Today while I was watching some of my students play a soccer game, I got hit in the back of the head by a basketball throw by Hayden, age 5. I turned, startled and betrayed and saw him and Lucas, age 7 laughing. When I informed Hayden, age 5, that his basketball had hurt, he smiled. I asked him to apologize and was offered, by way of apology, the word sorry, thrown to the ground, as carelessly as a candy wrapper, left in the dirt as Hayden, age 5, and Lucas, age 7, sprinted away from the apology at top speed.
Formed and died on my lips
Before my attention was stolen by Henry, who had just disrupted said soccer game by kicking Finn in the ankles and then shouting at Finn as he lay on the ground curled up in a fetal position.
(No Finns were harmed in the making of this poem.)
But if I had asked Hayden,
Why are you being so mean to me?
Why are you being so mean to me?
Here is what he would have said,
"I contain multitudes. And when you inquire about my actions it might be inferred, by a scholar such as I, that you are also inquiring into my nature. You are trying to discern the motive of my action and if, in performing that action, re: throwing a basketball at your head, I was revealing a significant portion of the innermost workings of my brain.
Why are you being so mean to me?
"I am five and as such the summation of my personality can be traced to one of three sources: firstly: my parents, secondly: society and thirdly: my friends and immediate peers. None of these sources were explicitly advocating for my to project a basketball in the direction of your head and yet something compelled me.
Why are you being so mean to me?
"Was it the implicit approval I expected to gain from my older and therefore much esteemed colleague Lucas, age 7? Did I launch the projectile as a somewhat misguided plea for attention? Is my need for interaction with adults so unfulfilled that I would seek it out even with a somewhat mundane form of violence? Or perhaps my rudimentary understanding of aerodynamics and physics is so unsophisticated that I simply intended to launch this sphere into the air without comprehension that it might come down again, in proximity to your head.
Why are you being so mean to me?
"That you might attempt to might know me is an act of oppression unto itself. Even if you were to understand my motivations for this single action you cannot comprehend the complexity of my life. Perhaps my parents were fighting this morning. Perhaps I don't live with my parents at all. Perhaps I have a perfectly amiable home life but I skipped lunch today due to a bad interaction with my teacher. Perhaps I just found out I will have to put my dog down today. Perhaps I got in a fight with my best friend Mila, age 5 and a half. Perhaps I've been experimenting with slap-stick humor and absurdist thought and I wanted to apply the theory to a tangible expression of my truest self."
Here is what Anna, aged 21, one of my co-teachers said, when I asked her:
Why was he so mean to me?
Why was he so mean to me?
"Sometimes, it isn't about you."
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