Armchair Anonymous: Teacher/Principal

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous, I'm Buxton, hmm, who am I today? Who are you? What are you feeling? Carol Buxton. Oh, my gosh!

Oh, no, it was Carol...

Baskin. Baskin.

Oh, good pull. Good job. Yeah.

You didn't look that up that quick.

No, I was searching Carol Buxton. Oh!

That's not a person. Okay. I mean, it's a person, but not anyone. Not anyone, no.

Whoever Carol Buxton is, you are a person and we do love you.

Hey, here's a fun idea. If you're Carol Buxton, you're going to have to prove this with documentation, send us an email, maybe we'll interview you. Oh!

Yeah. Maybe.

Yeah, maybe. We'll see.

We're going to keep that as a big. maybe. Could be fun.

Every now and then throw out a random name and find the person and see what they're all about. I'm dead curious now what Carol Buxton's life is all about.

God.

That is not the theme of today's Armchair Anonymous. The theme is crazy stories from teachers and principals.

Wait, what if we do a prompt? that's, if your name is, and then we list four names.

Oh, four names.

And then they write in.

That's, that would be a very optimistic view of how many people are listening. Because what were the, I mean, what are the odds, even that there's a Carol Buxton that listens to the show?

That's true.

Well, we'll find out.

We're also probably going to have to be a little lenient on the spelling.

Sure.

Okay. If your name is Carol Buxton, go to the website. There's an email address and Emma will vet you. Hello at armchairexpertpod.com. Okay.

Yeah, you can. Go for it. Actually, please do support your teachers.

Yeah, because so few of these can we encourage people to listen to. And this is one that we can. So we need the listenership. Stick around.

Hard times, come and go. Good times, take them slow.

My life, I had them both.

Remember one thing, you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining.

Hello.

Hi. Oh, my goodness, you're in a sound booth-ish studio.

I can't take any credit for it. It's my husband's sound studio. This is Scott right here. Oh, he's there.

He's present. Hi.

He's right here. He's making sure she's recording.

Thank you, Scott.

Oh, thank God for Scott. No, I was.

Oh, this could be a great opportunity for some interpersonal.

Absolutely.

Are we using your real name, Carrie? Yes. Okay, wonderful.

Oh my God, this is great. You have our exact same-.

You have a DB7 or whatever these are called? And headphones. No. SM7..

He'd be happy to hear that.

He does not trust-.

Look at the look on his face. He is so nervous that it's not recording.

I know. He was also giving me notes on how to retell the story- Oh, wow. Making sure I got it correct and- You're a co-pilot. Amped it up in the right ways. Yeah, he was my coach.

Okay, Carrie, where are you other than a studio? What part of the country?

I'm in Mequon, Wisconsin, which is a suburb of Milwaukee.

Oh, okay, great. North or south?

North.

North, so on the way to Kohler?

Yes, sir. You got it.

Lovely. Okay, well, you have a crazy story as either a teacher or a principal.

Yes. Back in December of 2015,. I was an assistant principal. at the time. I was in a private school.

There's snow outside. You're in Wisconsin. Oh, yeah. Can I ask one quick question? Growing up, the assistant principal was the one who had to handle all the dirty work.

One evening, I was just kind of wrapping up work, and my secretary said to me that there was a parent that wanted to sit and have a chat. I said, absolutely, bring her in. She was just wondering what was happening with her child at the time and wanted to know what was happening in the classroom. I just kind of gave her the highlight reel and was like, here's what's happening curricular-wise. Here's what's happening with the learning in the classroom.

What? Oh, my goodness.

That is threatening.

And she walked to the doorway of my office, and I just kind of stood there and just stared at her. I didn't know what to do. And then she shut off my office lights and walked out of the room. I think I froze, for, I don't know how long, maybe like 30 seconds to a minute, just trying to process what just happened.

Yes. She was very put off at the suggestion she should reach out to the teacher. That triggered something in her, and then she got insolent in childlike. Well, I'm the principal. Turn your lights off.

Oh, my God.

So that part was just very odd.

Almost so odd that it's easy to not even get offended, right? When people are sane in their agitation with you, it's triggering, but when people are just blatantly nuts, it's kind of helpful, I think.

