Exciting! Secret! Thoughts!

Here’s the situation. I was tutoring, as I have been known to do, and, finished with one appointment, am waiting for the next. The in-between-appointment time, as we all know, is a very special time, a time to get whatever shred of work that can be done in ten minutes done in five so one has time to get a cup of joe.

Having done this, and waiting comfortably at the table (with a somewhat relaxed demeanor), in stalks my next appointment and I am accosted out of my reverie of caffeine a full five minutes early.

He grunts: ’You ready?’ I, with as friendly and courteous an air as I am in possession of, politely ignore the fact that he is encroaching on my time, that I don’t have to meet with him yet and that he smells like a day old beer.

He slaps down upon the desk a crumpled, marked-up paper and begins to silently destroy an eraser.

I ask about the assignment. He is unwilling to share. I inquire into what he would like to discuss. He has no thoughts. I ask if he’d like us to read through the paper together. He would rather not.

Alright.

I proceed to read the paper silently while said student is busy in other affairs, getting water and fiddling with his cell phone. I pause after the introduction to let him know there isn’t one and would he like to change that? No.

I proceed to body paragraphs that are unrelated. He feels transitions are not a worthwhile or necessary improvement and tells me so with an implied ‘stupid’ dangling invisibly in the air between us. I set my teeth and read on.

After receiving a curt response that it actually is okay for a topic sentence to appear in the middle of the paragraph, and a, ‘my teacher thought it was fine’, he tells me: ‘I’m going to get a drink. Why don’t you just read it and mark the places that I need to fix.’

I am unwilling to do so.

He returns from his field trip and I find that I have completely lost all control of the situation and that the student does not have enough respect for me to behave like a human being. I stare at him in silence for a while.

‘You seem to be pretty happy with it as is,’ I say, ‘what exactly can I do for you?’

He doesn’t know. I hand over the proof of his visit (the only reason he came) and thus am free to lament over the situation in peace, with my hands shaking.

Almost immediately prior to this disaster, I was reading through Derek’s blog on clothes, and the responses that it elicited, pondering the importance of clothing in establishing respect amongst the youngsters. I wondered if some may take my baggy Dickies and band tee shirt to be an admission of inferiority in some way. But, I concluded that I had not felt any disrespect stemming from my attire (that I could remember) and would thus proceed in a similar fashion (!) as before.

However, as I seethed, I reconsidered my position. I find it atrocious that it may be necessary to adorn oneself with a sullen kid’s stereotypical notion of a teacher, but acknowledge that this might be the unfortunate case.

Having not the resources to buy a new wardrobe, and it being probable that I would just buy newer reversions of the same clothes had I the means, I happened upon a solution.

I recalled an instance when I not only had the respect, but also the admiration of some children without having even to open my mouth: when I was mistaken for Violet Incredible in my days as a waitress while serving a family with some small children. Their wide-eyed stares and requests for autographs were enough to make me feel rather like a superhero, even though at the time I had not the foggiest idea who this Violet was.

So, if clothes are necessary for demonstrating one’s power, I’ll show you, student-who-was-annoying-to-tutor. My clothes won’t just convey ordinary power. Oh no, but super power! And thus I shall command my class with a magnanimity that only the noblest of hearts and most daring of heroes can attain. Also, then I would only have to buy one new suit of clothes.