Thoughts from the classroom

I used to have a fantastic principal that really knew how to do design training so it was relevant and far more than sitting in the cafeteria all day.  She would put on such training as “Painting with a Twist” (no wine, of course!) for the importance of giving exact directions, a dance party for something or another that had to do with instruction, events like this that tied a fun day in with the mandatory training we were required to do. She was a fantastic public speaker, and started everything with a dance party celebration of every little thing she could find.  We felt valued by her.  She even found out that one teacher had skipped her graduation ceremony for her Master’s degree so she could be at work, which is something that no one would have asked that teacher to do.  So she showed up to a PD day in her full doctoral regalia and threw a “graduation” for that teacher for all of us to celebrate with her.  Small speech and diploma included.

One of the trainings I remember most was the day when she showed up with garbage bags full of balloons with stuff written on them.   We gathered in the gym and our goal was to keep the balloons up in the air.  We spent a good ten minutes just being a bunch of kids.  She then asked us to read the balloons.  They all had phrases on them such as “disease”, “homelessness”, “absent parents”, “citizenship”, and many more others than I can remember.  The goal of the training was to understand that all these balloons we were trying to keep up in the air were representative of the “balloons” that our students were juggling around to add to the stress of their schoolwork.

I think that all of us in general have a tendency to close our eyes to what’s going on around us if it doesn’t seem to affect us.  This is a facet of human nature that we simply need to get over in all walks of our lives. It is especially important for teachers to remember this.  Every single one of our kids has a story.  None of them lead a perfectly normal life.  It’s also important to note that many of our students are too young to either understand what’s going on in their lives completely, but haven’t yet developed the emotional capacity to deal with their issues in a rational manner.  They must have an outlet for it, and that usually comes through their “bad behavior.”

I have never had a badly behaved student that didn’t have a story to tell that explained their behavior issues. I would like to share a few, without giving out any identifying information and in a very vague way as to not share confidential information.  Keep in mind that I’ve had around 2,000 students in my career, so these stories are the ones that stand out in my head. However, in this time period of politicians and parents blaming teachers for student performance, I think it’s important for some of these stories to be heard, even in a very vague, non-identifying way.  I’m also not going to tell the worst stories, because no matter what I do, they would be able to be identified.

I once had a kid that another teacher wrote up for sleeping all day and not doing his work.  She told me how awful this kid was, lazy and a smart aleck.  She said he would turn out to be nothing in life because of his laziness, and his constant sleeping meant that he was surely a drughead.  I never had an issue out of this kid, except sleeping.  I soon learned that he slept in class because his parents had dumped him, his slightly older brother and all his younger siblings on his very elderly grandparents and ran away.  His grandparents couldn’t afford to feed him and his siblings, so he and his older brother were working full time under the table for cash in the evenings, saddled with raising a family while they weren’t even 16 years old or old enough to even work.  For the record, they were struggling to do under the table, because they refused to deal in drugs or criminal activity. 

With the recent current events, I have behavior problems out of little kids that don’t understand why their loved ones are no longer with them, because they got deported.  The children are completely confused about what is going on and scared.  Some are old enough to remember their home countries and why they left them.  If you take a second to listen to their stories, you’ll notice that almost none of them will talk about receiving more money in America.  What they will tell you is heartbreaking stories about families ripped apart by gang violence. One kid that refused to go to class at first came from a country where going to school was so dangerous that she had never been.  They’ll tell you about poverty so extreme that you’ll be tempted to say they’re making it up.  But they aren’t.  Immigration is its own trauma, from the travel to the learning of a new language and a culture they aren’t used to.  

I’ve taught kids that grew up in families of American gangs.  I’ve taught kids trying to get out of those gangs, because they’ve had children of their own and they want better for them.  I’ve taught kids who have kids.  I’ve taught a teenager from a religious background where she was forced by her boyfriend to have children when he decided, not her, a teenager who was pregnant with her second at 16 years old because the boyfriend had her parent’s support.  I’ve taught girls who didn’t think they deserved an education because they were female.

So your kid that’s asleep?  Maybe he’s like the kid that I taught who always comes in smiling and singing all the songs that will get stuck in your head, but falls asleep as soon as it’s quiet because he babysits his younger siblings while his parents struggle to work the evening shift to feed them.  

That girl who is drawing Nazi symbols everywhere?  I’m willing to bet she learned it straight from her parents.  Kids are not born with hate in their hearts, it’s a learned behavior.  You can do wonders to nip that behavior as soon as you see it, and hope that it’s not too late. 

Your kid that’s disrupting class everyday?  I wonder if he’s the kid that his parents abuse.  Or perhaps he’s the one that is an only child that gets no attention from his parents.  Or is he the kid that’s being sexually assaulted?  Is he the one in foster care?    

Is the kid refusing to turn in work unable to read on level?  Does he understand the information?  Is he too afraid to ask for help, because he’s embarrassed?  Maybe he’s struggling in English more than you think.  Does he feel safe in his environment so that he can try new things?

I know that it seems like I’m sometimes blaming anyone else for the student’s behavior except the student.  I’m not.  Ultimately, each person, kid or adult, is responsible for their own actions and how their future turns out.  However, part of our responsibility as teachers is not only to model good behavior for our students, but to also help them learn how to make good decisions.  Build relationships with your kids.  Don’t give up on any of your kids, but try to build relationships with them.  Not only could you help them turn their behavior around, you could very well be the only positive influence in their lives.  Make it count.