Well, or then it's scary. It's like, this person's unhinged.

Well, that's true, too, yeah.

Also, I thought when she turned off the lights, she was turning off the lights so you couldn't see her and she was going to touch you. Yeah.

Okay.

No, she definitely stormed off. Okay. And I went out to the front to see if my secretary was still there and try to process through what had happened with someone else, and no one was there. So I was there by myself. And so I went to my computer and I looked up the demographics of the student and just the family, and I noticed under her name that she didn't have a number to reach her, but she had a parole officer's number.

Oh. Okay, okay.

Oh, man. So I called the parole officer and I said, you know, this is what just happened, and she immediately responded with, you were in a room alone with her?

No.

She's like, don't ever do that. Oh, what? And I was like, oh, okay. Oh. I called the other administrators and told them what just had happened and said, this person showed up and said she's going to come back tomorrow morning and be the principal of our school.

Right.

The next morning, came to school, everything was normal, and then the kids start arriving, and we put our dean of students out in the front of the school. that was going to be the person. Oh, God.

The first line of defense.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That person doesn't know what to do.

Well, no one on planet Earth knows what to do. You have to get a security guard.

No one knows what to do.

Everyone needs to ask me what to do in times of crisis. Security guard, 911, biohazard.

DEFCON 1..

I think this person was also hired like a month before.

Okay, great.

But he was our person. So the kids start arriving as normal, and then all of a sudden, her car pulls up, and she gets out of the car. So we immediately go into a shelter-in-place lockdown drill, and we have to divert the students to the back of the building. So they are now going to a different location to enter the school, and our kids' arrival procedures were that if they're not eating breakfast, they go to the gymnasium, which is also in the basement. And if they're eating breakfast, they go to the cafeteria, which is adjacent.

Sounds like you're following Monica's protocol at this point.

You approve?

I do. I do. I do. Good.

I might have shot from the hip and like ran and tackled her and subdued her.

Well, the dean is dealing with that.

Yeah, yeah.

But in the meantime, you do have to like act as cautious.

The worst is possible.

Unfortunately, there was a parent that walked in with their student through the back, and then, because they didn't know what was going on, walked out through the front door, and she then was able to come in. Oh.

Oh, my God.

Oopsies. I see this happen, and I walk out of my office and know that I have to now be the one to keep kids safe. Oh. And I have to be the one to de-escalate the situation. And in my brain, I'm thinking, I can do this.

I'd have the same arrogance, I just want to admit to you. Yeah. I mean, I got this.

I don't know where that comes from.

Well, you could probably just punch her.

Well, I wouldn't want to punch her, last resort. And she- Carrie's scrappy, but she's scrappy.

She was taller than me.

And had a criminal record, as we know.

Yeah, yeah.

You look strong, but you're also very lean.

So I walk out, and I just put my hands up, and I say, everything's going to be okay. And I just start walking towards her, and she has to walk up a flight of stairs. And as she's walking up the flight of stairs, she's yelling, you bitch, get down, bitch. Oh. I am the biggest trigger for her.

But never to the tune of, get down on it. Oh.

She's not that great.

I just want to add a little levity.

That would have helped me out a little bit. I would have just danced with her, yeah. I start backing up.

Where's the dean?

He's locked outside. Oh.

This is now like Barney Fife stuff, yeah. Oh, God.

I'm now backing into the Christmas tree with presents we just set up. Oh. She now has reached the top of the staircase as I'm in the Christmas tree, and she says, kneel down in front of the Christmas tree, bitch. Oh. And I kneel down, and she starts wailing on me.

No. She physically assaulted you.

I can't tell you how many times. Like I've now, processed this with the therapist. Yes. And they said I had a trauma response. I have no idea how long or how many times.

Yeah, you disassociate. You're getting like destroyed, and you go out to lunch in your head.

I just went into the fetal position and just like let it happen. Yeah. And then my janitor sees what happens and starts running around the corner and pulls her by the shoulders and gets her off of me. And then my 60-year-old secretary comes out of the office with an umbrella. Oh.

