I got sent to the principal’s office because of my face. Not for something I said. Not for something I did.
My face.
I have that face, you know. The one that makes people think I’m mad or in pain or just plain grumpy. I can be perfectly fine—content, happy even—and you’d never know it by looking at me.
This particular day, though, I wasn’t fine. Standing at the front of my classroom, I had just received some devastating personal news. I was fighting back tears and dealing with what felt like a bowling ball sitting in the pit of my stomach.
And Then the Bell Rang
Because that’s what happens when you’re a teacher. Whatever happened five minutes ago, whatever phone call you just received, whatever crisis is waiting for you outside those four walls, the bell rings and twenty-some students walk through the door.
My ninth graders settled into class, talking to one another and, thankfully, mostly ignoring me.
Except Danielle.
Danielle approached my desk with a request. She was going on vacation. In three weeks. And she wanted all of the work she would miss while she was gone. I hadn’t even written the lesson plans yet. I told her as much. She rolled her eyes, huffed, and went back to her seat. Apparently, she heard my words but read my face. And my face said something considerably more offensive.
I struggled through the rest of that class and the rest of the day.
Sometime later, after the initial shock of what had happened had worn off, I explained to my classes that I had been dealing with a difficult personal situation that day. I wasn’t looking for sympathy. I simply wanted them to understand that teachers are human beings and sometimes life follows us through the classroom door. Instead of helping Danielle understand, my explanation apparently gave her more ammunition.
Not long afterward, I was summoned to the principal’s office. Danielle would be there. So would her mother.
Oh, good.
By then, enough time had passed that my emotions were under control. I walked into the conference room and listened as the incident was replayed for me. Danielle had asked for her vacation work. I had told her I didn’t have it ready. My demeanor had upset her.
Fair enough.
I calmly acknowledged that I hadn’t handled the interaction as well as I could have. I explained that I truly couldn’t give Danielle the work yet because I would create those assignments as I planned the lessons for that week. Then her mother said something I have never forgotten:
“A teacher should never allow anything in her personal life to affect her job.”
I could have argued. I could have defended myself. I could have explained that teachers don’t stop being wives, husbands, parents, children, friends, caregivers, or human beings when the bell rings. I could have pointed out that her daughter had rolled her eyes and huffed at me.
I could have done a lot of things.
Instead, I apologized.
Sincerely.
And then something interesting happened.
Nothing.
There Wasn’t Much Left to Argue About
Danielle’s mother continued to look at her phone as she had for the entire meeting. As I remember it, she hadn’t just come prepared for a fight. She seemed to be waiting for the principal to discipline me—to reprimand me, correct me, something.
But I had already acknowledged what had happened and apologized.
There wasn’t much left for him to do. He looked as dumbfounded as she did. He said nothing.The four of us—Danielle, her mother, the principal, and me—just sat there.
I really wanted to say, “If you’d like a pound of flesh, could you please take it out of my rear?”
But I didn’t. I even did my best to control my face.
I honestly don’t remember exactly how the meeting ended. What I remember is realizing that there had been nothing left to resolve because I had refused to give the conflict anywhere to go.
A Student Had Taught Me
But I can’t take credit for figuring that out on my own. A student had taught me.
Some time before this, I’d kept a student after class for something he’d done. I don’t even remember what it was. I was prepared for the usual back-and-forth: I would tell him what he’d done, he’d explain why he hadn’t really done it, and we’d argue our way toward some sort of resolution.
Instead, he looked at me and said, “Okay. I did that. Now what do we do?”
Well.
There went the argument.
He owned what he’d done and moved us immediately from Who is at fault? to What do we do next? We were able to move quickly into the redemptive part of discipline—repairing what needed to be repaired and figuring out how to move forward. Even better, the conversation strengthened our relationship.
I never forgot it.
So when I found myself sitting in the principal’s office with Danielle, her mother, and my principal, I knew what to do.
Own what’s yours. Then ask, Now what do we do?
I didn’t need to win.
That’s harder than it sounds, especially for teachers. We’re accustomed to explaining ourselves. We spend our days making decisions and defending them: grades, deadlines, assignments, consequences, seating charts, bathroom passes, missing work, late work, group work, homework. When someone questions one of those decisions, our instinct can be to build the case. But sometimes the quickest way through a conflict is to stop defending ourselves long enough to acknowledge what’s true.
I could have handled that better. I’m sorry.
Owning my part didn’t mean Danielle was right about everything. It didn’t mean her mother was right when she suggested that teachers should somehow leave every personal struggle in the parking lot before walking into school. And it certainly didn’t mean I was wrong for not having three-weeks-from-now’s lesson plans finished.
It just meant I could own what belonged to me without picking up what didn’t.
Pride builds walls and takes up arms. Humility doesn’t need nearly as much ammunition.
“Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.”
—Proverbs 18:12
James puts it even more plainly:
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
—James 4:6b
That day, grace looked remarkably ordinary. It looked like a teacher sitting in the principal’s office saying, I’m sorry. It looked like resisting the urge to defend every part of myself. It looked like letting a conflict run out of oxygen.
And, perhaps most miraculously of all, it looked like keeping control of my face.
