Slice of Life Day 7: Sticks and Stones...

This is Day 7 of the 31 day Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by Two Writing Teachers. I am participating in this community for the first time this year. So far, I am loving the daily habit of writing, and the feedback from other writers!

Blood leaked from her nose and licked at her lips. Her eyes had blackened. Cuts had opened up and a series of wounds were rising to the skin. All from words. All from Liesel's words.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

It's been a long time since I got beat up by words. The last time I remember it happening was in 7th grade. I was sitting outside at car riders', just minding my own business, when this awful 8th grader decided that I was somehow offensive to her and began to belittle my appearance. I can still close my eyes and call up every detail of the scene, every word that was said, every laughing face around me, every ounce of the hurt that it caused.

That's not to say no one has said anything horrible to me since 7th grade. But not every horrible thing people say to us constitutes getting beaten up by words. There's something about those incidents that seems to freeze time, and to crystallize every second into a vignette of hurt. That's what happened to me today.

I was finishing up a reading conference with a student that I have a very rocky relationship with. It was one of the first times that we were able to have a real reading conference, because he has finally found a book that he is excited about reading. I was trying to wind down the conference, because he was speaking loudly enough that it was bothering the other students, and because I had already been sitting with him for 5 minutes, which is about as long as I allow conferences to get. I said, "Well, listen, I'm really glad that you have found a book that you are enjoying. I can tell you're getting a lot from the reading, just from the level of detail you were able to give me. I'm going to head over to another student now. You can go back to reading."

He replied, "No, I don't really want to. I can tell you don't want to talk to me about this. You're just trying to make me stop talking about it."

I said, "That seems pretty unfair. I've been sitting here with you as long as I would sit with any student for a reading conference. I've asked you the same types of questions I always ask, and listened to your answers."

Out of nowhere, gut punch. "Well, now you know how I feel sitting here listening to you every day. Up there just talking and talking. I don't care about any of that stuff. I wish you'd just be quiet."

So I'm on the floor, bruised and nauseous, and then he laughed. As though he expected that I would join in. Like we would have a good belly laugh together over what he had just said.

I felt the bruises begin to develop. My face felt as though it was slowly being filled with boiling water. My heart pounded in my ears. I quietly stood up. I rebuked him for being disrespectful and warned him that he might not want to push me any more for the rest of the day. And then I took my bruises and my cuts and went to talk to some other students.

I'm not sure why this particular conversation on this day hurt me so deeply. I think maybe it was because it was completely unprovoked. I wasn't having to correct him. We weren't arguing. We were having a perfectly pleasant conversation. I think the part that upset me the most is that I am an eternal optimist. I always assume that I will eventually get through to all of my students. But evidently, that's not going to be the case with this one. While I thought we were making progress and having a pleasant chat, he was only thinking about how much he just wanted me to shut up. 

There is a wall there, and the hurts he inflicted on me today did not make me want to tear it down. I do not want to see this student tomorrow. Or at all. 

I wish there was an end to this story. But right now, there isn't.