Oh, my God. This is getting real comical now. Where is the cop?

I don't know. Right? Oh, my God. And just starts trying to get her away and like get away from her.

Poking her.

Yeah. So they usher me into the office and put me in my back office and just start trying to keep her in this other office space to like make sure she doesn't go anywhere else and just try to diffuse the situation, and we just keep her there until the cops show up, which, again, felt like 15 to 30 minutes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I just try to hide, but then I had like a little window, and anytime like I poked my head up to see what was going on and she made eye contact with me, she just started to go off again. And we had this little sign that said Faith on top of the office thing, and she picked it up and she just threw it at the door, and it broke.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

I feel terrible for you, and I feel terrible for everyone involved, and I feel terrible for her, and then I feel really terrible for the daughter.

The daughter's who I feel the worst for.

But I feel bad for this woman. Like no one wants to behave that way. She's clearly something very wrong.

Yes, and you know, I have definitely thought a lot about what happened, and I come from a place of compassion now that this parent was coming in to protect their child in the best way, that they knew how, and for some reason, I was just the barrier between what was going on in their lives.

That's very gracious of you.

It is.

I have no negative feelings about that person, other than I just hope that they got the help that they need and that they're doing better than that moment in time.

She must have watched the police escort her out in handcuffs. Yeah. Did it seem like it ever occurred to her, like, oh, fuck, here I am again, I'm in big trouble?

No.

Oh, my God.

I think she was just in a state of. this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what I need to do. Mania.

She was definitely in a manic state.

Yes, and the good thing is the student, they never found out. They didn't? No one ever found out. Oh, good. And we made sure of that, and, to be honest, it was really hard for me to even think that I would tell this story, because I don't talk about it often either.

It's traumatic.

But things happen in schools, and educators are the best people in the entire world, and I'm so thankful that I work alongside them and they continue to do the work that they do day in and day out, and just weird, wild stuff happens to us.

I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, if you imagine being tasked with just dealing with this little girl, she's dealing with that mom as well. I know. If you had only that child to help, and you gave all of your resources and focus to her, it would be really, really hard to navigate her through all that. And then to have 28 other kids that have also their, yes, I agree, fucking saints to the nth degree.

I mean, really. Unbelievable.

So I appreciate that you guys are telling teacher stories and principal stories, because I bet a lot of them are super fun.

Yeah, you know, you kind of shine a light on something that maybe I didn't even think about how fertile this ground is, because what people will do for their children is the max what they'll do, right? So I wouldn't have even thought about. it's just going to be intrinsically high stakes.

Yes, absolutely. And whenever I have meetings with parents and things like that, it's always something that you have to navigate, but then also remember that they're coming from this visceral space of love and just wanting their child to succeed and be the best that they possibly can. And sometimes it comes out in strange ways.

The patience you must have.

It's so admirable. Even just your take on it, so many people would not be able to walk away with that much compassion.

I think the thing that can help people is like, if they just step back for a second and ask themselves, which person would they rather be in the story? Like as shitty as it was for you. And look, I've had, I've had someone swinging at my face and couldn't move. I've been in that same position. I still wouldn't trade being her, right?

But I don't want to mitigate, which I know you're not, but still that you're a victim in this situation. Of course. And that's really, really traumatic.

But we're exploring how you get to grace. How do you get to forgiveness?

Yes. And I think that the only way I really got there was being a parent myself. Right. You will do anything. There are times that you turn into a grizzly bear to protect your child.

Also, when you have a kid and you just think about how sad it would be if your own child had to deal with you in that state, it's just so heartbreaking. So you're still at it, though. That did not run you out of town.

I did reach a point of burnout and I found a new role that I really love and enjoy. I love mentoring teachers now, especially when they're new into the field. And right now I'm starting coursework to learn more about educator wellness and how to teach them to be mindful practitioners and things like that. So that's where my bread and butter is right now. I just want to support and love on teachers and make sure that they get through their day in a peaceful, loving way and can go home and feel that same peace and love.

Carrie, I'm so delighted and grateful you're on Planet Earth.

Me too. How special.

