Handled.

"I will go to that school, and I don't care. I will cuss these teachers out. I will cuss your teacher out. If that little smart mouth English teacher gives me more attitude about my daughter not being able to pull up her grade, she's going to get a slap across her face. I'm not like my sister-- she's cool. She's collected. No, I will go and make a donkey out of myself. You won't be able to hold me back.

I got kicked out of the last school. They banned me permanently. The police had to haul me away. But I don't care. Nobody's helping my baby. She's falling through the cracks and nobody's helping her. I get no phone calls. You all got $2 million from Oprah. What are you doing with that money? You have to hire more teachers. You have to get some teachers in there who care. I thought this was supposed to be a good school. That's why I sent her there. It was supposed to be a good school, but she's failing everything. Fuck the computers, I know you guys are trying to go paperless, but fuck that. I need a book to help my child."


That's an excerpt from a parent conversation I just had. It lasted over an hour. And by the end, I had her thanking me, and telling me not to worry because the two of us? We were going to work it out.

And yet, my own principal doesn't trust me to send out an e-mail to the staff without checking it first to make sure that it's positively framed. You know, I might be too honest, too real.

You know what? Real works.

Real is what makes me a rockstar.