Acting Out, Part Nine: Freddy

When I was in my early twenties I took a job teaching secondary students with learning, emotional and behavioral disorders. I was told mine would be a "new" classroom, and in fact it was: a tiny, converted storage room with no closet space, and with a minuscule window in one corner. It would take me until Christmas -- and after many promises -- to get a chalk board. The fact that the room had absolutely no sound proofing led me to dub it the "echo chamber," and explained why at the end of each day I had a headache. Imagine how it helped my students!

I didn't know it at the time, but my students were some of the most difficult kids in the high school. Most were with me all day, still others were assigned to my room when another teacher had prep periods or lunch. My supervisor was a school psychologist whose office was located in the administration building across town, and who never left her office except to eat, which apparently she did in quantity. The high school principal was a glad-hand who was all style, no substance. He was at his best hitting on young, female teachers.

Freddy was one of the tenth graders in my 6:1:1 class. A good-looking boy with wavy hair and glasses, for reasons initially unclear to me he was classified with emotional disturbance. He was also one of my stronger students academically, capable of doing work at the 5th or 6th grade level. I learned that his mother died when Freddy was quite young, and that his father was an alcoholic who was verbally (and probably physically) abusive of his only child. I felt sorry for this boy who was less than ten years younger than I.

All went fairly well during the first few weeks of school. Freddy and the other students performed according to expectations, complaining at most any work they were expected to complete, but doing it anyhow. The kids assigned to my classroom were soon reluctant to enter it, however, and would wait until the corridors cleared before doing so. They grumbled about being assigned to the "retard room." They also started calling themselves Sweathogs, after a popular television show, Welcome Back , Kotter. Having the romantic fantasy that I might also be a "Kotter," I attempted to persuade my students it was "okay" to be in a special education class. My idealism was met with skepticism. Freddy led the charge.

Freddy had friends who were not special education students, and as the school year progressed his unhappiness about being a sweathog became more and more obvious. He insulted his classmates with disabilities, nearly all of whom lacked the skills to counter his verbal abuse; he actively avoided coming to class, and when he did attend refused to complete his work and disrupted it. He was noncompliant with my reasonable requests probably half the time, and the other students were taking notice, and following suit. There was no possibility of segregating Freddy, for the room was too small. Lack of administrative support meant that sending him out of the room proved nothing. He always came bouncing back. I was on my own.

Remembering a minor work of classic fiction I had read, The Blackboard Jungle (1954), and studying the tenets of psychoeducation, I decided I would forge a relationship with Freddy. So, I found ways for him to gain prestige through "acceptable" channels, and used planned ignoring of Freddy's maladaptive classroom behavior when that was feasible. Those strategies would have worked in the majority of cases, I now believe; but what I didn't understand then -- and comprehended only years later -- is that Freddy's relationship with his father was so dysfunctional that he could not extend trust to me. His personality development had been severely compromised through poor parenting, and as classroom authority I was caught up in Freddy's negative transference reaction. The closer I tried to get to Freddy, the more he would push me away, and the nastier he became.

I soon became defensive, caught up in the conflict cycle Drs. Nick Long and Frank Fecser describe so well. At times I took the initiative to "out tough" Freddy. Other times, I tried to appease him. Basically . . . It wasn't pretty.

Winter break gave me brief respite from the anxiety I was now suffering, but when school came back into session things were worse than they had been before. Freddy and his father had come to blows on Christmas day, and Freddy had run away from home. He was living with friends, drinking, smoking marijuana and had some run-ins with police. I was beginning to understand just how troubled Freddy really was.

I had little control over Freddy in school. He became verbally abusive of me, calling me "Chrystal Balls," babbling nonsense, refusing to do his work and continuously challenging my authority. He seemed to have singled me out, and I felt utterly helpless dealing with him. The school administrators gave me little support and my two special education colleagues were living their own hell. My previous desire to develop a relationship with the boy gave way to despair. I prayed Freddy would be absent from school, and celebrated when he failed to report. I really wondered if I was cut out for special education, or for teaching. I tried not to bring my troubles home, but that proved increasingly difficult. I was really stressed out.

My involvement with Freddy did not end well. Towards the end of the school year he was transferred to an older -- and more experienced -- female teacher's class. His behavior stabilized in the new environment and I was left to ponder what I did "wrong." My ego had taken a severe beating, and scars remain.

I have thought about Freddy over the years and now think I was overly zealous in trying to "relate" to him. I believe that due to my age, he saw me as an equal but also -- given his troubled relationship with his father -- as an authority figure who was not to be trusted. I also think I assumed that because I wanted to develop a positive relationship with Freddy, he would want to do likewise. My naivete, or perhaps narcissism, got in the way. In some ways, I empowered Freddy, and he readily took advantage of that. Maybe I forgot that Richard Dadier's attempt to win over a troubled student in The Blackboard Jungle fell flat.

I learned early on that working with troubled and troubling kids is not easy. It is analogous to piloting a submarine through a minefield or perhaps, flying an airplane into the eye of a hurricane. You might survive a few false moves, but more than that and you are lost. Relationship remains critical, far more so than any prescribed procedure for behavior management, but relationship cannot be rushed. Support from colleagues is essential. An empathic stance combined with patient understanding that trust cannot be manufactured generally brings durable results.

It would be nice if teaching ED/BD kids was like Welcome Back, Kotter. Sometimes it is, but more often it is not.