First, I teach defiant and disabled children. Then I go home to heal, because I am a disabled, neurodivergent, chronically ill, and traumatized survivor of sexual violence. I have taught vulnerable students across conflict zones in six countries and from New York City’s poshest private schools to the rural desert Bedouin tribes of Saudi Arabia. I have won court cases. I have taught before, during and after COVID. I have worked with a few children (mostly boys) who react to their own pain with outright violence of other disabled children and of vulnerable animals. The average adult perpetrator who does not get an intervention in their childhood will go on to have about 400 victims. I have prevented nearly 1 million victimizations due to my interventions during the past 20 years, and I have paid for this work with my sanity.

First, I make lesson plans. Then I shit on-the-fly problem solving. I am built to fix, like an engineer. My wires and circuits are behavioral patterns and synapses. These codes are spoken and nonverbal languages. Education-as-work rewards flexibility, and punishes rigid personalities. If I cannot adapt, no one in my classroom will survive. I am at home in my classes, because my homelife was also violent and unpredictable.

In my classes, I have stopped a potential school shooting and a man from choking a child (that was not his child) in South Korea. I have seen the school bully puddle into a ball, weeping hysterically at the sight of a half-eaten worm. Forever changed. I have won court cases and awards for my teaching outcomes for Black disabled youth against the NYCDOE on the basis of educational neglect (which is legal shorthand for systemic weaponized educational racism). I have watched an “intellectually impaired” student recreate Othello as a Pac Man game.

I have also made many calls to child protective services that have meant quitting my jobs, because many of my principals did not want an angry daddy to call them about a social services report after a kid entered my classroom crying and bleeding from his ears. I have had an open-hearted principal refuse to let me be brave, checking on me after an assault. After I assured him I’d ‘be fine,’ he insisted he’d be checking on me. No matter my protests. I have also had a child run into a kitchen, get hold of a butcher knife, dissociate, and threaten to “cut my head off.” Then I have been blamed by that specific admin for the child’s outburst, and not praised for de-escalating extremism.

First, I have had a six-foot-two high school student scream at me, “You took my phone. I’m gonna smack the fuckin’ shit out of you, yo, are you stupid?!”

Then I responded, “Maybe I am stupid. You are bigger than me.” First, I’ve had students record me in classes, hoping to no avail to “catch me” being a person. Then I have ignored them. I have never yelled at any child. First, they go big. Then I go small.

I have cried alone in the dark room each school keeps for teachers to cry alone for two minutes in a dark room. I have been beaten in bathroom stalls. I have spent eighty hours of my life (every week) working for a twenty-five-hour-teaching-load for almost twenty years. I have been given a huge heartfelt hug by every kid who has ever hit me. I have never had a student commit suicide. I have never lost any student to murder, gang, or criminal activity. No student of mine has ever been arrested or incarcerated. Ever.

First, I might be a little too proud of this, as I think I did get lucky. Then again I have been up till 2 a.m. studying on how to reform the classroom behavior of genocide victims. First, I lost my romantic relationships. Then I lost my marbles. First, I was a NYC Teaching Fellow. Then I considered myself to be one of the good, even gifted, ones.

First, I teach the child within me alongside my disabled and traumatized clients/students. Then I am dedicated to witnessing the pain in others. This is why I’m so effective at reforming what psychology has labeled “The Untreatable Cases.” First, I am learning how to self-regulate, especially post-COVID. Then I’m aware of the self-serving nature of my plight. Education is a skills-based field. It’s as evidence-based as medicine and more so than law. It’s the most evidence-based social services field, outpacing the least evidence-based fields of psychology.

After a lifetime of compounding stress in war zones, I live with dissociative amnesia and fugue, which could, if not medicated properly, Pokemon up into Dissociative Identity Disorder. This diagnosis used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. Like its madness cousins, schizophrenia and bipolar, DID is incurable by modern psychiatry. I do not have DID, not yet. The only treatment is medication and CBT. A little EMDR might help, but I haven’t tried it. The real prognosis is more concerned with how to live with this disease, not how to overcome the pathological zoning out and becoming a different person. It is not possible (yet) to integrate selves after a split so pervasive. And if the doctor doesn’t know what they’re doing, then I can experience a dissociative identity disorder symptom that frightens the hell out of me and everyone around me.

First of all, the voices I hear off meds tell me to clean the house, or go for a 14-mile aimless walk about the neighborhood. Then they can be violent. First, when they are violent, I check myself into an emergency room. Then I am told “extremely high-functioning except when threatened.” (And as long as a precarious medication tug-of-war is kept in check.) First of all, my medication is not always delivered on time. Then sometimes a new non-psych medication interacts with my old psych med, like a chemotherapy treatment with an antipsychotic or a food poisoning drug with the acid that breaks down my antidepressant. Prednisone, a corticosteroid to treat celiac, is a heinous experience.

