I grew up in a small roughneck town of about 5000 people. I got into my first "fight" (no fists, mostly just yelling) with a boy when I was four. He accused me of not being a girl because my hair was too short. My opinion of boys ever after was that they were dumb and bad at listening.

As I grew older and puberty hit getting mistaken for being boy wasn't an issue, but dealing with them continued to be a pain. I resorted to watching them together - I had more than a few male friends, how hard could this be - and figuring out what MADE them listen. Sometimes that was taking advantage of my early puberty voice and yelling at them like their mothers, using scary grown-up words if I had to. Sometimes it was a swift kick to the shins before the teacher saw. Sometimes, after those steps, it was watching them in the moments when they got quiet and seeing what lay underneath the idiocy.

Because they honestly thought they were stupid.

I was a straight A little hustler, working my ass off to maintain the GPA my parents assumed I was naturally capable of making (natural my fucked up anxious ass) and so to me the idea of "getting" the homework or figuring out things didn't seem like such a big deal. It was just what I did. But as I sat at the table with my assigned seatmates - three of the biggish, brutish, worst behaved boys in class, who decided THAT seat order - and I suddenly went over how to fill in the worksheet I realized they'd all fallen quiet.

"How'd you get that? I didn't get that at all."

Pause. "I just listened to what the teacher said and read the instructions."

"Oh. You're smart."

The unspoken? We're not. It dawned on me in that moment that they literally thought they were less intelligent and incapable of doing the work.

My teacher had failed them.

I immediately went Hermione Granger on this shit.

"Look - you're not stupid. If the teacher could explain this well enough we'd all get it. That's their job. Here, watch - we do this, like they said, but then you add here..." and I quickly broke down the steps, raising my loud little voice up and pumping as much drill sergeant bravado in as I could (never show weakness as a little boy - rule number one).

Over time and looking back I realized things I hadn't noticed as a young kid myself back then. Our teachers weren't the only failures. Those boys came from "factory families" - folks who had spent generations as assembly line labor, which was probably a step up from mining coal. When your entire history is basically being a dumb cog, drinking beer, knocking up your childhood sweetheart, and living in a trailer - why would you imagine anything else? You're asking kids to go above and beyond what they know without giving them any hope for it. And you expect them to believe you?

While I used to resent being the straight A kid, I also had a major leg up because adults treated me differently. I had expectations. And the key thing about expectations is people don't set them when they don't think you're capable of achieving them. These boys had barely any expectations for their behavior. And the underlying message, the one every adult repeated whenever they gave up or didn't bother holding them accountable, responsible, or capable, was I can't.

I've thought myself bossy, angry, hot-tempered, stubborn, or downright bitchy if I'm being honest - but end of the day what I do is I hold my expectations. Do not tell me you're stupid. I know you can figure shit out. Do not tell me you're just a jerk. I've seen you behave better. Do not joke that you're another loser. You only lose when you don't bother to take a shot. And do not expect me to do all the believing in you - grow up and believe in yourself.

I don't know what the male equivalent of Oprah is (Ron Swanson? Honestly the binary is exhausting, I don't even care) but I do know that as a society we need to hold expectations for each other. We need to demand better behavior, not only for our own benefit but because when we tell each other, "I know you can do better," what we're really saying is "I still believe in you - don't let me down."

Ohhhhhh this challenge hit me....I am just going to say I am praying for you. 11th grade...whew....Your wings and halo are guaranteed! Today, I was covering a class and I told an elementary student to stop drawing and start doing their work....the response was, "Ho, I don't need this BS (the non abbreviated version.) Gasps spread across the classroom....Being on the leadership team in my mind I was thinking - congratulations my darlin', you have just won the rest of the day off. I am going to speak as an exhausted educator...this year has been rough. We live in a world that is just a hot mess...we see that reflection of society in our kids. Kids see, hear and live this...so when they come into the classroom they bring it hard. I told the kids after that student was escorted from the room that we have choices....we don't always make the correct choice but sometimes we learn from our mistakes or our friends poor choices and we do better. I had a student come up to me after class and he made me smile....he hugged me, shook his head and this precious child said, "I just don't understand that kind of behavior." Driving home I was replaying the day and I must admit I was counting up how many days are left....28......I was at a four way stop sign and I just started laughing.....The ride in front of me was a Tahoe....I thought dannnnng I could get vanity plates that say Da-Ho or duh-ho. You have to laugh when you can. Hang in there!

I would have conversations with them. Of course, it’s got to be about sports or cars or something. Or video games, unfortunately. And yes, it would certainly be more of a challenge as a female teacher. But 11th grade boys are LIGHT YEARS more mature than 10th grade boys. The most dramatic leap in maturity during the high-school years happens in that summer between 10th and 11th grade. The difference between an average 10th grader‘s ability to hold a conversation with an adult, versus an 11th grader‘s ability to do so is more easily noticeable than between 9 and 10, or 11 and 12. I have had classes of them all as well.

