The report about teacher Sherri Davis whuppin’ 13-year old Isaiah Johnson had the ingredients for a hot movie deal. Then a cheap cell video of the performance went public and all deals were off. Little wonder – the actual beating was as exciting as cramming a "Tickle-me-Elmo Doll" into a garbage bag.
I’m reserving judgment on details. I wasn’t there but I have a hunch.
When my wife was more tolerant she subbed in classrooms, the equivalent of trench-level warfare with gang-bangers-in-training. Some kids learned the perp-walk before they completed Pre-K, and by age 13 were sociopaths who knew their Miranda rights and how to push system buttons like a “Blackberry.”
Sherri Davis’ buttons were pushed. She flipped.
It wasn’t always this way. When I was a pre-teen, our classrooms were proto-types of decorum and we were model citizens. It never had a chance to get out of control. Why?
Two words: Sister Terasita.
Years earlier, this diminutive Franciscan nun ruled our class with fists of fury. Sister Terasita was a 4’-9” wad of wound-up terror capable of explosive wrath at the slightest provocation. She wacked classmates with rulers and grabbed disruptive students by their ears and twisted until they turned purple.
Once a girl student was late with her homework and Sister Terasita responded by hurling a box of dimes at the student. The box flew by my head and crashed against the blackboard. Coins flew like shrapnel. Students ducked. The girl burst into tears. The rest of us feared for our lives.
Abusive authority figure? Absolutely. Yet fear kept us all in line. "Wait 'til your father gets home" were Mom's magic words for jerk-control. Between my parents and Sister Terasita, the thin line of bad behavior all but disappeared.
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