Mourning a Student

Teaching is a wonderful profession - you get an opportunity to touch lives and make a difference every day. It can also be challenging and difficult, but I loved being a teacher and cherished those years I spent with kiddos.

A teacher's heart can be broken, though, and mine was broken yesterday when I saw this news article. 

The crash happened near Hershey, the elementary school where I had taught, and so I knew there was a good chance that the teens who were killed were kids that I knew or had had in my classroom.

I was right.

Last spring I was asked to come out of retirement and take over SOAR, a classroom for teens who had been expelled from school. The class was for kids that were working to be able to return to school the following August. One of the students, KR, was familiar to me as he had attended the elementary school where I had taught. 

It was the most difficult teaching position I'd ever had and I went home in tears more than once. But we had our successes, too, one of them the day that KR presented me with a drawing of a seal he had made me and then asked to hang on the wall beside my desk where we could all enjoy it.

In this post, he is the boy in the photo with headphones. (That's my friend and fellow teacher, Kathy Nimmer and Nacho. She had agreed to come visit my class and talk to them about guide dogs. KR and the other kids were fascinated!)

On the the last day of school I wrote that I had gotten ten of the original thirteen students through the program and that I hoped they would find success in the coming school year. KR was one of those students and he did indeed return to his school last August. And now he is gone. Way too soon.

I am absolutely heartsick.

(Two other blog posts about the class can be found here and here.)

School's Out! (Again)

School's out, and I have made it through my five weeks as the teacher for the middle schoolers at the alternative school. There were lots of ups and downs, tears, and frustrations on my part, but we had some good moments, too. My goal was to get them back in school, and for ten kids, that is going to happen. 

I began with thirteen kiddos, expelled two due to gross violations of the rules for being in the program, and a third left of his own volition. Of the remaining ten kids, I have hopes for them to be successful next year, but it is up to them. 

One of the very best parts of coming out of retirement is that I had a former student of mine working alongside of me.

I was Madeline's teacher for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. She is now studying to be a teacher at Purdue University, and so when they told me I could have a classroom assistant, I invited her to apply for the job.  What a treat to work with her! And she is going to be an excellent teacher herself.

It was a proud teacher moment for me when Madeline taught the students origami - something that I introduced her to when she was in my classroom.

The students were absolutely riveted and for many of them, it was an opportunity to be successful at something in school.

Some even took the origami to different levels, experimenting with various sizes of paper as well as making other shapes besides the cranes that Madeline taught them.

The very last day of school was the roughest we'd had in the class for at least a week. The kids were DONE with school and their behavior reflected that. It was a constant juggle all day long, and my patience was stretched as thin as I think it has ever been stretched before. One student became so angry at me that I was actually afraid that he was going to hit me at one point as he raised his voice and yelled at me. (I called the principal for help at that point.)

 My desk and things, all packed up for the end of the school year.

As difficult as those five weeks were, I did come to love the students. There were moments when the tough outer exteriors dropped for a few moments and I could see them as simply kids. We even had some laughter - the morning class had a running joke about always being hungry (none of them ate breakfast and so would be hungry an hour into the school day.) It became a fun joke of them begging for food or threatening to use their phones to order something and have it delivered to school. One boy even googled, "What to do when your teacher is starving you" and showed it to me, and we laughed and laughed over that one. So some good moments, some glimmers of who they could be if they would take the chance being offered them and change their focus to better things.

I wrapped up the last day by packing and closing down the classroom after the students left. I am exhausted and drained, and my emotions are mixed. Did I really make any kind of difference in those kids' lives? There was some progress - ten students will be back in school this August, their language was much improved, and they ended the school year far more respectful than they were five weeks ago when I arrived. 

Tough as it was, I'm glad that I took the position. I hope that perhaps the kids saw a different side of life and know that I cared about them. My fingers are crossed that they will find better success next year than they did this one.

It's now up to them.

Ups and Downs at SOAR

I just completed four of the five weeks I agreed to spend as the teacher at SOAR, TSC's school for middle schoolers who have been expelled from their regular classrooms. Things are improving with the kids; I think it has been almost two weeks since I heard the f-word or was called a b----.  That's progress, for sure!

I have worked really hard to connect with the kids - I could tell from the very beginning that my contribution to their lives would not be an academic one, it would be more on the level of helping them see that there are adults who like them, who care about their welfare, and are doing their best to help them achieve. (We have gotten some academics done, too.)

I started trying to make those connections immediately. Knowing that I had just taken on a difficult teaching assignment, Kathy Nimmer offered to come for a visit with the duo purpose of getting to know the middle school and high school programs. They are under her jurisdiction as she is TSC's mentor of new faculty, and she had never visited the program before.

I was not sure what to expect as it was only my second week in the classroom, but the morning class was riveted for an hour and a half! And afterward Alexia asked me for more information about guide dogs and their training!

Another way I made connections with the kids was to invite a girl to bring in her beloved guinea pigs.

 This is Salt who enjoyed hanging out on the kids' desks.

 Ginger was a cuddler and would lie on his back in your arms and go to sleep.

KR, a student who I had known (and bumped heads with) at Hershey has a very hot temper and is very mouthy. He surprised me by making me a picture of a seal to hang on the wall by my desk.

I don't think that these kids have gotten many compliments in their lives from teachers. It almost made me cry when I saw that JB had pinned a post-it note from me up on his work station.