I have to just tell you, Dax, my husband and I are avid campers and we have an RV. And whenever we go out, we always look for Big Brown on the highway, just hoping we will see you and be able to honk our horn and say hello.

I love that. And I don't know if you ever, you happened to hear the fact check that while I was in Idaho, I did come out of our hotel room and there was a man hanging at Big Brown. He had like seen Big Brown from the road and knew it had the Waylon Jennings logo. And he was just there to kind of scope Big Brown. It was delightful.

We pulled into a place in Des Moines and there was your exact setup. And then my husband, Scott, pulled it up and he's like, nope, it's not him. It doesn't have the Big Waylon Jennings thing on the back.

I'm not hiding at all. I'm pretty sure. I'm the got, the only bus with the Waylon Jennings logo, other than his retired buses.

Right.

Well, so delightful meeting you. And thanks, Scott, for his assistance.

Yes.

And thanks for sharing that story. I know that took some courage.

Yes.

Bravery.

Well, thank you guys for listening and listening to teachers and educators. They're amazing people. Thank you for sharing their stories.

Okay. I'll see you out on the open road.

Sounds great.

Okay. Oh, what a hero.

What a woman. Teachers are unbelievable. Ugh.

I made it hard on some of my teachers. I feel bad about that. I was dealing with a lot, but some of them got the brunt of it.

If any of them are listening, they could write into stories about Dax and Monica.

I would be fearful of that, but I can own it.

What'd you do to them?

Well, just, you know, me and authority. Like, if they wanted to put their thumb on me, I just wouldn't accept it. And I was really confrontational, and I just wouldn't go along with it. If they were loving and supportive, I was a dream to be around, I think. As I've had really great relationships with many of my teachers.

Yeah.

Hello? Hi. Hi, Megan. Are we using your real name?

Yes, we are.

And you have a shirt of sign language.

I do. It says, be kind. Oh, I love that.

Thanks. Do you have any ASL speakers in your world?

Not completely ASL, but I do teach students that are special needs population. And some of them will use sign language to communicate.

Oh, wonderful. Where are you at, other than your closet, which, Monica, thanks you for?

I tried to follow instruction.

It sounds great.

You know, by design. I am from outside Charlotte, North Carolina.

Which direction? East. East. Okay, so you're getting to the water-ish? How far are you from the coastline?

Oh, no. It's still like three hours.

Oh, it's another three hours. Okay. Clearly just exposed. I don't know where Charlotte is. There's been a big influx of Californians moving to North Carolina.

There has been a large influx of everyone moving to North Carolina.

Yeah, it's a hot spot. And so are you a teacher or a principal or both?

I am an elementary music teacher. Wow.

Here we go. And you must be a musician yourself? You have the recorder.

Yes. Singer. So I knew somebody would ask about the recorder. I'm going to expose myself a little bit. I absolutely hate it.

It's a terrible instrument. I'm glad you feel that way.

This is my 11th year teaching. So probably for the first four or five years, I suffered through it. Went home with a terrible headache every day. Finally decided I don't have to do this.

Right. Good for you.

So I don't. We do still play instruments. My instrument of choice with the kids is ukulele. It's a lot more mellow.

I like that.

What about the xylophone? That's also a nice way to go.

We do a lot of xylophones and mallet instruments. Yeah.

That sound is palatable for a long period. Yes.

Recorder is not.

Nope. You get about five minutes into recording, I want to break it over my knee.

And you have all the right rules, procedures, like this is going to be great. As soon as you put that in a kid's hand, all 30 of them play it at the same time. As hard and as loud as they possibly can.

Yeah. It's a very fun instrument to put in your mouth when you're young, because you can make noise out of it right away. Okay. So what is the crazy story that happened under your watch?

A little backstory on all of this. This happened last year. in December. I went back on my Instagram archive just to make sure I remembered correctly. So I was very pregnant, like eight months pregnant when this happened.

Sure, sure.

Some more backstory is this class of kindergartners that I had were very difficult. Okay. These COVID kids are a whole different beast.

Okay.

It's a lot. The other thing that's important to the story is the way the school is laid out. So I teach music in what we call a mobile unit or a learning cottage. It's a little trailer.

It's a mobile home.