You mentioned in a comment that you are taking an auto repair class and you are the only girl. My first impression is that the guys in the class consider the auto repair class a 'male space' since it's pretty much all guys who take the class.

Girls enter that space at their own risk meaning that they aren't going to change their behavior for a girl. I would imagine that they don't act like that in Math or English.

Having said that, if you were someone that they really liked and wanted to impress, they would change their behavior for you. Since you issued this challenge that appears to not be the case.

So hang in there, the end of the school year will come soon and you wont have to worry about it anymore. Sometimes patience is the best course of action.

Let me preface this. I was that girl in school, the easy pickins, the one guys would try to make bets on to get her to go out with them because I wouldn't go out with anybody. My first motto was no and my second was 'how bad do you want your ass kicked?' before smiling at them and letting them discern if I was joking or not.

I purposefully spent a majority of my time around men. I never fit in with the girls.

I just silently sat around the girls at school, looking rather dumb with my thumb up my ass because I couldn't share their interests and I think they sensed it and I was cast out further from their cliques till I disappeared into the fray of sweaty teenage bodies.

Now... I'm not saying, smack a guy in the face, but you're going to have learn the tango. The lingo, the dance of how to get em' by the gonads and really serve up a taste of their own medicine.

I've had a classmate - unfortunately to my knowledge doing drugs - attempt to pop up from the desk I flipped him off of, it was my desk and I asked nicely twice, and he rolled his eyes at me and ignored me before taking the guerilla stance like he might sock me in the face. I was always ready for the hits, but they never came. Fat bluffs on meaty arms and even meatier heads.

I met guys the size of The Mountain with softer hearts that flowers in sunlit fields.

I met girls who chased into the fray, who liked to break their hearts on guys who were just looking for a notch in their bed and then I'd shake my head. My dignity was always number one and if I left no openings on my body, then it was all verbal sparring that I had to concern myself with.

So here, you can see how - clipped of the true vulgarity I could have and probably would have seen - I might handle it as I am now a little more articulate than I did then. I just wasn't a word smith and it's hard to jab back at an idiotic remark that's probably more composed around 'that's what she said' and 'dumb bitch' which is so often quipped. I think my favorite is just playing the edge of the paper till the other person can't mentally spar because their eyes are filled with rage and their cheeks full of the yell threatening to burst through. The end of the argument.

My advice, keep everything playful. Just above flirting as a harsh reminder that if he wants to get at you or even have an interest in your persona, he might need to up his A game a little and stop being vulgar enough to get you to spar with him a little more in a fun manner. In a friendly one. That may not happen, but for men... Let's keep this between you and me... From someone who hangs out with a lot of them. They're big ol' sacks of emotion, they just put better masks up because society likes men to be tough, so when you got him good. You'll know.

Do your best, kiddo. You got this. <3

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I looked him up and down, a sly smirk on my youthful face. "What, you lookin' at me?"

"Nah, I don't like dumb bitches."

"Eeee- scathing," I retorted, rolling my eyes at him as if that was the worst I heard. "I'm sure if we checked our grades, we'd see who the real jackass is, but I'm sure it'll have to be something. Something to save your fragile ego."

And I know he might turn red in the face, might pop up from his seat to thwack me in the head. I expected it and if he did, I'd be smiling at him even after it was all said and done.

"You're a real-"

"Oh, before you speak."

"AH!" he screeches at me. "Can't h-"

"AH!" I screech back at him, devolving into a fit of laughter. "Fucking Christ, my ears are bleeding."

"Crazy bitch."

"Mm, maybe, but not for you. If I did, I think I'd have to dig my eyes out of my head first and blot out the scent of Axe. It's Axe, right? God. Pathetic." And so I might turn, and he might tug at my thick hair - thank God I straightened it to perturb some of the more curious hands that liked to wrap their fingers in it and yank - and my hands would be swatting at him. I'd be glaring, grinning sinisterly and ready to pounce on him in a knock-out drag out fight.

"I wouldn't." I warn.

"What are you going to do?"

"What are you going to do? Hit a girl? I'm sure that'll be a good image for you. Keep trying."

"Mm, I'm good. I think I'd rather-"

"Oo, 'fraid not. I've seen better. Again. That Axe, my good bud. It's a menace to the room. It assaults my nose." And he might start yammering on, my hand echoing in a sort of funny pantomime, fingers to thumb, fingers to thumb in a rigid and comical motion as the other hand might prop my cheek up and my face tilt into my hand, my eyes close till he gives up. "That's what I thought, prick." And we'd dance again tomorrow or the day after, till he either gave up or I decided to find something better to tune him out with. It really never changes and I know this, but I know one thing... I'm ready to scrap. I'm the scrappy kind of girl, the one that boys all 'oooh' and 'aaah' at when you clack one of their 'buddies' just right in the face or serve them up with some quip good enough to make him shrivel up in that awkwardly short school chair. Would the office write me up? Eh, maybe... But I chat with them often. We talk. I talk. The faculty know me. Would I lie? Never. Not in a day. I am just that kind of girl. I am just that. I am very fine with it.