Why I Teach: Providing the Path

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The first time I met Donnie (not his real name), he was wearing a green dress with gold trim, had shoulder-length hair, and wore glasses frames with no lenses. His hair was matted and he was covered in dirt. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears. He would not speak to me for the first 20 minutes. And then, in a flood of emotion, he began to tell me his plight.

Donnie’s step-father had just kicked him out of his apartment. The step-father said there just wasn’t enough room, and, because Donnie was gay, he should just “get the hell out.” They argued. Donnie tried to get his mom to help, but she wouldn’t step in.

During the argument, Donnie’s step-father pushed him out of the door and threw his clothes out over the apartment balcony. Donnie gathered up his things, took his sister’s bike and rode to the high school. He slept in an alley next to a friend’s house. He had been eating the scraps from his friend’s dinners for the last two days.  

I was the school psychologist, and Donnie had come for psycho-educational assessment—a step in the evaluation for special education. Obviously, the testing would have been invalidated given all of these conditions. So we opted not to perform the assessment that day.

Donnie fell asleep in my office. The nurse checked on him for the next hour. When he woke up he began to cry again. “I should just kill myself,” he said. “I have no reason to be here.  I suck at school and I suck at life.”

I automatically launched into the suicide assessment protocol. From the interview, we determined that he had no plan or intent to really kill himself, but his negative feelings were obvious.

The case manager and I stepped out of my office while the nurse stayed with Donnie. We needed to pull something together and fast. We weren’t about to have him on the street again—it wasn’t safe and it was getting cold out there. The case manager and I called our homeless liaison student advocate. She found several shelters in the area. Our school counselor drove him to one and checked him in. I was at the office late that night with the case manager and counselor while we brainstormed potential solutions.

Donnie came in the next day cleaned up, but the next two weeks were shaky. He checked in each day with the counselor and me so that we could monitor his mood. Donnie and I talked a great deal about hospitalization. Even so, we finished up our testing on his 18th birthday. He was now his own legal guardian and attended his own individualized education program (IEP).  

Then we ran into a snag. During Donnie’s ups and downs and living on the street he had missed some days. This put him over the limit on absences. The principal wanted to kick him out of school despite all our progress. Donnie was starting to get his grades back up and was working hard. He spent extra time in my office or the counselor’s getting work done or getting help. The principal informed me he didn’t like that we were helping out some kid who probably “wasn’t gonna do anything” and “waste everybody’s time.”  

The next week Donnie met with the small crowd of people who would decide his fate. The principal was there along with the school counselor, the case manager, the homeless liaison, two teachers, the LGBT representative and the vice principal. The principal, I imagine, had a great epiphany as he looked at the young man in a flower dress with purple fingernails. I think he saw that we, as a team, would not let this stand. The principal was quick to back down. The next week, the principal came and saw Donnie, saying, “Glad to see you in school today.” Whether it was a change of heart or a concession I am not certain.

Donnie graduated. He went from failing to a 2.0. His self-esteem increased dramatically. He transitioned to an independent living facility with the help of the case manager and counselor. Donnie shook a lot of hands and smiled on graduation day. He even helped seat people as an usher. His family did not attend, but we were there.  

I teach because of the team, because of the collaboration, because of the positive impact it can have on a student’s future. We worked together to help Donnie achieve things he believed he could not. We let him know that he was accepted, and we helped him earn a diploma. Our job was to provide the path, and it was his job to make the journey. 

Pallister is a school counselor and psychologist in Montana.