Yeah, outside the school, which I actually love, and it's perfect for music because we can be loud and crazy. It doesn't bother anybody. But that means we're really far from a bathroom.

Oh.

To go to the bathroom, the kids have to reenter the school. Well, a five-year-old in an already difficult class, they just can't handle it. So I would intercept this class on the way to music, and I would stop at the bathroom with them, trade off, let their teacher go, do what she needed to do, and have a bathroom break with these kids.

Smart.

Yeah, great.

So then we could go to music, not have any issue. Well, on this particular day in December, we were waiting in line at the bathroom. All the little girls are on one side. All the little boys are on the other. You know, this is like whack-a-mole trying to keep the kids.

Don't touch your neighbor.

I can relate. They really do.

They're all over their neighbor. They really do.

Yeah, me too. Don't touch your neighbor.

Don't touch your neighbor, Dax.

Can't keep his hands off his neighbor.

This sweet, little, beautiful five-year-old girl raises her hand, doesn't say anything, and just points down at her jeans. Uh-oh.

Yep, yep.

And we are actively peeing our pants.

Sure. Yep, yep.

Standing outside of the bathroom. Uh-huh.

Sure.

We were so close. At the finish line. To making it. And, being an elementary school teacher, we deal with a lot of bodily fluids. So that is not completely out of the norm.

Really quick, she was wearing jeans, right? You said jeans? Jeans. Okay, okay.

Oh, man. And so they soaked up a lot, but I mean, she left a massive puddle of pee on the floor. She's just looking at me like, what are we going to do? This is not the first time this little girl has had an accident. She's actually already peed in the music room one time before this.

Like a snail. Yeah, like a snail. Yeah. Great visual.

So I'm like, stop! Because if there's one thing you know as a teacher, it's that you want to stay on the good side of your custodial staff.

Right.

Yeah, so your life will be hell.

I was not about to do that to our custodians and have her leave a trail of pee all the way down the hallway. So she freezes in the middle of the hall, so there's a puddle of pee that now does not have a child standing in it.

Uh-oh.

No. Great opportunity.

Kids love puddles. They do love a puddle.

So we're standing there. At the time, my school had like a group WhatsApp that we could like SOS, I need help. So I had sent a message, said, hey, we have an incident in the bathroom. Can somebody come help her get where she needs to go so I can take the rest of the class? Crickets.

Sure. Splash, splash, splash. So fun. Yeah.

They knew what it was.

Oh, my God. Sure, yeah.

Of course.

Completely unfazed. Jumping in it.

That actually does not seem like COVID kids, because you'd think they'd be even more germophobic.

Kids don't give a fuck about urine at that age, like five. They don't care. Like they're not thinking of it as-.

Too bad. COVID wasn't transmitted via pee.

Then they would have had a little fear. It's a real shame. It also probably wouldn't have spread that bad.

Even during COVID, when they still had to wear a mask at school, they would pull it down to talk to you and sneeze directly into your eye. They just don't-.

They don't get it.

They're so stupid.

They're so stupid, these kids.

Little boy is jumping in the pee, having the time of his life. The other kids see him do this and are like, oh, heck, yeah, that looks so much fun. So the next kid comes out and does it. They're like trying to kick the pee up onto each other.

Sure.

They're at a water park. Yeah.

They just keep coming out and just seeing their opportunity. One of the kids has even bent down to be like-.

With their hands.

With their hands, yeah, sure.

And I'm still sending messages in the WhatsApp group. like, for the love of God, someone come help me.

Code red.

Yellow, something.

Yellow, yeah.

So by the time all of this was over, pretty much every child in the class had pee at least on their shoes.

Right, yeah. Some on their legs and their hands.

And face.

Hair.

Honestly, who knows? They were completely unfazed. I was not unfazed. So I'm still standing there waiting because we can't go anywhere because we all have pee. It probably ended up being about 15 minutes before anybody came to help me.

Yes, that's the tip of the iceberg.

We ended up just kind of wiping the kids off, making sure on our way to music. we really wiped our feet on the outside, mat. Yep. Stomp it off. And we just went about our day.

Wow.

Well, you got to.