First, my terrified parts become active and most useful in times of true danger. Then I become terrifying when the new creep of the year calls my part-time retail job, asking if I would like my mouth stuffed full with my own panties, when I am locked out of Saudi on a visa issue at the border of Amman, Jordan and Palestine during the conflict of May 2021, or when someone tells me there’s an assassination attempt on my life in Saudi after my cats are poisoned. First, I was scammed by the largest money-laundering scheme of Pakistan. Then I sent the evidence to the FIA (CIA of Pakistan) to put those people out of business.

Firstly, it has taken me twenty years to separate the feeling of terror in me from the predation pattern that career predators exhibit. Then I become terrified and therefore terrifying to unaware, which is not the same as being violent. Violence is more often than not something that happens to people like me. Frist, these people who are dangerous are more often calculated about it. Then they are not terrifying at all. Then are strategic, premeditated, and opportunistic. First, bad actors are efficient at using my trauma responses to justify their predation of me. Then again I am always afraid of what is within me and also how people will react to me.

First, I live in a constant relationship to terror. Then I start classes with a talk or tactic I have refined over the past two decades, something I have developed from years doing counterterrorism work on the side of my education practice. I say first, before anyone can dominate class but me, I do not care what you say to me or about me. You can make fun of me all you like. You cannot break me. I’m an adult. I will never hurt you. There is one final rule in this room, and that is that you are to be kind to one another. If you are not kind to each other, then I will fight you. And I promise you that you do not want to fight me. (Cue weird and wonky muscle flex.) Then this shuts down peer bullying, hindering all aggression in class and directing rage in my direction. First, I treat rage as unhealed pain. Then I make sure that pain is heard. By a trusted adult. For possibly the first time in a child’s lifetime. We figure it out. In real time. As each issue arises. First, this can lead to a younin’ asking me, in nearly communicable pain, “Teacher, why are you so fat?”

Then I respond: “If you call me fat one more time, I will eat you. But only at lunch, because we do not have humans for snacks at break.” First, this might seem odd, and then again I maintain these are odd kids. When a kid growls at me, I reply, “I don't speak lion.” When a child insults me, I act like they have ripped my heart out and stomped on it in a performative, clownish manner.

Humor takes all the fun out of violence. First, a high school student once yelled, “I don’t care about your stickers anymore!”

“I know you care,” I snapped back. Then she looked at her sticker-covered notebook and laughed. For a while, two high-school-aged girls would sit in the back of my lectures and make funny faces at me trying to get me to “break” into laughter all 5th period. It was fun until they escalated to overt flirting with each other and with me. First, I called guidance. Then after the admin reprimand, these girls looked at me like they would murder me all 5th period. That was fine. Two days later, they offered a heartfelt apology.

Being a good teacher means being uncool.

Being uncool is synonymous with having adult boundaries. I’m funny in a strategic way in class. I also know my limits and who to call and when to call someone for help. Teaching is the first line of national security defense in this country. First, the FBI, NSA and CIA recruit teachers out of education to do spy work daily, but teaching professions do not recruit from the CIA, NSA, or FBI. We are not convinced super spies can do what we do—

First, a teacher, who was far better than me, who was a NYC veteran teacher of 30 years, said it this way, “Teachers need summers off or we will kill people. Not children. Maybe their parents, though.” She meant it as a half-joke, but she was right. First, teachers need summers off so they can then exercise the level of care necessary during the school year to make sure no one goes around killing any people.

In my training in the Bronx, I saw a tall, lanky, male and veteran teacher scream. First, this expert educator yelled at a student who was coming towards him in a rage. He said, “Do you think I care about this job? Yo, I will put you down!” Then student backed away and sat down. In the debrief, we talked about how that was a lie. A necessary lie. Because if this student did attack his teacher the student would be tried as a Black male adult in NYC and end up in Rikers. This teacher would recover. First, I tell the parents of students who are bullies, I am not worried about the other children. The worst that can happen to them is that they go to the hospital. They will move on from any assault eventually. If your violent child continues to behave this way, your child will go to juvie and your child will never get better from that.

Then that often clues parents into the seriousness of a situation. Social scientists only know how to reform childhood defiance, not adults who are antisocial.

Disabled, defiant, and traumatized children are often expert negotiators. They’ve had to fight with parents and doctors to get their needs met at a young age. First, I don’t indulge this adult part of these kiddos. Then I demand they be children. Instead of talking to them like adults, which is not healthy, I prompt them to behave like children and ignore any outbursts. I use two words to do this: “first” and “then.”

First work. Then break.

First reset. Then go to the classroom.

First breathe. Then talk.

First listen. Then speak. The list of possibilities are endless but the premise is the same. First responsibility. Then reward. I try to do this to myself. First heal. Then live. It doesn’t hold up for an adult, though. First testimony. Then the investigation.

First questioning witnesses. Then prosecution.

