Printer-friendly versionShrinking there on the stool in the science classroom, I just want to gather my ungraded quizzes and my dignity and flee to freedom. But, I don’t. I sit there, paralyzed by the assault.
“We are not your enemies,” I finally counter. “We are not Blake’s enemies.”
But they disagree. The mom-grandmother team has arrived at our meeting with a mission—to deliver a bucket of vitriol against their child’s godforsaken teachers, principal and school counselor.
“You don’t want him here.” “You think he’s stupid.” “You lied to us.” You. You. You. You.
They shout from across the table, first one, then the other. A cacophony, an onslaught.
I don’t know where to look, so I concentrate on the mother’s gold teeth and on the silver clips in her hair. She looks young, I think, and pretty, despite the hatred spewing from her lips. I count how many times the grandmother, sitting beside her, announces she’s going to call the school board. I think it’s six.
I daydream about other careers. Doctors? Do they ever get screamed at like this? If only I had been better at chemistry…
I half-rise, planning an escape. But something compels me to collapse back in the chair.
They deliver a verbal right hook. Then, a left. Then, a kick in the shin. Fifteen minutes have passed. Maybe 20.
Suddenly, the grandmother, crying, reaches for her purse and starts shaking it. Directly across, I think she might fling it at my head. But, then, as she unzips the silver clutch, I imagine a weapon, lifted up, directed at me, and…
Such is the world we live in.
There is no gun. Instead, she yanks out a bottle of aspirin, clutching her heart, sobbing.
“We’re afraid,” utters Grandma.
Then, there is a collective deep breath. The meeting shifts.
Blake, a black eighth-grader who is new to our school district, is behind in reading, lags in math, is about to fail his classes and will soon enter high school. Here, sitting around the table, are four teachers, the assistant principal and the counselor. Maybe that we are all white is an important detail. Maybe not.
Regardless, in my mind, I transform from a defensive literacy teacher into a terrified mother of a failing teenager. As best as I can, I sit in her stool and view this scene from her perspective.
Will my boy, that I nursed, then weaned, then watched, gleefully, learn to walk, continue to fail? Will this child for whom I hold such high hopes, drop out of school? Mix with the wrong crowd? Become a statistic?Land behind bars?
Will it be my fault?
I am screaming for them to give him extra attention, to boost him up. I am screaming for them to not reduce him to a troublemaker.
I am screaming for them to believe in him.
Please, help me. Help him. Please, be there.
Then I blink back, becoming myself again. Maybe I reach for the box of tissues and hand them to the shaking, suddenly-frail Grandma. Maybe I look clear into Mom’s eyes and then glance quickly at my colleagues. Maybe I fight my own tears.
I walk around the lab table and show Blake’s mom the key to finding his homework assignments on our website. I remind her that he can access To Kill a Mockingbird on audio. We all assure her that he is the not the only student who has struggled. We will help him, we say, careful not to deliver false hope.
Mom apologizes for the drama. Once, then again. We exchange emails and promise to be in touch. It’s not exactly a lovefest, but not a brawl either.
We’re glad you came in today, we say. Maybe those are just words that teachers robotically say to parents. After all, we have been blamed, ridiculed and demonized as liars. Are we really glad?
But this week, when Blake asked for help finding newspaper articles for his literacy project, and when he smiled at me and said that his mom had read my email last night, it struck me that, yes, I suppose I really am glad.
He is somebody’s baby, somebody’s hope. Maybe I really had forgotten that, but for the screams.
Baker is a middle school language arts teacher in Missouri.
Comments
Thank you so much for being
Thank you so much for being the compassionate teacher you are. Blake is so fortunate to have Mom and Grandma and you on his team. I'm an YA author as well as a teacher focusing on social and emotional learning. I'll be in St. Louis at the end of March, presenting to students and parents in two separate events at Ladue Middle School. If that's anywhere near where you teach, I'd love to meet you.
Would anyone from the
Would anyone from the district have paid this student the attention he needed if his mother and grandmother hadn't come in and been so upset?
Sounds to me like connecting
Sounds to me like connecting mom to the school via the internet was the key.
You misunderstand. "The
You misunderstand.