You got to. Desperate times.

Can you spray them down with a sprayer?

Too much. Hose.

Hose. That's what I meant.

It was December. I mean, it'd probably be chilly if they were soaking wet in music class.

There's been so many times that we wish we could just spray the kids off. They find a lot of gross stuff to do.

I would very much be like, everyone drag your feet on the way out to the portable classroom. And we're going to then just ignore the rest of everything.

She has to sit in that classroom with all the pee smell.

But I will say, of all the fluids, that's the preferable one. Pee is naturally antiseptic, you know.

It's not as bad as some of the other ones. And that day ended up being even more exciting because we went to the doctor to see the baby after that. And it was the only time that I had high blood pressure. Of course. And the nurses were kind of concerned.

Yeah, we'd be concerned if you didn't have high blood pressure after the day you were at.

Were you like, why am I bringing another kid into this world when this is how kids behave? They put their hands in everyone's pee. They're foul. They are foul.

They're vile. They are.

I like it about them. I am as well. So I get it.

I went back the next day. I'm still there now.

Good for you.

Love my job.

Sans recorder.

No recorder.

The feats that you all deal with, overcome. I mean, they're on par with, like what Navy SEALs are up against. There's so many variables going sideways. The amount of chaos.

Oh, yeah. And just the amount of decisions you have to make all day long to try to manage all these kids. And the way my classes work, I see them for like 40 or 45 minutes one time. So like I'll have six different classes a day. So having to all the time like switch around with all these different classes.

And you can't really have the rapport that the full-time teacher has with them. And it's not every day, right? You don't go to music every day.

It's like once a week. Right.

So once a week. I do remember thinking like when we would go to music, well, we don't really have to mind her. We're only going to see her. I do remember thinking that. The gym teacher.

It does feel extra. Yeah.

Yeah. It's very much like a substitute.

God bless you.

It requires a lot of effort.

Wow.

Oh, but are you so delighted now with your little Bambino?

I love him. He's wonderful. And Dax, I have to tell you this. When he was still in utero, I'm pretty sure he thought you were his dad.

Should I be adding your husband to the list of husbands who hate my guns?

No, not at all. It's because my husband's like a man of few words.

Sure. Southern man.

The male voice that he heard all the time was yours.

Maybe one day I'll bump into the little Bambino and he'll look at me. You might.

I know you.

Well, it's such a delight meeting you. And these kids are so lucky they have you. I can tell already.

Me too. You'd be such a fun teacher. I know. I'm jealous.

I try to be. Yeah.

I bet you succeed.

I try to do the exact opposite of what they do all day sitting at a desk. We run and jump and play.

Oh, so fun. All right. Bye. Take care. Great meeting you.

I can tell she's such a good teacher.

Yeah.

Besides Mr. Wood, who is your favorite teacher of all time?

Also Larry LeClerc. LeClerc.

Oh, the PE teacher?

Spelled like Charles LeClerc. No, never really got along with the PE teacher. Yes, basketball coach. But more importantly, my seventh and eighth grade literature teacher. He's the one who encouraged me to write.

The Yellow Bus.

Yeah, he made me feel like a really good writer and that I should pursue that.

That's nice.

He could tell. I didn't have any males around. He was very, very sweet.

That's really nice. Yeah.

And so tall. But then it turns out he wasn't.

Right. That's... Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, he was tall. But it was so weird when I was taller than him. That freaked me out. Yeah.

It's a freak out.

Freak out? Oh, pop out.

Oh, that episode?

No, like that's a good word. Or a phrase.

Oh, pop out.

Yeah.

Kevin, can you hear us?

I can. Can you hear me?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And may I compliment you on your lovely collection of female pumps behind you?

Yeah, that was a specific request by my wife, to make sure that you guys saw them.

Well, they're gorgeous.

She's got quite a collection, yeah.

Also organized so beautifully.

Ooh, let me ask you this. Does your wife have a tremendous memory? Yes.

Ah, I love it. I'd tell her that it's starting to slip, but she's the one that typically can memorize everything. She knows how to connect everything to some date in her life. that is a crazy trick.

