Mr. Franklin shifted his gaze to me.
“I’m the one talking to you, asshole.” Derek blocked his sight with his body and kept his eyes trained on him.
Lizzie’s eyes widened to the size of baseballs.
Derek turned to Lizzie. “Give me your assignment.”
Mr. Franklin was still, like he had no idea what to do.
Lizzie quickly pulled it out of her backpack and handed it to Derek.
Derek snatched it away and looked down at it, scanning through the problems. “She got all of them right.” His voice dropped for a second, like he was full of pride, a slight grin coming on to his face. He turned back to her and gave her an affectionate look before he turned back to her teacher. But once his eyes were on Mr. Franklin, he picked up right where he left off. “She got all the answers right. She deserves a goddamn A. Not an insult.” He threw the paper at Mr. Franklin.
He stepped back slightly. “Guy—”
“Dr. Hamilton. Don’t act like you don’t know exactly who I am.”
Oh my god, this was bad…
Lizzie’s eyes widened again, and she turned to me, trying to suppress her smile.
I wanted to cover my face and hide.
“I’ve got two PhDs in engineering and physics, I teach a class of advanced engineering students at NYU, I own my own aeronautics company, I built a rocket for NASA, and now I’m working on their next rover. I think I understand this shit better than you do. I taught her in a way that was easier for her to understand. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. The answers were right. She showed her work on her paper. It’s not her fault that you’re too stupid to understand it.”
Mr. Franklin looked like a kid trying not to piss himself. “I’ll call security—”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t we go to the principal’s office and discuss how you failed a student because of your own incompetence? I’m sure they would love to hear what I have to say about it.”
Now Mr. Franklin was silent.
“Maybe you got into teaching for the free summers and the pension, but I would hope that you’re here not only to educate students, but to inspire them, to nurture them. You didn’t reward Lizzie for thinking about the same problem in a different way, for pursuing her own avenue of trying to understand this material when your instruction failed her. You vilified her instead because you made it so there was no chance she could rise on her own. You should be ashamed of yourself. Go home tonight and think about who you want to be. You want to be this asshole who doesn’t respect your students? Instead of making an assumption, you could have asked her, you could have had a discussion with her to learn how she improved. But no, you chose to threaten her instead. She didn’t cheat, asshole. She just has a teacher who gives a damn, who wants her to succeed, who wants her to build fucking rockets if she wants. Instead of spending your time failing students, spend your time helping them earn A’s. Spend your time showing them that they aren’t stupid, that they can earn their way through with flying colors. I can promise you that Lizzie is getting an A this year and not because she’s a cheater, but because she’s smart, resilient, and hardworking. Get in her way again, and you’ll answer to me.” When Derek finished his tirade, he turned around and walked out of the classroom, like he needed to leave the area before he did something really stupid.
I didn’t know what to say because Derek had covered everything on his own. My instinct was to apologize, but I didn’t because I had nothing to apologize for. This man failed my daughter as a teacher, and I wasn’t responsible for Derek’s behavior—and I didn’t disagree with it either. I turned to Lizzie and cleared my throat. “Come on, honey.”
She left the desk and walked out with me, doing her best to hide the big smile on her face.
When we stepped out of the classroom, Derek was farther down the hallway, like he needed some space to cool off after he’d just chewed out a seventh-grade math teacher.
The door shut behind us, and Lizzie exploded. “Oh my god, Derek is the man! Did you see the look on Mr. Franklin’s face? He looked like he wanted to shit himself in that stupid chair. God, I wish I had recorded that on my phone. Derek ripped him to pieces! That was seriously the most badass thing I’d ever seen.”
I didn’t berate her for the cussing because I knew she was fired up, getting her revenge on someone who assumed she had no integrity. I let her have this, let her feel good about herself after Derek had just complimented her left and right…and made her believe in herself again.