Stories From The Vault

 “The Day I Didn’t Move”

Author: Renee Peugh, Meridian High

During my first year teaching I had a rowdy class full of Eagle High School’s  freshmen football team. One day, there were only a couple minutes left in class. A few of these overly confident young men stood up and walked toward the door, determined to leave class and be first in line for lunch. This was a breach of classroom protocol, but they were undeterred. I walked quickly to the door and stood in the doorway. “I have not excused anyone from class yet gentlemen.” Head back to your seats.” Two of them turned and did as they were asked. In a snarky voice, the third one said, “this class is over and I’m leaving.” 

“That’s not how it works, and I won’t argue with you. Head back to your seat, please.”

“Mrs. Peugh, I’m leaving and if you don’t move, I’m going to bowl you over if you don’t get out of my way.” 

I calmly stood my ground in front of the door and would not engage with him anymore. When the bell rang He filed out with the rest of the class after being dismissed. He made sure to clip me just a little on his way out, and ran off celebrating. 

My last hour of the day was prep, so I strolled down to the head football coaches room and explained how his player had acted. He assured me that he would take care of it. 

The next time I saw the young man and his crew, all three of them walked in very slowly looking at the ground. “Mrs. Peugh, can we talk to you in the hall? They apologized for how they acted and assured me that it would never happen again. The third young man hung back after the other two had gone into class. He  explained that he was embarrassed and felt badly for what he had done. He said that the coach had used him as a training dummy as the other boys showed him what if felt like to be “bowled over.” He told me that he was not allowed to play in any games until I thought he had learned to represent Eagle High well.

I thanked his for the apology   and explained that I didn’t think he was a bad kid, I just thought he had made a bad decision. I told him that we all do things we are not proud of, and that the important thing is to learn from our mistakes. I told him that I don’t hold grudges and am a believer in grace and second chance.

He spent the next two weeks being the last kid out the door after class. I made sure to chat with him as the others filed out. After his two weeks were up, he would still be the last  person out. I got to know more about him and really enjoyed his personality. As it turned out, he took every class I offered and became the behavior police in class. If anyone was out of line he would put them right back in. I suppose the take away is, work with coaches, drama, choir, and band teachers (an adult in whatever a problem students enjoys). They can help you correct negative behavior. Secondly, form relationships  by asking a lot of open ended questions. Lastly offer grace, even as you are following  through with natural consequences.