Wow. She might be bordering on that super memory thing. How organized of a closet is a red flag? No, I'm not a closet.

Oh, I want that.

The other side over here is all color coordinated, and in my pocket, it's a mess. Shit show.

Yeah.

Oh, for sure. I don't have time for that.

No. Kevin, where are you in the country?

I'm in Oklahoma. Okay.

That's new for us. That's great.

Although this didn't happen in Oklahoma. It happened in Arizona. Oh.

Well, then we can't hear the story. It has to have taken place in your current location. Okay, where were you in Arizona? Phoenix. Big school district.

Yeah, it was pretty big. I think the school that I taught at had about 2,000 kids.

Okay, yeah.

Whoa, what grades?

I taught predominantly sophomores, but we had nine through 12..

Okay, so it was a high school. Yes. You were there as a teacher or a principal?

I was a teacher. It was actually my first year as a teacher, and it happened back in 2004,, so I'm like 23,, pretty fresh out of college.

Uh-huh. Really quick, are you from Phoenix?

Yes, born and raised.

So you're teaching what grade, 10th grade, this first year?

10th grade, history. It happened in the spring, and I get this call, I think it was somewhere around midnight on, like a Saturday night. It's a number, I don't recognize it. I had literally just gone to bed, so I'm not bothered with that. But I get one of those voicemail notifications immediately, so curious, play it.

Oh, this is a dream.

Oh, wow.

These are all changed names. Yes, yes, yes. Mr. Smith, I want to fuck you so hard. Oh, shit.

Wait, wait, is this student or a mom of a student? Student.

It sounds like a student. Fuck.

Oh, no. Let's remind everyone, you're 23,, you're young.

Yeah, and it's like break up with your girlfriend, which at the time I was like, I don't have a girlfriend, so I don't know what they're talking about. But I immediately pop up, and I go into the living room. I live with three other guys. I'm like, you guys have to hear this.

Yes. Yeah, you're basically still in college.

Oh, yeah. I play them the message, and while I'm playing, the phone rings again, and it's the same number. Oh. So, now I have to answer it. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

I hear giggling in the background, so there's clearly more than one person.

Yeah, it's a sleepover.

Yes.

Yeah, and then they hang up. Fast forward to Monday, I'm like, what do I do with this? I don't want to get in trouble for anything. I didn't do it, but I don't know what this is. I immediately was trying to think, who could this be?

And in fact, these girls are probably trying to fuck with that Ashley girl and act like it's her, maybe.

I immediately get to school on Monday. I start looking for my teacher friends, and I play the message for two teachers and a counselor that are friends of mine. All three of them independently separate, like, I know who this is. It's Amber Berry. Oh, my God.

What grade is she in? She was a senior. Okay, now this is where we get really murky. So she could be 18, and he's 23..

It's not murky if you're a teacher.

I know that.

It doesn't matter.

I know that. I know that.

Do you hear it from the source?

Yes. I'm just saying it's crazy if an adult calls you. and is that pornographic. Anyways, I won't get bogged down in that.

So the last person I shared it with was one of the counselors. She's like, you have to go to the principal. All right, so I go to the assistant principal, who I have a better relationship with, and I tell him the story. I lay it out. I play him the voicemail.

Oh, my gosh.

I'll handle it. I'm like, all right, so I have to go back to class because I was actually doing my planning hour.

Can I ask you one quick question, Kevin? In your mind at the time, did you think, oh, she's pranking me? Or did you think, oh, this is the Sting song. She's in love with me. Did you have a gut feeling about it?

It didn't seem like a prank.

Oh, genuine.

Yeah, and I don't really know what the deal is. They didn't sound like they were of right mind either.

Okay, they were a little intoxicated, maybe.

I mean, that's so explicit. I want to fuck you so hard.

Yeah, well, there are many girls in my high school. This is where you and I differ. There were tons of girls in my high school that they were trying to fuck all the time. They were horny.

No, I had a lot of friends who were having sex in high school, but the language is so intense.

It was pretty jarring. I actually had that voicemail for a long time because it was when I was like, you guys have to hear this story. Of course, of course. I always kind of wish I still had it because it's just like, this is crazy. Yes.

