Socializing at Young Brothers the bar

I’m going. I took a nap after work, to shake off the day with mini-dreams.

Today was difficult. I overslept, first. Got to my class late, and my team had to do my jobs of getting “morning work” ready because our education system is modelled on creating consumers and workers even though there’s not much work anymore, and my students will never work.

They won’t. They’ll have the life I fantasize about living in a group home (communism) with a cafeteria and helpers who tie their shoes and zip their coats and force them to shower and brush their teeth and administer medicine and run activity groups if they’re lucky, if not, just watch tv. Just play their preferred game on an ipad. That will be their best life. They also might be in prison or nastier hospital situations. With less freedom, less care, and more control (and less clean).

Today, Martinez (10th grade, IQ approx 50) targeted Ms. Mary, my teammate, whose role is to assist another student with all his work and tasks). Martinez has slowly cultivated a trigger-type hatred of her, and is getting bolder and ruder about it every day. For “no reason” he does things like give her the middle finger as well as posture and stalk her with proximity, whispering “I just don’t like Ms. Mary,” or “I hate her.” or “I’m going to kill Ms. Mary,” or “I just want her to leave,” or “Get her out of here!” or “I don’t like Ms. Mary.” It was all day, meanwhile, she’s taking every word personally, and she’s triggered because she shouldn’t even be there to begin with, she’s not healthy anough. She wants to talk about her illnesses all the time, even when there’s kids’ needs to manage, and the kids’ have their own illnesses and attention starved PTSD but Ms. Mary is my friend, and I remember being new to special education. This doesn’t mean she can’t do this job. It does mean she is experiencing the natural consequence of doing much “bad cop” type feedback to kids. She doesn’t have to “discipline” kids, and I used to tell her that. Once I said she also needs to change her face because it looks miserable. She really cares about the kids. She’s also deeply traumatized by abuse and today was talking about how her ex-husband would be hateful and say similar things (that Martines is saying) and then buy her a gift to make up for it. And yeah, after lunch, Martinez started worrying about if he would get his “reward” for having a good day (fuck no) and started trying to make up for it by apologizing to Ms. Mary and scribbling her a heart picture with her name spelled wrong. Martines really dominated our day, and I hate when one kid is able to do that. I also don’t know how to solve the problem. Ms. Mary might just quit. But she might not.

I said to her, at lunch at the staff table, think about Calvin: he’s black and he was ruthlessly targeted by psychopath student (say, Adam) for days that became weeks and months. Until he changed rooms, now the kids is out there calling anyone names and assaulting people That kid called Calvin the N word at least 50,000 times, along with other sexualized terms, spoke of raping his kids. Mary. Think about that.

Calvin somehow tolerated it. To me, he said he told himself how he needs the job and can’t afford to “lose his clearances.” This phrase helps us keep it together for times like this. If you show aggression or violence in response to the baiting, you’ll definitely not be allowed to work with kids anymore.

I had an older, white lady supervisor back in the day who was going to retire soon, (not my direct boss, the boss of the social workers), who crashed out in front of tons of people, pointing her finger at an elementary school kid, and saying with a rageful quivering voice, “If I saw you in an alley… (she made the gun motion), I would shoot you.” bang bang, buddy.

So, she had to “retire early,” like the next day. They announced it on the intercom. As if they could make up for employing her for 20 years.
They prob let her keep some benefits.
. Because it’s not about you (the adult being targeted by a child at a residential treatment center), it's about what they’ve seen adults at home do and say, and now, in juvenile setting, what they’ve seen their peers do and say, but THEY DON’T KNOW YOU.

Ms. Mary looked sick. I couldn’t really help her. My goal is to protect her from Martinez, but it might be too late. He’s got the idea that she’s a bad person, and he’s not going to let it go. She’s not a bad person, but she used the wrong tone, too much. She showed her fear, and her inner child, and did weird things with low boundaries. I could be her friend, but working together can be impossible. It all depends on the chemistry of the group. If it’s just us, she’s different. I feel like she might die soon anyway. But she’s very passive aggressive, which also reminds me of some former parenting I experienced. Teaching is parenting.

Hope I can detach from all that, and connect with MY peers in an appropriate way. Not be too weird. Not talk about my job. The main thing I’m looking forward to getting a beer on draft. Beer on draft is sometimes good. I will try to stay for a full hour. Should I clean up? Look in the mirror? Nah. My pretty days is gone.