and all I really am is sad and disappointed and hurt. I'm trying not to blame myself and just focus on not letting the kids know anything the next time I'm in that building.
;-;