The Normality of Difference

By the time I met him, he was stuck in an all-too-familiar cycle: getting kicked out of class for behavior the rebbi found untoward, missing the lessons because he was sitting in the principal’s office, falling behind in his classwork, and then getting angrier and more resentful in class because he missed what his peers had just learned. More than any academic worries, however, the primary concern shared by both his rebbi and his parents was Yitzy’s middos: He was simply becoming “not nice.”

“At this point,” his exasperated parents told me, “we just want him to show basic respect for his rebbi.”

When I asked how Yitzy showed disrespect, the rebbi answered immediately: “He slouches in his chair, and when I ask him to sit straight, he’ll do it for two minutes and then slouch again as soon as I turn my back. Derech eretz kadmah l’Torah! If he can’t show basic decency in the classroom, I can’t teach him anything.”

When Yitzy sat down in my office, I saw what they were talking about. Yitzy was trying to show he really didn’t care, but he was angry: He was angry about getting into trouble constantly. He was angry about being sent to a developmental psychologist. He was angry that people viewed him as a “bad kid” who didn’t respect his teachers. And… he was slouching.