NKOTB
By, Michael Earnshaw
@mearnshaw158
November 12, 2019
I’ll never forget the look on Mom’s face that crisp, fall evening. I had been sprinting around the house, chasing my sisters while my father concluded his day by viewing his favorite television shows through closed eyelids. Mom broke through the threshold of our front door, still sporting her black slacks and magenta, flowered patterned shirt, hidden by her long, tan, trench coat. Her oversized purse plummeted onto the end of our ovaled kitchen table. Ebony, our black lab, stopped chasing after us kids to greet mom, her blatantly obvious favorite family member.
“Well, how’d it go? What’d she say about me?” I inquired.
A deep, long sigh escaped from Mom’s lips. I figured she was exhausted from another long day downtown.
“You need to start wearing different pants to school Mike,” is all she said as she stared at the kitchen floor tile directly in front of the one I was residing on.
She then slowly floated to the stove where the leftover dinner that my sisters, dad, and I ingested sat cold and somewhat hardened in a pan.
Confusion overtook my 9-year-old brain.
“What do you mean I need to wear new pants? What did she say about my grades?”
I already knew the answer to my questions. Grades, great, all A’s. Each year of my schooling, which at this point in my short life would make report card #17, were always A’s. Behavior, perfect, the model student every teacher dreamed about at night. I participated, but not over the top in your face participation. I had my best friends but was also friendly with everyone in class. I included whomever wanted to play “Kick the Snapple Cap” at recess and never complained when groups were assigned. I was THE student teachers wanted. At least I thought.
Mom contemplated her response for a while. It probably took so long because she was also trying to heat up her dinner with some Jedi force, simply looking down at her food on the stove through the same closed eyes dad was taking in his stories on the Lay-Z-Boy.
“Mike, I don’t know, she says your pants make you look like you have no money and as you get older, you’ll get mixed into the wrong crowd because of how you dress.” These words filled our kitchen air, sounding rehearsed and forced. At 9 years old I knew that Mom didn’t even believe what she was saying, that by me wearing jeans with holes in them had no bearing on my future.
It’s probably time to explain these jeans. I was in 4th grade. I had finally discovered music. So many of the guys my age were listening to and starting to resemble Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Poison, and Motley Crue. We had something much cooler than mullets, we had the rat tail! I was proud of mine. It had taken awhile to grow. It hung about halfway down my back and was kept in a tight braid with a red rubber band. I never needed to wear long sleeves because my right wrist was layered in friendship bracelets, keeping my forearm cozy. Every night before bed I tightened them up as insurance they didn’t fall off throughout my slumber. One morning I awoke to a blue hand, teaching me a lesson in what it means to cut off circulation.
While I was proud of my rat tail and rope bracelets, it was my jeans. From right above the knee rappelling all the way to my ankles were holes.
Remember those metal bands I mentioned above, well I was not going for that look. Instead, Danny, Donnie, Joey, Johnathon, and Jordan were my heroes in 4th grade. I dreamed about being the 6th member. Once accepted, I would truly be the New Kid on the Block!
“So, mom, why can’t I wear my jeans? I love these, they’re cool?” I pleaded.
With another unconvincing sigh, Mom responded with words that she didn’t own, “Mike, the teachers are talking about the way you dress. You just have to look more like the other kids. You have that one pair of pants with no holes you can wear tomorrow. I’ll get you more this weekend.”
That was it. It was the death of my holey NKOTB jeans, but the birth of realizing what it meant to be judged for how one looks or dresses.
At just 9 years old, a straight A, well-behaved student, was already being labeled as a kid who “would go down the wrong path.” Mom also explained that my teacher, and the other staff at my elementary school, know that when I get into Jr. High and High School, that if I continue to dress the way I do, the “bad” kids are going to suck me into their evil clans.
Just writing out this story, this story that changed my life forever, anger is filling my veins. I can feel my brow furrowing, my lips straightening, and the heavy breaths leaving my nasal cavity. I am a firm believer in accepting others for who they are, flaws, strengths, oddities, and individualities! We are all beautiful human beings with so much to offer this world. Nothing world changing has ever been accomplished by following the status quo. Nothing world changing has ever been accomplished by creating cookie cutter lemmings.
I finished the school year with a chip on my shoulder. For the first time in my life, I did not view my teacher as one of the most important adults in my life. I no longer looked up to them, hanging on their every word, yearning to learn from them. I still made my straight A’s and behaved, I knew how to play what is now an antiquated game, but that relationship we had was broken.
Our relationship, the relationship educators strive to make with their students, had a broken link. I now knew that this teacher didn’t truly believe in me. They didn’t believe that I could overcome the peer pressure I would face as I got older. They didn’t believe that I could express myself, look and dress differently than my peers, and still succeed academically and socially.
We are here to help guide our students to believe in themselves, embrace their strengths and weaknesses, own their successes and failures, and make choices to be better tomorrow than they are today. We are here to help create world changers. Had this teacher gone about informing Mom about her concerns in a different manner could our relationship have been saved? More than likely. We need to remember that it takes a lot of work to create a trusting relationship, especially with students. Unfortunately, it takes the strike of a feather to break it.
Remember who your students are, human beings. Remember who your students’ families are, human beings. Find the right approach to address your concerns to them. Find the approach that will strengthen that relationship in the long run, displaying your true concern and care for them. It’s possible, and it’s what is needed to help build world-changing students.
Let’s Go!
- Describe a time that you passed judgement on the future of a child without having substantial proof that that would be their path.
- Explain what happened to the relationship between you, the student, and possibly the family.
- Reflect on how you could have approached your concerns in a different light.
