This was originally posted on blogger. The battle to control Hank started long before I was his teacher. My predessor Bryan found him impossible. Bryan had him through the COVID online teaching period and eventually found a way to have him sent down a few English “levels”, which is how he ended up in my class. Hank was dumped into my class.
Hank’s offenses are sometimes minor. But over time they accumulate, and taking away “stars”, a little school reward system, doesn’t do quite enough. So inspired by my boss I thought that if students do something pretty bad twice, they just stay after class and write lines.
I held him after class the first time a couple months into teaching. “I will not throw balls at my classmates.” He writes it ten times and we read it together, ten times. “Got it, Hank?” He goes on his way home. Then, just a couple weeks later, he suddenly was yelling swear words at someone for losing at Foosball. I held him back again: “I will not shout in class.” Twenty times. 
Once Hank had an intense argument with a boy named Tom over the ownership of a pen cap. They used all their English possible to argue and I sent them downstairs to my manager. “It was the stupidest argument,” she told me later. “Hank doesn’t even have that type of pen.”
Hank finds behavior normal that other kids would never consider. I’ll look away for five seconds and Hank will have tackled Eason and they’ll be wrestling on the ground. Hank stays after class.
“Why were you wrestling Eason?”
“Eason and I are friends, Teacher! I thought it was fun play.”
“I will not wrestle my friends.” Thirty times.

I’m not an ardent disciplinarian. Honestly, I was never made to write lines in school. Part of me detests this inane punishment that seems like it’s out of Harry Potter’s fifth year at Hogwarts. But I also like that I have some distance from the punishment. Hank can break the rules and be penalized for it, but that doesn’t mean he’s a bad kid. He’s like many other kids, just a touch on the hyper-active side. No, I’ve never been angry at him, even when he gets two strikes in the first five minutes of class – just maybe exasperated. Some times I’ve held him back have actually been rather nice bonding moments. “So, you know why you’re here…” Other times he’s left the room crying, and I wonder if I’ve gotten carried away in my pursuit of justice. But over time, our synergy has improved… Such that he mostly stays within the bounds of reason, even if he’s slamming his whole body again them.
Today I met Hank’s father. He’s a well-built man; big like Hank; his right hand is missing half his pinky. He lives in Chengdu, Sichuan, China and comes back to Kaohsiung every three months or so. This time he stopped by his son’s buxiban, worried about his grades are in decline.
I shake Hank’s dad’s hand, honored to meet the man himself. In Chinese I say, Hank does fine on tests. He’s sometimes loud, and he sometimes gets in fights. And he talks kind of funny. But you know sir, Hank’s an alright kid.