Share a story about someone who had a positive impact on your life.
KAB: ‘Kids Against Bents’
One rather boring day in fourth grade math class, my partner in crime, Oliver, and I began discussing how our fathers had taught us long division, and how it was much simpler than what she was teaching.
At the front of the class stood Mrs. Bents, looking us over suspiciously. We weren’t problematic children, we just got bored in math class easily and would talk about math, which we assumed to be ok given we were in a math class. Leaving the white board and capping her marker, she went to her desk to grab a jar filled with a few popsicle sticks. The stick cup. That alone should’ve been enough to deter us, but we continued on in hushed tones – neither one of us were paying much attention to her.
Angry at us for disrupting her teaching, She immediately told us that we had lost a stick each and should promptly bring them to the front and place them in the jar. If we lost all 3 sticks, we lost recess and I was down to my last stick. The fact that we hadn’t received a verbal warning before she punished us didn’t sit well with me. I sat inside for recess that day, angry at how unfair the situation was. It wasn’t the first time I would disagree with Mrs. Bents, nor would it be the last.
After a couple more incidents where I felt students hadn’t been treated fairly, Oliver and I began to meet behind our classroom’s bookshelf to discuss how to resist. Each time we met we would invite more of our peers. We were a group of children who disagreed fundamentally with her modes of punishment, finding them unfair and meaningless. Eventually, our group settled on a name: Kids Against Bents, or the KAB.
Over the school year, we would develop a warning cry, to alert each other when a teacher was nearby while we held our strategy meetings. Meetings to decide how we were going to resist her non sensical rules. Eventually we all settled on writing her a letter, outlining our grievances and discussing why some of her rules were fundamentally unfair.
We wrote the letter and left it on her desk the same day. I braced myself and my peers for possible repercussions. We were all prepared to lose recess, spending it inside. I was prepared to be sent home…but no such thing happened. We couldn’t tell if our concerns had been addressed
At the end of the school year, several students were invited to spend the summer at a leadership development camp. Knowing full well I would not be one of those students, I almost did not attend Mrs. Bents’ retirement celebration at the school. I missed my orchestra performance as well, which was a tribute to her farewell. When I realized I was one of the students being sent to camp Hantesa, I burst into tears. So many other teachers would have written me off as a problem child. I thought she had too. Instead, she saw a spark in me and nominated me to attend camp for the first time, learning how to become the leader I am today.
Thank you, Mrs. Bents
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