"The attention he needed" at school was already there. A child who struggles academically (and particularly behaviorally) likely receives more focus/attention than any other student in the room, and teachers lay awake at night wondering what else to try next with that student. Chances are his teachers were already doing everything they could think of on their end and needed some support from home. That's why families are sometimes asked to come in and participate in a team meeting like this one (although the family members normally don't yell at the people trying to help them). Once that support from home was gained, the difference in this young man's life was noticeable. I'm glad the family began taking advantage of the tools that the school makes available to its parents and students. And kudos to the teacher who wrote this reflection for rising above the fray to see clearly and remain the voice of reason and direction in an emotionally charged room. Very professional.
So many times ... we must
So many times ... we must remember, one at a time.
Keep at it Deb
Oh, Ms. Baker... You so
Oh, Ms. Baker... You so beautifully and heart-wrenchingly capture those tough meetings and the conflict and hurt and hope we feel all swirling together... I am so very proud to teach at the same school because there are teachers like you in it, and I continue to feel so much more connected to what is going on in your classroom because of these posts. Keep them coming.
I have sat on that stool
I have sat on that stool before and admire your courage to see past the anger and the compassion to become that parent. It truly takes the combined effort of student-parent-teacher to make things work! Congratulations on this one small victory that will certainly leave a big mark in the life of a child who will someday be...
I came across this and
I came across this and thought that you may have interest.
Your Role
"I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. My personal approach creates a climate. My daily mood makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be the tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor. Hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized." - Haim Ginott, clinical psychologist, child therapist, educator, and author
Thank you for being the inspiration that this child and family needed.
Thank you for the kind
Thank you for the kind comments about this post, a moment in the life of an American educator. I wish more people, including legislators, could/would sit in our stools and really understand the nature of our jobs.
@ Paula--I just passed that on to the entire staff at our school. There is so much truth in those words.
--Debra
Be All You Can Be - Bully
Be All You Can Be - Bully Free
This project is by kids, for kids, and about kids. Students have created anti-bullying / non violence public service announcements for broadcast, Internet, and publications. Each Public Service Announcement will feature students communicating anti bully / non violence messages.
Middletown High School students have turned to social media to combat bullying after three students lit Freshman Devin Lewis' hair on fire on a school bus.
Senior Lindsay Sweatt said, "I was in tears from the whole situation, not just because kids were so cruel to do something like that but because of the fact it was happening in my school and that's the way people were seeing my school."
"I've been called names, I've been beat up," said Lewis. "I'm not going to take it any more," and neither are his classmates.
They've started an anti-bullying campaign in hopes that other students won't tolerate it, either.
"It's going to be all us, our feelings, our emotions, the effects it had on us," said senior Allyson Turner.
The students said they hope their message is more effective because it's coming from other teens and not adults.
"It's not going to be the teachers saying you shouldn't do this," Sweatt said. "It's going to be students saying, 'Well, this is how it affected me and this is how I feel about it.'"
Students said the public service announcements won't be scripted, and they're hoping to get participation from students from different interest groups within the school.
This project is by kids, for kids, and about kids. Students have created anti-bullying / non violence public service announcements for broadcast, Internet, and publications. Each Public Service Announcement will feature students communicating anti bully / non violence messages.
Middletown High School students have turned to social media to combat bullying after Devin Lewis was bullied on a school bus.
Senior Lindsay Sweatt said, "I was in tears from the whole situation, not just because kids were so cruel to do something like that but because of the fact it was happening in my school and that's the way people were seeing my school."
"I've been called names, I've been beat up," said Lewis. "I'm not going to take it any more," and neither are his classmates.
They've started an anti-bullying campaign in hopes that other students won't tolerate it, either.
"It's going to be all us, our feelings, our emotions, the effects it had on us," said senior Allyson Turner.
The students said they hope their message is more effective because it's coming from other teens and not adults.
"It's not going to be the teachers saying you shouldn't do this," Sweatt said. "It's going to be students saying, 'Well, this is how it affected me and this is how I feel about it.'"
Students said the public service announcements won't be scripted, and they're hoping to get participation from students from different interest groups within the school.
See the six weeks of PSAs at the following link, (there are more to come).
http://www.middletowncityschools.com/videos/bullyfree/bullyfree.cfm
I can't even imagine having
I can't even imagine having to tell some one that their child is falling behind and possibly going to fail. It must be very difficult. And I think it is great that you stood back and looked at it from their point of view. Sometimes we all need to do that.
EYE OPENING. AMAZING THIS IS
EYE OPENING. AMAZING THIS IS A WONDERFUL TEACHER ABLE TO LOOK THROUGH THE SMOKE TO SEE THE FIRE