Remembering Bernard J., Jazzmine W., and Shyhiem D… a series (Pt. 2, Jazzmine)

… on NOT taking behavioral matters personally as educators

Prior to teaching and throughout my early years in the profession, I worked at various nightclubs in Philly for a popular city promoter. It was my responsibility to promote the various nightclubs where we hosted by passing out flyers to people all over the city, placing promotional cards on cars, and booking parties. The motivation for me was that the more people attending the nightclub on nights I was working, the more I got paid. As such, on off nights, I found myself going all over South St., waiting for other nightclubs to “let out” to hand out my promotional material, and asking pretty much anyone with a pulse if they had a reason to have a party. I was pretty good at my job, and the money I earned helped make ends meet, but one lasting benefit from working in the nightclub industry that was worth its weight in gold, was meeting and learning to deal with all sorts of different people.

While in my first year of grad school at Rutgers GSE, and working at the nightclubs, I’d frequently take my assigned reading material to read through in slow moments. It became a routine. Every Tuesday and Friday, I’d sit at a table in the club’s lobby with a notebook for booking parties, and my readings for class. One night, one of the bartenders, a Black guy slightly older than me with long dreds, asked me what I was reading. I showed him the journal article and when he asked why, I told him I was a school teacher by day and working on my Masters. He told me he used to teach too, and went to the University of Maine for undergrad. (Maine?!, I thought.) He then asked me if I ever came across The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide Toward Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz. I hadn’t and I told him I never heard of it. He said, “Yo, you gotta read that book.” I fully intended to as a result of his urging, but before I could buy it myself, the next night we all worked, he brought his copy to me for me to have. I recognized book-giving to be an authentic gesture of sentimenality and generosity, and a signal that perhaps this text was worth my immediate attention.

It was a smooth, and excellent read, and one that I strongly recommend for everyone to read at least once In their lifetime, especially for urban educators.  The Four Agreements focuses on how to work toward and achieve inner peace through our own actions, and controlling how we perceive the actions of others. With that in mind, the 2^nd of the Four Agreements, “Don’t take things personally especially when dealing with hurtful treatment from others; develop a strong sense of self and not relying on the opinions of others to find peace; understand that each individual has a unique worldview that alters their own perceptions, actions, and beliefs are projections of their own personal reality” truly resonated. Keeping this Agreement in mind helped me immensely when dealing with difficult people, but especially difficult students…like one whom I will always remember fondly, Jazzmine W______.  

In my 10th year with the District, I transferred to Camden High School to lead a new program in the city called Jobs for America’s Graduates. The program was designed to get “at-risk students” (their words, not mine) to graduation and ready for the work-world. That seemed quite reductionist and narrow as an approach to education in my view, thus I put a my own spin on the JAG curriculum. While we did focus heavy on job skills and workplace expectations (which I think all students should learn in school), we also dedicated a lot of class time to writing, thinking, and speaking. We covered material from Richard Wright’s Native Son, Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, and James Baldwin’s Fire Next Time, as well as more recent works like Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago, Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America ,and Sandy Darrity and Darrick Hamilton’s Umbrellas Don’t Make it Rain. Certainly, some readings were more difficult than others to get through, but reading material such as these were intended to get my students reading, talking, and writing about their own reality, their own context and how it relates to materials covered in class.

During my years at Camden High, like Woodrow Wilson, I’ve come across many wonderful students. Some of my students were self-starters and go-getters where all I had to do was point them in a direction, and they were off working on their assignments and submitting quality work with few questions asked. These students knew the expectation of quality and punctuality, and met the challenge each and every time. I loved having students like that. (In retrospect, however, these classroom angels don’t challenge us, and in lacking a challenge, these students don’t help us become better at our craft.) Others, well, needed much more watching and handholding. They had a million questions about every facet of the assignments… they had a million comments on why the assignment was stupid and unnecessary.. and they procrastinated before getting the assignment completed. Though frustrating at times, I loved those students too, especially when I began to reliably predict what to expect from such students: rhetorical questions, their opinions, procrastination, and finally a finished assignment.

The last category of student I had at Camden High, with these being few and far between, were the “behavior issue” students – of these, no one topped Jazzmine.

