Unfiltered Story #242952

So, this story takes a bit of set-up. It didn’t happen to me, but one of my colleagues. I was working as a long-term sub at a middle school teaching English. This school–while being rural and usually full of amazing students–happened to have one team with all the “problem” children (my team). The science teacher on said team was an amazingly sweet, middle-aged woman who would never say a bad word to anyone for any reason (she even ended up mentoring me a bit).

Anyway, like I said, my team happened to be the team full of “bad apples”. A newer student came into our district who immigrated to PA from Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria. He was an ELL and tried to get away with things because of it.

At the end of every day, we usually had a thirty minute study hall, which rotated between the teachers on a team. This student (who we’ll call ELL) was not in said teacher’s (who we’ll call “T”) study hall that particular day.

He came to her room with a pass to get some help with his science homework. T says sure, as long as he is doing work. Okay, fine.
He proceeds to not do any work and tease another student in the study hall. T is fairly patient and tells him to knock it off several times.

Finally, T has had enough. She turns to ELL and says, “ELL, if you aren’t going to do your work and instead tease the other kids, then go back to where you came from.”

Another student in the class yells out, “That’s racist!”
She did get reported by said student, but he himself was already on thin ice and it was obvious to everyone there what she really meant. I have to say, though, that our team had a good laugh about it later (in good spirits).

T, if you’re reading this, I really appreciated all the advice you gave! You’re an awesome teacher and mentor!