A little background is necessary before beginning the story
of the infamous “abbreviated cursing” incident:
First: I worked at a private CHRISTIAN school. Teachers were expected to have a Bible reading and
prayer time with their students daily before each class started. Cuss/curse words of any
kind were not to be tolerated.
Second: The funding for the school was DIRECTLY connected to
the ENROLLMENT. You can imagine what this meant for discipline. There was none. Discipline was so lax, I would send students
to the Principal for defiance or disrespect or disrupting the class (the most
frequent) and they would be back in
class, continuing their antics within minutes. I can only assume that teachers complained about this issue because …
(Third) … on the morning that this now infamous incident occurred,
the staff had just had a staff meeting in which the Discipline Principal stated
in no uncertain terms that he would not accept any students on referrals to his
office for “vague” reasons like “disrespect” or “defiance.” If we teachers wanted to send students to the
office, we had to be SPECIFIC about the reasons. He stated: “If a student says
a curse word, I don’t want to see ‘cursing’ on the referral. I want the word/s
written out.”
THE INCIDENT:
The morning of the now-infamous incident was like any other. I knew
Mike had issues going on at home – a parent was ill (with cancer I believe). He was generally a good kid, but had a short
fuse - no doubt due to the stresses of the situation at home, not to mention the everyday
pressures of being a teenager, trying to figure out life and your future.
I actually don’t remember the specific reason why he got upset at me. From my recollection, as he was walking into class, I said something to him – maybe asked him where
his book was – and he exploded:
“WTF MacKenzie!” and he stormed out of the room.
I was stunned. From the sharp intake of breath from the other
students I knew they expected a reaction from me. I just wasn’t sure why or how
I should react. Quickly I went over in my head what he had said: “WTF” What was that??
I couldn’t figure it out. “WTF” What did that mean? I could tell by the students' expressions they
were waiting to see what I was going to do, how I was going to handle this
situation.
I was a relatively new teacher. It was only my 2nd year teaching high school. I
had had no teacher education classes (besides, no teacher’s book tells you how
to handle situations like this). I was
also teaching students who were privileged, used to getting their way because
of the money, position, or influence their parents or grandparents had. The fact that I was young (barely 25) and
that many had older siblings my age or older, and the fact that I looked much
younger than I was, meant that I felt that I had to always assert my authority.
I always felt like I was walking a tightrope between being “the boss” and just being “me.”
“WTF???” I puzzled
over this for at least 30 seconds as I took out a referral, initially intending
to write him up for … for what? What is the “specific reason” that I could
write?? Anger issues? Yelling at the teacher??
Suddenly it flashed on me .. what “W.T.F” meant...
Always a dutiful follower of instructions, this is the
referral I wrote:
I have a picture of it, because, Mike and his friends found
my Very Specific Description of why I was sending him out on a referral to be
hilarious – a fact that I didn’t know until the yearbook came out, and I saw
just how funny they found it to be. He
had designed his whole entire “senior page” around my referral. To say
that I was mortified would be an understatement. On the other hand, I felt
misunderstood. I was simply doing what
the principal had asked teachers to do if we wanted troublesome students out of
the classroom.
I believe Mike later apologized for his outburst. At any rate, I didn’t have any other issues
(that I recall) with him for the rest of the year…
HE SAYS:
On the morning of the WTF incident, I had forgotten my book
in my locker. I hated going to my locker. It was the bottom locker of a stack
of three, assigned to me (I theorized at the time) because I am
vertically-challenged and they figure, “Eh, less distance for the kid to
travel.” As such, I carried a lot of my books with me in my bag. I found it
easier to break my back than squander those precious ten minutes between
classes. I wasn’t doing anything particularly important during those ten
minutes. They were just MINE and I WANTED them.
Anyways,
as a result of my decision to become a pack mule, I would sometimes, but not
often, leave books I needed in my locker, and on this day I had forgotten to
grab my first period book out. I didn’t think much of it when I got there. Ms.
MacK (as we lovingly referred to her) had two spare books in the room. No
biggie. Class starts and, sure enough, it’s a day where we’re using the book,
as opposed to days where we were in groups planning for our next project or
working on our essays. I raise my hand and state that I’ve forgotten mine in my
locker. She states, “Go get it, that’ll be a lunch detention” (for those not
in-the-know, lunch detentions are when you come in during lunch and, instead of
eating and conversing with peers, you have to do menial chores around the
teacher’s room like clapping erasers or wiping down desks).
I was instantly furious. I hadn’t recalled any previous
instance where a student had been disciplined in her class for forgetting their
book. I was normally so GOOD about bringing it, too! As the words escaped my
mouth, I remember instantly regretting it. “WTF, MacKenzie?!” As I stood up to
go out to my locker, I knew I was in it. Jokingly, I tried to cover it up by
putting a Christian-like spin on it by saying, “Where’s the faith?!” I could
tell when I got back, by the look on Ms. Mack’s face, that she did not buy my
ruse. My lunch detention got upgraded to a two-hour afterschool detention. I
was even more livid, but had nobody to blame but myself. After class, I
apologized and let her know I meant no disrespect. She told me she understood,
and then handed me the detention slip.
My god, that detention slip. I literally had to hold back
the tears of laughter until I got downstairs and out of earshot. “Abbreviated
cursing – WTF”. I was CRYING. This was EASILY the funniest thing I had ever
read on a detention slip (and trust me, I had read PLENTY of things on
detention slips). I show all my friends. Tears. Every single one of them. Not
only did my friends find it funny, but that week, the teacher proctoring the
detentions, Mr. M, came running up to me in absolute hysterics over it. He
immediately demanded to know the story. I told him. Tears. This story and slip
were comic GOLD to not only students, but now FACULTY. I knew what this would
be: this would be my LEGACY. But how would I commemorate it for future
generations to see and enjoy?
Enter the Senior Yearbook Pages. As Ms. Mack stated, my
father was dying of cancer at the time (he later passed on during my second
semester of college). I had as many pictures of him as I could get, along with
pictures of me and my brother when we were kids. Problem was I didn’t have a
lot. The bulk of my childhood was, photographically speaking, lost to Hurricane
Andrew. I had to come up with ways to make it work and fill the space. And then
it donned on me. The slip. I had previously scanned it and posted it on my
website I had during high school to much acclaim from my readers. I printed it
out and submitted it, smack dab in the middle of the page. Mr. L, the yearbook
coordinator, who had heard about the incident months prior, had a similar
reaction to everyone else: tears. It was meant to be. Two years later, when I
would take part in an internship at my former high school, Mr. L even stated to
me and Mr. M whilst in the Teacher’s Lounge, “Mike Papadopoulos? An English
teacher? WTF?!” A good laugh was had by all over teacher’s lounge coffee. Fun
fact: that stuff tastes HORRIBLE.
Postscript:
I had no idea that I was the laughingstock of the school (faculty
included) until I asked Mike - a good 10 years later - to share “his side” of the story for the blog. We had gotten in touch again via
Facebook and had joked occasionally about the “WTF”incident, but I did not
realize that my detention slip had (as Mike put it) “Viral” in days when this
wasn’t even a term. Ah well.
Live and learn. And laugh at yourself.
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