The Look
Today’s class was, well, horrible. For whatever reason, the students were at their worst behavior of the entire year. They were unruly and talkative and simply would not listen. In fact, I gave every single student a negative point at the end of the class for their abominable behavior.
All that being said, there was something extremely amusing today, too.
I have never had a poker face, or at least, not when it comes to being angry. The entire world knows when I’m angry. I am simply unable to hide what has become known as “The Look.” I flash people a look even when they’re only mildly annoying, apparently. Today, after one of my students was being particularly annoying, he and the other students commented on the look I was giving him. They particularly noted that they had never seen that specific expression before. “That’s because you’ve never been this bad,” I said.
“Can you do it again?” they asked.
The lesson was not learned.
For the rest of the class, every time the students misbehaved and I shot them a reproving look, there was a chorus of, “She’s doing it again!” and “There it is!” and (sigh) “Can you do it again?”
This look, I explained to my madrich (assistant), is but a pale shadow of the look that has been known to cause grown men to flatten against the wall as I walk past, hoping against hope that it isn’t directed at them. It is the look that used to get my father, one of the only men in the world who was not afraid of it, to say, “Stop looking at me like that.” It is the look I used to call the “Eff-you” look.
Sigh. The Look has been relegated to an entertaining expression for fourth graders when they are misbehaving.
I guess I’m not nearly as angry as I used to be.
Then again, they were just misbehaving children. I’m perfectly sure The Look is still there for when it’s truly needed. Disciplining unruly children in religious school is not one of those times.
