Page 15 of Troublemaker: The Big Picture Edition

“Well, I think I’m pretty fun, actually. You’ll see. Yes, Ryder?”

He lets his hand drop to his desktop with a dramatic thud. “Why are youMissStiles and not Missus Stiles?”

“Because I’m not married.”

“Are youdee-vorced?”

“No, I’ve never been married. But that’s a personal question, and I meant for you to ask me questions about the class, or what we’ll be studying, or about me as a teacher.”

“My parents aredee-vorced,” he tells me, completely ignoring what I just said.

“Well, I’m very sorry to hear that, Ryder. Anyone else have a question?”

A couple of other kids mumble about having divorced parents. Not my favorite topic of conversation with my students, but if they need to talk to me about it in private—I’m here for them.

“I still have a question,” Ryder says, waving his arm around. “If my dad is Mister Vega, then how can people tell if he’sdee-vorced?”

“That is a very good question, Ryder.”They can probably tell he’s divorced because he sends rude three-word responses to very considerate emails and clearly no one would want to be married to that.“There’s actually no way to tell that just based on the word ‘mister.’ But we’re getting a little off-topic.”

A boy named Tyler raises his hand. “Why aren’t you married?”

“Well, like I said, that’s a personal question, and I’m only answering questions about this class or?—”

“Is it because you like girls?” Tyler continues. “Because my dad says it’s cool for girls to like girls. Especially if they let you watch them kiss each other.”

Noted. Tyler’s dad might be a creep.And now the entire class is tittering.

Cheyenne with the curly blonde hair says, “Is it because you’re a cereal Monopolizer like Taylor Swift? Or are you aworkerhonic, like Tony Stark?”

I can actually feel the surge of energy in the room now that the kids are thinking about Taylor Swift and Tony Stark.

“Neither, but the proper words are ‘serial monogamist’ and ‘workaholic.’ I like your creativity though, Cheyenne.”

I pick up the stack of papers from my desk and start placing a page in front of each student. “What I’m handing out to you now is a letter to your parents!” I explain to them in a sing-song voice. “I want you to remember to give it to them as soon as you can, okay? Becausethisis a homework assignmentfor your parents! Andyourhomework assignment is to make sure that your parents do this homework assignment.”

Some of the kids giggle at that idea.

“Do you have a boyfriend, though?” Ryder asks, gazing up at me as I place the letter on the table in front of him.

“Ryder, that’s a personal question. Do we all understand what personal means?” I go over to the whiteboard and write the wordpersonalout in blue erasable ink. When all else fails—write something on the whiteboard. “P-e-r-s-o-n-a-l. Personal. If you ask someone a personal question, that means it’s something private about themselves. And it’s the kind of thing that people don’t usually talk about with someone unless they already know them really well. It’s fine to talk about personal things, but if someone says they don’t want to talk about personal things right now, then we should listen to them.” I continue to pass out the papers to the rest of the students.

“But how are you supposed to get to know someone really well unless you ask them about themselves?”

“Well, that is a very good point, Ryder. You’re right about that.”Your highly developed brain is going to be so much trouble for me this year.“But we’re in school right now and I’myour teacher, so we aren’t going to get to know each other quite like that, okay?”

Guidelines and boundaries.

We have to establish them at the beginning of the school year, or everything will go to shit in a rainbow-colored handbasket faster than you can say,“Good morning, class.”

Scarlett’s hand shoots up. “Oh oh oh! If you want to get a boyfriend—my mommy always makes her lips red when she wants my daddy to pay attention to her. You should do that.”

“Yes! Also?! Why don’t you dress more like the lady with the long hair on that show that my mom watches?” Chloe asks. “The one about the four friends? And they’re always eating at restaurants and shopping and talking and kissing boys and stuff?”

Noted. Chloe’s mom lets her watchSex and the City,and I can’t decide if that’s awesome or not.

“Well, if you mean Charlotte, then I actually do kind of dress like her.”

“Not the prissy one,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “The cool one with all the shoes.”