You cannot be nice to kids, they will see it as weakness and wear you
down and break you. Mr. Creer was our math teacher and was
unquestionably the coolest teacher in school but he made the fatal
mistake of trying to be our friend. He would let us talk when we were
done with our work and he would give us extra chances to complete
work and it started to wear on him when kids started taking advantage
of his leniency. He was in his second year when I was in seventh
grade and he was trying to tighten the ship and try a little more
strict classroom but once freedom has been granted it is very hard to
take it back away. I was always being disrespectful and talking out
of turn in other classes but I liked Mr. Creer and I was always
trying to be good and set a good example in his class because I felt
bad for him. He was getting more or more frazzled and snappy but
about midway through the year a girl named Kelly got up right in the
middle of Mr. Creer's lecture and walked over and started talking
with her friend in non-conspiratorial tones. Mr. Creer told her we
couldn't get up and talk until our work and homework was done. Kelly
said her homework was done. This was not true and everyone knew it
but for some reason it was the last drop on the forehead of Mr.
Creer's Chinese water torture. He hummed a bit and festered and them
he called her a liar. She said she wasn’t lying and he started in
with the melt down. He screamed that we were all liars and grabbed
some chalk and threw it at her. He screamed about how he was sick of
us all lying and he kicked his garbage can hard enough to send it
flying into the wall. He swept all of the books and the computer off
of his desk and yelled a few more things as he stormed out of the
class and out of the professional education gig. We got a permanent
substitute that was one of the kids in our grade's mom who was no
nonsense and she had us whipped back into shape soon. Mr. Creer's
breakdown was all we talked about for a couple of weeks and then it
went away except for as a footnote to our education. Years later I
was at a job where we were getting a generator delivered and the
drivers name was Creer on the manifest so I went out to see if it was
Mr. Creer, it was. I talked to him for a bit and he told me he was
much happier driving truck and that he didn't regret anything. He
thanked me for being a good kid and I told him that I was sorry for
how he was treated and that was the end of it.
