difficult people

Punk is learning a hard lesson at school.

There are difficult people in this world - people who cannot accept responsibility for their own culpability in certain situations, people who genuinely feel that they are smarter than others, people who will judge you just to make their own agendas seem valid.

And some of those people are not students.

And to be clear - it is not his teacher either. Punk loves his teacher. We all do.


We are livid - all of us: Punk, his dad, me the professor, and about a half dozen other people whose children attend that school.

In a nutshell, this is how it goes:

After Punk being hit, attacked (and yes there were marks) at least 10 times in the past two months, Aaron and I have become a bit of a fixture in the principals office - demanding an explanation, and a promise to keep our child safe.

We have been told, "We are doing our best, but can't promise it won't happen again. Just tell him to stay away from her." (Tough to do, when their cubbies are adjacent - but whatever)

So, Thursday, Punk and one of his best buddies are outside waiting for a ride home, joking, trading verbal spars, and his friend slaps him upside the head - hard enough to hurt, but that is not really the point - it is a guy thing and Punk knows this. He swats the kid back . . . and . . . yeah - don't get ahead of me here . . . she SUSPENDS THEM BOTH!

You heard me - kicks Punk out of school for a day.

Keep in mind that at least 20 other 9 and 10 year olds were in the exact same place tugging on people's backpacks, swatting at each others hats, knocking each other off of the benches . . . According to our calculations, about two dozen kids should have been suspended.

Her reply? "Well obviously, we don't LIKE when other kids do that either."

"OK," I say, "but why were these two singled out and punished."

Well," she says, "Because Punk was crying."


WTF?!!!


Further investigation reveals that Punk actually was crying because as he says "I knew she was going to call me into her office and blame ME for this. She always does - even when that girl was slapping me every day."

(Furthermore her answer is cow excrement - he was suspended only because Aaron and I insisted that someone else be suspended 2 or three times for punching him with a closed fist, Can you say 'Witch hunt?' - but I digress)

Sooooooo . . . .all three of us - Aaron, Punk and I go into her office today, and the woman has the audacity to defend these situations, by telling us that Punk "draws conflict toward him." She tells us that he starts these things and cites two more incidents where he "poked a girl with a pencil."

According to Punk AND the girl (important here) - he poked her with the eraser end of his pencil once when she was writing and once in line to say "hey." Conveniently, the school did not call us to report these as incidents - probably because they are ludicrous, and had ANY other child (meaning one whose parents did not stand up for their kid) poked somebody, it would have been ignored. She only brought this up today, because she had no ammo against Punk - none, and she knew it. He admitted to talking too much, making jokes more often than necessary and other goofball behavior. He was clear and polite and fessed up to what he needed to.

Then the woman has the audacity to say (in quite possibly the snottiest, most condescending tone I have ever heard in my life) "Well J, I know that if I had to call you and tell you that after Punk poked her, Suzie turned around and hit him hard in the head, that CERTAINLY would NOT be alright with you."

So I leaned in close and said this, "You are wrong, and please don't presume that you know how I would react to anything. In every instance that we have been talking about, Noah was struck first, and it is the first question I have always asked you. If he poked somebody - especially a girl, and she turned around and clocked him, I would say he deserves what he gets. He knows better than that."

With a visibly affronted look, she then told A and I that she had an obligation to inform us that our beliefs were in direct contrast with the belief of the school. She then asked Punk if he was ready to back to his classroom. Punk shook his head no.

He has the day off - and maybe many more too.

I haven't even touched on the fact that the woman attempted to blame least year's divorce, allude to mental instability on both parents part, question the presence of the professor, and probably blames Sarah Palin for Punk's situation.

Two other parents have told me their kids had the exact same problems - both kids were smart, not afraid to speak their mind, and had parents advocating for them . . . are we the only ones seeing a really creepy Ms. Trunchbull pattern here?