Little things and perspectives...

My son and I were talking recently about how people respond to different circumstances. We talked about Albert Camus's "The Stranger" (Along with The Cure's song Killing an Arab) and the way the different perspectives were portrayed between foreigner and native Arab. We talked about the Zazou's of France during World War II and the Pet Shop Boys song "In the Night" and how their perspective was different from the Nazi occupation and the French resistance.

We talked about how people see the same event in many different ways. We talked about his responses to stressful situations and what he does and what I do.

He thought about this for a second and then said, "My mom has the screaming gene."

And she does.

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My son came home with a mark, "Passing a note in class that hit the teacher". Positively puzzled about how something like that could occur, I asked him about it. He was vague and evasive in his answer. I just let it go as I could see I wasn't going to get anywhere with it.

A few other things happened that I didn't know about, but culminated with me coming to the school this past Friday afternoon to discuss the issues with the guidance counselors.

One of these things was a writing assignment from the English teacher about three ways to get kicked out of school. The assignment was to be put in his journal, but he put it in his notebook instead. Another teacher saw he wrote about three ways to get kicked out of school, but there was no heading...and the list was pretty predictable given the imagination of a sixth grader with very little guidance.

All of this came together today when I talked to his English teacher.

It appears that during some testing they finished early. They were given permission to pass notes. My son asked if they could pass them as paper airplanes. The teacher said "No." She then turned to walk out the door. My son has an issue with impulsiveness. He launched the paper airplane. He missed his target...and hit the teacher square in the head. In front of the whole class. She said it took everything she had not to bust out laughing. She turned and asked Brandon to put himself down for a mark for not following directions. He was mad at himself and wrote some disparaging comments in his binder. That coupled with the assignment from the same teacher is what brought me to school early Friday to talk with the guidance counselors.

And that is how patching together several different perspectives makes the whole thing kind of funny and solves a few mysteries. It really is just my son's luck that he would throw the airplane on impulse and hit the teacher. I wouldn't have thought it very funny, but it really helped me feel better that she did.