Some People Are Cancerous Tumors

This essay contains my thoughts about people whose personalities overwhelm everyone that comes into contact with them. My example is a high school classroom, but my thoughts apply to any group—the workplace, a PTA meeting, an online forum for smut writers, for example.

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It is hard to imagine that one teenager has the power to make or break an entire school year. On the second day of school, Adam joined my eighth period class. For a week and a half, he dictated exactly what the course of events would be for my class. He and his buddy Tristan whispered to each other, laughed across the room, popped their tongues, made animal noises, and basically did anything they could to keep any education from going on in room 218. I yelled loudly (ok, screamed) on four separate occasions, not so much to keep them in line, but to make sure that the rest of the class was too afraid of me to even think about being amused by their ridiculous antics. It's just not fair. All these nice, respectful, innocent kids have to deal with my worst, just because Adam's goal in life is to avoid learning anything and to make his teachers' lives miserable.

In a week and a half, I called his parents three times, and I sent him to the office twice. I spent hours discussing the situation with my colleagues, writing disciplinary referrals, planning disciplinary action, playing out scenarios in my head, and fretting. Adam consumed hours and hours of my life, which he, quite frankly, did not deserve.

In my last conversation with his father on Monday, I expressed my concern that Adam couldn't control his "attention getting" behaviors. His father replied, "Well, I don't know why he's in Spanish I. He passed Spanish last year. He's probably just bored." I did NOT laugh at this (although I know you will), and I managed to say (with what I thought sounded like sincerity), that I would call his guidance counselor to see why he was in Spanish I if he truly belonged in Spanish II.

Of course, the guidance counselor reported that he did not pass Spanish last year, yadda, yadda, yadda, so I called Mr. Harrison to share that with him. This time I got the voice mail, but I'm pretty sure he was standing next to the phone, fuming while I prattled on about how Adam would need to take Spanish I again, so that he could go on to Spanish II next year and have those two magic years of a foreign language on his high school transcript when he applies to college (again, I didn't even snicker about that idea until I got off the phone).

Two hours later, Adam sauntered into my classroom, and announced, "I'm not doin' the warm-up (beginning of class activity) today." Fine, whatever. Then came the golden moment. The heavens opened up, the angels sang, and I heard the sweetest words I've ever heard. "I'm droppin' this class." I couldn't even acknowledge his announcement, because I was screaming in my head, "Don't dance. Dancing now would be really bad. You can dance all night, just wait until the class is over." I hardly even heard his ridiculous noises for the rest of the period. The bell rang, and he was gone.

Tuesday was glorious. I smiled. I laughed. I taught my classes my way, without having to put on my "bitch face." It was as though a tumor had been surgically removed from my body, and that I was healed and ready to live again. And when I started to smile, my students started to smile. And then I heard a giggle from a student that I hadn't even really seen before. I put on my "crazy Spanish teacher" face, and shouted, "WHAT'S SO FUNNY?" She giggled again, and said, "I love this class!" Adam had not even been gone for an entire class period, and she loves the class? THAT'S crazy.

Adam was a cancer in my class. He was like a tumor, poisoning the group dynamic, and sucking the life out of the rest of the students. When Adam was in the class, the only noises in the room were my lectures, Adam and Tristan's nonsense, the silliness of the regular ninth grade clowns, and my barking scream. Removing only one student from a class of twenty-eight, turned that daily forty-five minute slice of hell into a very pleasant time. Now I can teach without screaming, manage my class with my usual bag of tricks, and enjoy a rather nice bunch of kids.

It's not perfect. Tristan is still there, but he has not uttered an inappropriate sound or a disrespectful word since Adam dropped the class. Three or four students who are used to being the class clowns or troublemakers have gotten a little louder and a little bolder. It's completely different though, like having a cold after recovering from cancer.

Adam is now sitting in another eighth period class, the cancer metastasizing and infecting other groups of students. It's as unfair as cancer too. The teacher, the other students in the class, the administrators, the parents, everyone is affected. The solution isn't ineffective and exhausting "chemotherapy"— phone calls home, conferences with the problem student, moving seats around. The tumor has to be removed from the school, in order to allow the rest of the student population to heal, move on, and be educated. If a student resists being educated in a traditional school setting, let him try private school. Let him choose to resist the education that he and his parents are funding. If nothing else, it takes away the POWER that he has over the traditional school and keeps the cancer from spreading.

Remove the tumor, change the class dynamic, see success blossom. Simple as that.