I first encountered Jazzmine in the hallway of the school’s main entrance toward the end of her junior year cursing up a storm. I didn’t remember who or what caused the tirade, but it seemed as if she was being sent to the office, and she seemed to make the decision to curse from the time she left her class to the time she arrived at the office. I didn’t know her name at that time, so I asked the office secretary what her name was. “That’s Jazzmine W_____.” After getting that information, I went to the guidance office and asked the 12^th grade counselor, “Could you put Jazzmine W______ in my class next year?” “You want Jazzmine?” Apparently she was known around the school for being a behavioral problem, “Yeah, I want those kinda kids with me.” She agreed…

The next year Jazzmine was in my class just as I had requested…and she was, herself. On most days, Jazzmine was completely fine, but on other days she would fly completely off the handle. Sometimes, her outbursts were directed at me. “F___ this Benson, I’m not doing this!” “F____ this Benson, this is stupid!” “I don’t give a s____!” “F____ this….F____ that….F____ this… F___ that!” These outbursts weren’t reserved only me that year, as I’d seen Jazzmine curse out security staff, guidance counselors, other teachers, and yes, even principals found themselves on the receiving end of Jazzmine’s profanities.

Remembering the lessons I’d learned from Bernard earlier in my career (referenced here), and the 2^nd Agreement, to not take anything personally in that each individual has a unique worldview that alters their own perceptions, actions, and beliefs, where I might have taken offense that Jazzmine dared speaking to me in such a way, I found it easier to simply let it go. I remember thinking, I’ve seen this young lady curse various principals up and down out over the years, who am I to think I’d get any different treatment? But what I could do, what I could control, was how I responded to it. I did not have to resort to the tried and tired “write up”. I did not have to send her to the office. I did not even have to get in to a back-and-forth with why she shouldn’t speak to me that manner. That would be making her behavior, and her language about me, and how I thought I ought to be treated. In that, I would be centering myself, and frankly, I was not that important. I recognized that Jazzmine cursed at people because she curses. It was that simple. She gets angry, and cursing is her method toward dealing with her frustrations.

Before long, I developed an alternative strategy to deal with Jazzmine’s outburst, rather than feeling the need to pushback against her profanity-laden outbursts. Some days when she’d start with the, “F___ this(es) and F___ that(s)”, I’d respond by egging her on like, “Come on Jazzmine, you can do better than that”…”Keep going”….”Is that all you got?”….”Tell us all how you feel”…and then eventually, “Are you done? No? Well keep it going”. Before long, Jazzmine would get all the curses out of her system, start laughing (along with the class) before saying, “I hate you Benson, you play too much.” And like that, crisis averted and we’re all back to class as usual. Other times, I’d admittedly show my own immature nature where if Jazzmine started cursing, I’d simply get louder and sing, “I don’t carrrreee….I don’t carrrrreee…Do your worrrkk…Do your worrrrkkk”, and then she’d start laughing, stop cursing and start working.

I’d make a point later in class to connect with her to find out what about the class’ events caused her such angst. Sometimes it was the assignment itself. She didn’t think she was a good writer and was frustrated because she was tasked, by me, with doing something that consistently made her feel inadequate and deficient. Sometimes, I’d learn, she’d gotten into it with another teacher she had before my class, and other times she was simply having a bad day.

The time Jazzmine and I spent discussing what was truly bothering her, helped me to more fully understand that her frustrations were valid, and I’d reassure her that any concerns pertaining to my class, we’d get through together; also, our conversations provided a space for this child to vent and decompress on matters outside my locus of control. Despite Jazzmine’s steadfast commitment to cursing me out on some days, she was one of my favorites, and she’d frequently remind me that I was one of the few teachers she “bangs with.”

Jazzmine graduated that year, and was honored by the District for the positive changes she made. She was accepted into Camden County College to continue her education, and got her first job using the tools covered in our class. She’s made me extraordinarily proud as her teacher, and serves as a reminder that as an educator, I should always keep the student in mind first, and minimize my own ego. Student’s behavior is less about us personally and the way we see ourselves, but has much more to do with other factors that may be quite legitimate. But, if we get bogged down by taking offense, get defensive, and deny opportunities to hear students out, we’ll likely miss valuable opportunities to establish bonds with our students, and ultimately mishandle challenges that can make us better in the end.