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Victor
From Who’s Tougher Than Us? The Realities of Teaching
Victor was not a typical honors class student. In my experience, these students seem self-assured, generally get along with their classmates, and look happy when they are not looking studious. Some kids are in honors because they work very hard; others are there because academic excellence comes to them without effort. Victor was definitely smart, but he was also a worker. He was on the quiet side. Unlike most of his classmates, he was often in the center of drama.
As a teacher, I mostly didn’t do drama. I informed my students of this at the start of every year. A partner teacher once got angry at me because, although we shared the same students, all the tears and anger happened in her room. They sought her out to tell them about their parents’ impending divorce, competition over a girl, and stories of discrimination.
“Why,” Ms. Canson demanded, “do they always come crying to me and never to you?”
“You teach social studies and language arts. You assign journals and ask them to connect with literature and events. I teach them math and science: 3 × 4 = 12 for everyone. There is no chance of injustice. It has nothing to do with who your parents are, how much money you have, your gender, or the color of your skin. There is nothing to debate. In science, hydrogen has one…
