b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/> Brad Cohen's Front of the Class: How Tourette Syndrome Made Me The Teacher I Never Had: Meet Ric Reitz Playing the Father of a Student in Front of the Class

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Meet Ric Reitz Playing the Father of a Student in Front of the Class

In every good movie you must have a bad guy. Ric plays the father of a student who is in my class. Ric's character decides he wants to take his daughter, Amanda, out of my classroom because he wanted his daughter to have a "normal" teacher. Amanda is very upset by this but must listen to her father when he confronts Hilarie the Assistant Principal about it.

In real life, the father didn't want to give his daughter a chance at being in my class. The one thing that the film doesn't show is that 3 weeks later, the father came back up to school and told the administration that he had made a mistake. But by that time, it was too late, administration was not putting her back in my classroom.

This was just one of the many stories I had in how some parents had issues with the fact that I was a teacher with Tourette Syndrome. But many of the parents nerves turned into support as they quickly realized if their child didn't have an issue with my tics then why should they. I think a lot of us grew that year........including the adults! Ric does a great job in the scene where he think he knows what's best for his daughter. But does he really?

Cheers