First dismissal. Then therapy.

First therapy. Then work.

First work. Then therapy.

What is the guidebook? For something so horrific? First, I wish I’d had me at any point in recovery. Then I try to give myself a healthy me in times of stress.

First give. Then take.

First try. Then assess.

First think. Then act.

First escape. Then heal. First play dead. Then fight back. First forgive. Then forget I do this with practical matters. First save. Then spend. First rent. Then coffee. First coffee. Then food. First try. Then try. Repeat.

First of all, I do have bad days. Then again that’s why I’m a skills-based practitioner. An engineer can have a bad day, but still follow protocol and do successful engineering. Teachers are engineers of people. On good days, I intuit every situation’s precise vocal tone and verbal needs. I am still highly efficient on bad days.

First, I am exercising a specific form of masking in class, because students and parents can never know that I don’t enjoy the work on a given day. Or that I am having a bad day. This is a necessary mask. Then I am concerned masking has contributed to my dissociation. Moving through the world with this deliberate split makes me more vulnerable to PTSD splitting. This is the reason this past year has been my last.

First of all, parents are somewhat rightfully paranoid about the state of public education, but the solution isn’t vouchers or Moms for Liberty. It’s paying teachers more and not cutting our healthcare. It’s less spending on war zones and more on preventative education anti-violence initiatives.

First, my own mind survives our split nation by splitting. Then my coping strategies to survive this conflict outside and within me are not so delinquent. I have a public self and a private one. Most people have an online persona, a social media avatar, a brand, and an IRL personhood. So do I. First, I talk myself. I have loving conversations, sometimes charged-love rants, with different facets of my past. Then again, some people journal to no one. Some people binge eat and watch TV all weekend. The average American watches 35 hours of TV a week. I cannot sit through more than 24 minutes of even the best movies. Noticing predation narratives is too overwhelming.

First, I am aware of the ways I am split, grateful I am gaining more control of my dissociation. Self-awareness is the bedrock of empathy. Offenders often conclude, “I did not know any better.” This should be amended to: I did not feel any better. It takes no explicit knowledge or explicit education to be good. We only need to feel the pain we are causing in the synapses of another.

Many of us are trying to avoid a painful, empathetic integrative response to terror through compartmentalization and rationalization. The ability to feel nothing about horror is often seen as a peak sort of moral authority in academic circles. One thing we learn in pedagogical study and positive psychology is that an abused child does not need a savior. First, they need a witness. Then they need someone who has the courage to hold the child’s unfair reality in their mind and to condemn the behavior outright. essentially to say: That is fucked up.

First, this is also the role of the arts and literature. We are witnesses to predation and violence interruptors. Harm is permanent. Then again, what is permanently harmed need not be perpetually harmed. First, this is where I find my connection to writing, art and teaching. Then again, I can never reconstruct a child that has been damaged. First, I can say “it is fucked up,” so that child knows what happened to them is not acceptable. Like physical health, sanity is a flexible sort of Gumbi-like thing. The performance of sanity is, however, surety, certainty and confidence. Most personality disorders are disorders of rigidity: OCPD, NPD, ASPD, and BPD all have varying degrees of a low threshold for change. First, console myself with this personal truth: I adore change. Change is what I do. I would venture to say that change is who I am. I am a sort of changeling. I have never struggled with empathy. I have too much self-awareness for my own good and make too many jokes at my own expense. Then again these patterns I see are not always true patterns. They are real, sure, but they are not always meaningful connections. More often than not, even when they are meaningful, they are then not any of my business. First, there is a profound link between autism and genius. Then one of the facets of both genius and autism is pattern recognition.

First notice. Then ignore.

First boundary. Then hold it.

First, I lecture in disability justice and harm reduction at universities across America. Then I log off to heal. I look in a sink mirror at night as I wash my makeup-free face with my nail-bitten hands to see comet tears across four decades in a million fractals I sometimes cannot recognize. First, I try to meet myself at every age and stage of development. Then I say, “First breathe. Then cry. Who you are is okay. You’re safe now. It is okay to cry. You are safe to cry. First breathe. Then cry. First, take me back to what happened to you. Then tell me how to make it stop.”

Commentary

This issue is about the courage of my students and I to break the cycles of violence that dictate our society at large and permeate the education system in America.

Bio

Shelli Hoppe is an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson's MFA program, where she studies poetry and creative nonfiction and is a Renate Wood scholar. Her work has been published in Tilted House, Saw Palm, The Massachusetts Review, and Litro, among others. She is an internationally collected fine artist. Her work has been supported by OMEGA Institute, The New Centre for Research and Practice, The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Spitsbergen Artist Residency, SomoS Artist Residency, Catapult, and Writing by Writers. She is also a disabled, (half) Puerto Rican, diasporic, nomadic and bisexual/queer woman in search of a safe hometown, whatever that means.