I had a similar experience in a class recently. I couldn't help but keep thinking "my 9 year old knows better than to behave like this" (and my 9 year old has his own developmental challenges). The behavior was really shocking considering everyone in the room was an adult.
Unfortunately there wasn't much I felt I could do. It was a short class, and I had the impression that this person was well versed in pulling the appropriate levers to protect themselves from any negative reaction to their behavior whatever they didn't like by claiming privilege, race, sex etc whenever possible (this person made lots of conspicuous references the very first day and the second .. .and so on before trouble started). They were also always just some terrible victim of something or other ... but as time went on it was pretty clear that it was all just a system that allowed them to behave poorly, make outbursts and bully others.
I specifically asked not to be in any groups with this person and my request was honored thankfully.
To be clear I mentioned privilege, race, and sex, any consideration of those things was NOT the source of the problem, had there been none of that I'm certain that the person in question would have found other ways to manipulate the situation, their behavior was the real issue.
No comments yet.