I'm telling you right now, I'd love to hear it, of course.

So I went back to class. The principal called her in with her best friend that they were known for being inseparable. And they said, hey, I'm calling you, girls in here. One of my teachers had a pretty disturbing phone call this weekend. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah.

You pretty much just ratted yourself out. So he presses them a little bit more. They come clean. They had been drinking at a bar.

Oh.

At a bar. They told him that they don't remember what they said to me, but they do remember calling. But once he had heard that they had been at a bar, he called our resource officer in to talk to them. And the girls tell them the name of the bar. He goes back to his captain.

Right. Oh, my God.

So this bar got shut down because these girls drunk called me in the middle of the night.

Oh, my God. That's an insane turn of events.

That is. Oh, my God.

What if the next call was from the bar owner? Like, you, listen to me. I'm going to fuck you up. I don't want to fuck you. I want to fuck you up.

I was trying to remember what the name of the bar was. It's like Green Dragon or something. I don't remember exactly, but I couldn't find it.

Young Folks Welcome Bar and Tavern?

Something like that. Wow.

So that all happened. And then you would clearly see her in the hallway from time to time, right?

The way our school was set up, we had like a horseshoe shape. And I was on the edge of a horseshoe. I did see her walk by my class basically every day. After that, I never saw her walk past my room again. Although, funny enough, I think it was probably five, ten years later, my wife and I saw her at a restaurant in Tempe area.

No way.

I'm not positive, but I think that was her. Like, I definitely didn't make a point to like go say hi because I never ever spoke to her.

Yeah. Well, that was wise.

The principal said they were going to set up a meeting to like have them apologize. I'm like, sure, great. I don't want really to face this person.

Yes.

So that never actually happened and I wasn't going to push it.

Did she get in trouble or no?

I think they called in the parents. I don't know if they really got in actual trouble or anything like that.

I'm relieved. you saw her alive five years later at a restaurant. Because anyone who's like cruising bars in high school and trying to fuck their teacher, you're in the fast lane.

I don't know that that was necessarily a normal behavior for that particular student.

Okay. It wasn't a pattern.

I assume it probably wasn't happening in the future again. after that. She shot her shot.

I'll say she did. You got to wonder how many people ever bring that to school. Some people, I think, would have heard that message and then just never even brought it up at work. Because, like they don't want to deal with any of that. But it's smart.

I did find out how she got my number. So when I got hired, I was like two days before school started. So I'm brand spanking, new. And like open house happens, like the first week or something like that. Parents come in and I didn't know my classroom phone number.

That makes sense. You did give your phone number out.

That was one of those rookie mistakes. Let's not ever give the cell phone number out to parents regardless.

You're going to hate this, but I just can't help but say it. When you hear stories that a teacher was dating a student, your immediate assumption is like, well, that guy was a predator. You never think like, oh, I bet the girl was like calling him relentlessly begging to fuck. That's not what you think is going on.

Well, even if it is, a teacher can't act on that. Surely.

But don't you think it frames differently if the person was some 18-year-old calls him to leave this message versus they're like pursuing it and grooming someone?

I actually think often it could be that case.

Where the female student pursues the teacher.

Yeah.

You must have seen people go down with this over the years. Did you?

Certainly you hear it on the news and things like that, but I have not known any personal ones. I know there was a school that I taught at one point where there was rumors that a teacher was. But my experience, the boys are a little more openly flirting with teachers. Girls are a little more shy. typically.

I think we have a wrong memory of our teachers, in that we remember teachers as being very old. But as you get older, you realize like, oh, no, these are young 20s people teaching. Sometimes they're four years apart.

Yeah, my wife and I have talked about that before, that we think that all teachers were old. I remember like a student teacher, one. Otherwise, everyone else was just like 50..

50, exactly.

They're all 50..

They're 50 or 70.. Ready to retire or they're middle-aged.

Yes. And 90% of them are 28..

Yeah. It's pretty weird.

It is so weird. So it's almost like you can't even trust how you're thinking about it, because you're in your mind. You're picturing your science teacher, who you were convinced was 50, who was really 29.. I don't know. It's strange.