Post Traumatic Teaching Disorder

My first year of teaching I had this student in my freshman English class who was very bright but kind of quiet.  There's not much specific about him that I remember (besides that he loved the Green Bay Packers) because that whole year was such a blur and I was just trying to keep my head above the water.  My second year of teaching I had this young man again (I taught 10th grade too) and boy, do I ever remember him THAT time around!  Let's just say my self esteem still is shaken to the core when I think about this kid.  He started off the year by repeatedly telling me how excited he was to be in my class again.  Unfortunately, he suddenly turned very cocky.

I no longer was smart enough to be his teacher.  He made fun of me in front of the class 

and sometimes of other students.  His open disdain for my teaching started to rub off on other students in their general attitude in class, and though I spoke with him about it, he got even more bold and told me point by point what I was doing "wrong".  He would wait outside of my classroom door in the morning and comment about what time I was getting there. He constantly complained about how my class wasn't challenging him enough - though I did give him extra books to read and tests to go with them and recommended plenty of others (hey, I was still building my curriculum and didn't have independent study units I could just pop out at the drop of a hat). But then because he was doing extra work he complained about it because no one else 

had to - or he just wouldn't do it.  I couldn't do anything right for this student.  His mother didn't seem to think so either (she only called me once but it was enough, and though I suggested he attend the charter school with an advanced curriculum, neither of them wanted to do that either) but at least she was polite with me.  His father met with me too (who, as it happens, was the Dean of the Science Department at SUU).  Like THAT wasn't intimidating!  He was really nice though and I think was more understanding of me, but his son wouldn't let up.  He argued points on books with me - books I had read multiple times and he only once, though I publicly told him I would happily recant if he could back up his statements by finding the points we disagreed on.  His essays had good sentence structure but would often 

get preachy, ramble and get off topic so never got the grades he thought he should 

get.  I knew I was probably grading him unfairly because of the resentment I felt, so I often had another teacher check my work and would pad his grade to some extent on these assignments while still leaving 

the scathing comments...just to show that I wasn't a fan but not trying to hurt his grade as a punishment.  I dreaded his class.  I was, in short, bullied by an 

academically elitist 15 year old.

The following year he did end up transferring to the charter school and probably did very well.  But the few times I would see him before he graduated brought up bad memories and a sour taste in my mouth. 

So you'd think by now four years later that I'd be over it.  But he recently requested to be my "friend" on Facebook, the social networking website, and seeing his name and face brought back a wave of anxiety.  Attached to this request was a note acknowledging the fact that he had been "difficult and at the time I was proud of it" but that now he feels bad. By accepting his request I would also be accepting his apology - though I never thought I would get one or that it would even cross his mind that he had been in the wrong - OR I could decline the friend request and feel petty.  While I repeatedly reasoned with myself that 'accepting' his request in no way makes us actual friends, that I am the adult here and should not hang on to these bitter feelings and should accept the apology, I still can't forget how his academic arrogance - and yes, he was very smart, especially for his grade - still haunts me to this day.  Why I let a then 15 or 16 year old affect me so much troubles me still.  I guess I take my job so seriously and am overly self critical, but even more so when I was a young buck out of school.  My second year of teaching was in so many ways harder than my first because I was more keenly aware of what should and shouldn't be happening and what was and wasn't happening, and I was still so insecure about my effectiveness that to have a student challenge me so frequently and so publicly and so cruelly still hurts.  I've realized that I'm one of those people who is still traumatized by the mean childhood nickname and playground teasing...it just didn't happen for me until I was in my mid-twenties.  

But I needed to forgive, so I wrote him a note of my own letting him know I appreciated his apology.  Of course, there is one ounce of satisfaction I can have in the virtual friendship world that those bullied in their kidhood can't:

Hitting the 'decline request' button.