entry thirty-five

Thursday, May 1, 2025

    I find myself circling the same question over and over — one that grows heavier with each passing week: When is enough enough?

I’ve taught special education long enough to understand that behavior is communication. I deeply believe in giving students second chances, offering restorative conversations, and meeting them where they are. But this year, I’m facing something different — something more alarming. We have a student in our classroom whose behavior has escalated from challenging to outright dangerous. It began early in the year with loud yelling and aggressive posturing. He progressed to physically hitting and kicking staff. Now, months in, he regularly pushes peers against walls, uses graphic profanity toward adults and children alike, refuses to complete any classwork, throws materials, and tears up assignments in front of us. He roams the room, invades others’ personal space, and verbally threatens anyone who corrects him.

    Despite implementing visual behavior incentive charts, structured praise, consistent routines, and regular family communication, the behaviors persist. Calls home are met with denial — the parent insists he doesn’t behave this way outside of school. But here, in this space meant for learning and safety, he has become a source of tension, fear, and unpredictability.

    Other students flinch when his voice rises. They shrink into themselves when he storms across the room. They’ve learned to tiptoe emotionally, scanning his mood before daring to ask a question or engage in group work. And I’ve lost count of the lessons I’ve had to stop midway — or abandon altogether — just to try and restore calm. What’s most disheartening is how little backing we get from school leadership. When we send him to the office, there are no real consequences. He’s given one-on-one time with an adult, soft tones, sometimes even candy. Then he’s sent back minutes later — sometimes smug, sometimes laughing — while the rest of the class is still recovering from his outcbursts. We were told he would serve lunch detention. It hasn’t happened once. There is no follow-through. No consistent structure. No protection for the rest of the students who have the right to learn in peace. This student has a behavior plan, but it feels performative at best. It actually instructs that I, as a female teacher, should not issue consequences because he “doesn’t respond well to women.” What am I supposed to do with that? Step aside while he rages? Let him hurt others and pretend I didn’t see it? How is that fair to the other students? How is that safe? This isn’t isolated. In my time across grade levels, I’ve witnessed this trend stretch from elementary to middle school. In the eighth grade, I saw students openly sniffing hand sanitizer during class — not once, but repeatedly. I reported it to the principal. She laughed. Literally laughed. Then told me, “Just ask them to stop.” That was the solution. That was the leadership response to students engaging in toxic, potentially harmful behavior.

    How can we hold boundaries, teach accountability, and foster growth when we’re told — explicitly or implicitly — that consequences are optional, even inconvenient? That some students are above structure? What are we modeling for the students who are following the rules? That chaos wins? That safety isn’t a priority?

    

    I’m exhausted. Not just by the behaviors, but by the expectation that I should endure them endlessly, quietly, and without support. I’m exhausted from watching students suffer because one child’s extreme needs are allowed to eclipse everyone else’s. I want to believe we can find a way through. But right now, I just need someone to stand beside me and say it plainly: This is not okay. Enough is enough.

    As I sit with my neurographic art piece, I didn’t intend to make a statement. I just needed to move. To let my hand lead the way where my words and logic couldn’t. I started with a few intersecting lines — the kind I’ve drawn a hundred times before. But then I kept going. And going. Curving corners, thickening shapes, layering loops on top of loops. It became compulsive. Every space I filled gave birth to another that felt unbearably blank. I couldn’t leave anything untouched. The drawing became a living reflection of my internal chaos. It mirrored how I feel every day in the classroom — overwhelmed, cornered by needs that never end, stretched thin across conflicting expectations. There is no center in the piece, just like there is no clear center in my day-to-day work. Everything pulls at me from all sides — the student in crisis, the silent majority trying to learn, the parent in denial, the administrator who shrugs.

As the paper grew dense with tangled lines, I started to feel suffocated by it. But I still didn’t stop. Why? Because in both art and teaching, I’ve been conditioned to believe that leaving something undone means failure. That the moment I pause, something will be missed, someone will get hurt, and no one else will pick up the slack. The drawing also forced me to face an uncomfortable truth: I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to let go, to call something “complete,” to say, this is enough. Because nothing in my current reality feels complete. Every intervention feels half-done. Every consequence, suspended. Every conversation with leadership, unresolved.

My neurographic art became a silent scream. The kind I can’t let out at school. It gave form to the weight I carry — the unrelenting pressure to contain everything: students, emotions, lessons, safety, chaos. It’s beautiful, but it’s crowded. Just like me. Maybe that’s the most painful part of all — I keep drawing because I still believe things can be held together if I just do a little more. But the page is full. My spirit is full. And still, the pen keeps moving. How long before it tears through the paper? How long before I do?

"The Weight of a Thousand Redirects" 

sharpie on paper 

Me: Why do you feel so chaotic? I look at you and feel... overwhelmed. There’s no center, no calm. Just endless lines.

The Weight of a Thousand Redirects: I am what you’ve poured into me. The chaos is not mine alone — it’s yours. I hold what you haven’t said out loud. The tension. The pressure. The way you keep pushing without pause.

Me: But I didn’t want this to be heavy. I just needed to do something. Something quiet. Something soothing. Why couldn’t you stay simple?

The Weight of a Thousand Redirects: Because you’re not living in simplicity. You came to me with clenched shoulders and a scattered mind. I became the map of your exhaustion — and your refusal to stop. Every added line was your way of trying to control the uncontrollable.

Me: I keep thinking, just one more line, one more fix, one more try, and then maybe it will feel finished. But it never does. Even now, I want to pick up the pen again.

The Weight of a Thousand Redirects: I know. But maybe the lesson isn’t in finishing. Maybe it’s in pausing. In stepping back. In accepting that some spaces don’t need to be filled. You are allowed to stop. You are allowed to rest.