Having a gun pulled on you in a classroom
I had been teaching in Los Angeles for a week. I started the first lesson of the day in the usual way – with a roll-call. I had to read the names very carefully because I lot of them were Mexican names and I had a lot of trouble getting my English tongue around the pronunciation and I did not wish to cause offence. There was one girl whose name I always said wrongly and she always pulled me up on it, which was fair enough. It was a matter of respect to get a name correct. I sat down with her one day and really tried to pronounce it right. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t. She said her name slowly and I repeated it but I could neither hear the difference nor repeat it. I never learned to get it right throughout the whole year and we got into a ritual. I’d call her name out wrongly and she’d correct it. So I was very focused on my class list.
‘Heey Goodwin,’ this girl called out. I was quite used to this type of casual greeting. Every morning one of my students would skateboard past my desk with his cap on backwards and a surfboard under his arm, and murmur, ‘Heeey, Goodwin, man’. I interpreted this as ‘Good morning, sir.’ So I did not find it very surprising.
I looked up to find a girl standing in the aisle, legs spread, crouched, with a two hands holding a gun that was pointed straight between my eyes.
It is amazing how fast your mind works in such situations. So many thoughts run through your mind.
I surmised that I had only been here a week. I couldn’t possibly have annoyed anyone enough to want to shoot me. She was wanting to scare the shit out of me. It was ‘make the Englishman dive behind the desk and make a fool of himself’ time.
You know how usually you can’t think of what to say? Fortunately that did not happen.
‘Put that away,’ I said firmly, ‘and sit down.’
I went back to calling out names, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the register.
At the end I looked up to find the girl had sat down and the gun had disappeared.
I started the lesson.
After I had everyone working I sauntered up to the girl and leaned towards her. She was assiduously working hard and ignoring me.
‘That was extremely silly,’ I began.
‘It wasn’t loaded,’ she replied without looking up.
‘I was not to know that,’ I replied in the same low-key manner. ‘I might have had a gun in my drawer and blown you away.’
She laughed and clearly found that genuinely amusing.
‘If I had pressed the button,’ I said, referring to the panic button on my desk, ‘you would be in a police cell now and out of this school.’
I knew the whole class was listening in. They wanted to know what the new English teacher was going to do.
She stopped laughing. She knew it was true.
‘Don’t ever do anything as stupid again,’ I said sternly, moving on.
I think it actually made my year. The whole school knew how serious it might have been but I had defused it. I hadn’t dived for cover and I hadn’t followed the rule book. The respect level went up.
Teaching is never easy. It’s not a science; it’s an art. You have to follow your heart.
Sometimes you get it wrong. She might have been mentally deranged and put a bullet through my head!
That is all very frightening, they say the innocence of America died when John Kennedy was assassinated. Knives in this Country seem to be the “thing” with many youngsters these days, report this morning of a boy arrested using a knife on two boys in a London School. Did you actually enjoy your year there teaching.
Some say that innocence died the day they got independence…
Glasgow had razor gangs from the 20’s to 80’s.
I got slashed down the back of my thigh during a classroom riot by some NED (non-educated delinquent), the kids that were leaving school at 15/16 with zilch. This was after he had just smashed the biology teacher in the mouth. All because he wouldn’t get his books out. The classroom exploded into violence with several Ned’s versus any other boy in their reach.
A 16 yr old boy was stabbed dead at school in Aberdeen just last week or so.
Andrew, I read about that boy awful. You were actually slashed down the back of your thigh, I went cold, such violence what is wrong with these people they care for no one, they serve no purpose in life. Your Parents must have been so shocked, do you still have a scar I guess you do. I liked your first comment.
That’s why we need a system where everyone can achieve and has a future, something to work for. It was far too violent. When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lo0se.
They certainly need to sort out their gun laws. It’s a violent place.
Round our way the Teds used to have big pitched battles with razor blades, chairs, axe handles and boots. Very bloody. People got killed.
I think guns and knives have always been around. Terrible that these kids get involved. They think they’re being hard. They’ll just get themselves locked up. Not a life I’d choose.
Yep. I loved it. At the end of the year the kids took me out to the icream parlour for a ‘zoo’. They carried a huge bowl of icreams, flavours and sauces in on poles with 4 people carrying it – sparklers, fireworks, whipped cream. Everyone dug in with long spoons! Excellent. The kids were brilliant. They shot each other though!
I’d have had my desk drawer rigged up by the next morning! Sawn-off 12-bore!
Not nice!
only as a Deter Runt !
Ha – that’s what they all say!
I wasn’t too deep a slash, but about 6″ long, it’s still visible. – these neds would tape pencil sharpener blades onto 6″ rulers so they’d never get caught with a weapon. Canny lads. The trousers were ruined though!
Andrew, it all sounds terrible.
Challenging but there are those who do try it on. I had a rabbit foot on my desk! And I did not scream! Found out one of my little angels was a poacher’s son and knew how to skin rabbits.
The littrle darlings!
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
A bit salutary – given the mass shootings.