Two kids have been expelled - MW (an 8th grader who has had three expulsions already and had been out for a few days and in a residential facility for attempted suicide ) was expelled for showing a sex video on her phone during class. That same day I also caught her cheating by looking up answer keys online. When I called her grandmother and asked her to come pick up MW, she came in with her belt drawn! She stalked into the room saying, "You're getting a whipping, either here or at home. I'm going to go to jail for it, but you're getting it! An extended yelling match between the two ensued. Needless to say, I cleared the class and with the help of two other adults in the building, finally got things settled down. I called Child Protection Services right away.

Then, JG, a sixth grader with a white hot temper (a characteristic of almost all these kids) became angry with me because I insisted he do his work instead of playing games on the computer. He followed the pattern of defiance, disrespect, and arguing that I had seen from him over the past week but this time it escalated well beyond those incidents. I finally told him that enough was enough and that he needed to stop the disrespect NOW. He did not stop, and so he was expelled.

I lost another student, but not to expulsion. NM was a 7th grader who had serious emotional issues and a lot of anger. One day he became so upset about having to do schoolwork that he made the comment that he was worthless and going to take his pink pen and kill himself. He ended up being admitted to a residential center for counseling and treatment.

Ten students of the original thirteen are still hanging in there and I am hopeful that all will make it through to the end and be able to return to their home schools next August. As for me, I have been asked to come out of retirement permanently and teach this class full time, but I have declined. The emotional drain on me has been tremendous, and I have lost sleep over these kids, worrying about them and how to reach them.

One more week to go. I hope that we ALL make it through!

A Breakthrough

Three weeks ago I took over the middle school classroom at my school corporation's alternative school. There are thirteen 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in the class, all of whom have been expelled from their regular schools and are in a program designed to help them return to school next fall. That is, if they can make it through this program - they get three chances, and then they are out permanently and cannot re-enter school again. Two have already been unable to comply with the school's rules and been permanently expelled.

These are the toughest of the tough kids in the area, and it has been rough to say the least. I've had to deal with things that are unimaginable in a general education classroom. I've been called awful names, I've had to call Child Protection Services on behalf of a child, and I've seen the affects of drug abuse. It has been eye opening to say the least.

But in the end, they're still kids. And some of them have begun letting down their guards and are beginning to learn and be civil, to each other and to me.

One of the students designed a mascot for our class and gave me a copy of her drawing.

I won't make much of a difference in their lives in just five short weeks. But my hope has been that they will know that I care about them and am trying to help them. My efforts have not seemed to have had any effect. Until yesterday afternoon.

An 8th grade girl approached me as the dismissal bell rang. "You know," she said offhandedly, "I sort of like you. You're nice."

I have gone home in tears more than once the past three weeks. This time, the tears were tears of happiness. We had a breakthrough.

I Thought I'd Retired!

After twenty years of teaching, I retired last May. Aside from subbing in my daughter's class, I have been enjoying the slower pace of retired life as well as lots of time with my horse, Abby, and my collection.

Until I got a call Wednesday from a principal who had an emergency vacancy. There is an program called SOAR whose purpose is to provide an educational alternative for expelled middle school students with the purpose of continuing their education and increasing the likelihood that they will be able to reintegrate into the public and community. The current SOAR teacher has developed a serious health issue and cannot finish the school year.

Wow. Teach expelled kids? Me? It sounded like a tough assignment (and it will be.) But I told the principal that I would come visit the class Thursday morning and take a look at the program.

The SOAR class is housed in a building away from other schools and there are four middle schools which send their expelled students to it.  There is also a high school credit recovery program in the building, too, with another teacher and classroom. The rest of the building is offices for the heads of transportation, foods/cafeterias, grounds, and maintenance.

Currently enrolled in SOAR are six students who study Science, Math, Social Studies, and English for three hours in the morning and then go home. After an hour's break for the teacher, seven more students arrive for three hours of class in the afternoon.

If the expelled student remains in SOAR for the rest of the school year with no more issues, then he or she can return to their regular school the following year and have the expulsion removed from their record. I like that aspect a lot. Second chances for kids, in my opinion, is a good idea. Especially at this age when they are young and make foolish mistakes.

But, if they break the SOAR rules and get three write-ups for behavior, then they have to leave the program and the expulsion remains on their record. Apparently some make it while others don't.

I enjoyed my visit. It allayed some of my concerns and answered a lot of my questions. For example, I did not want to work with kids who might hit me. I was punched three times by a student very early in my career, and while it wasn't very painful, just the fact that a student was hitting me was an emotional shock. These kids are here for excessive truancy, disrespectful language and behavior, smoking, etc., not because they have been violent against a teacher.

I went home after my observation and discussed taking the emergency vacancy with Craig at length, deciding in the end to take the position. There are only five weeks left of school, and I figure that I can handle twenty-five school days, even if it is rough. (Besides, the unexpected money can be used for BreyerFest!)

 And, I will also get an aide. A former student of mine who is finishing her junior year in Elementary Education at Purdue has agreed to come do that (afternoons only.) I had her for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades and she has remained in touch since she left my classroom, so when they asked me if I knew anyone I'd like to hire for the aide position, I thought of Madeline and called her right away. She will do an excellent job, and this will look good on her resume after she graduates with her teaching degree in a year.

I'll admit that I am nervous, and I expect that the students will test me quite thoroughly tomorrow and in the coming weeks. No doubt I will come home in tears more than once. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I am hoping that this will provide me with a unique opportunity to make a difference in a child's life. Even if just one makes it to the end of the year, I will call that success.