Entry # 25:
Darren III --
No more disposable kids
We have become a fast food, easy-disposal society. You can get your pictures
developed in an hour, grab dinner at the local burger place, and clean up
after yourself by simply dropping the wrappers in the trashcan. Quick accomplishments,
easy clean up, no-muss, no-fuss all in the name of efficiency has become
the mantra of many of us in the United States.
Unfortunately, it seems to have also spilled over into education.
Every day my mailbox at school gets filled with catalogs and advertisements
for instructional programs, "guaranteed to improve your students' reading
by two grade levels," or to "motivate at-risk kids" to learn.
The claims are extraordinary. It seems these companies have figured out
that all students have to do is follow the program and they will suddenly
morph into little geniuses. Quick and easy, they promise I don't even have
to get my hands dirty.
Hogwash.
On a more personal level, it seems that some teachers at my school and elsewhere
believe some students are disposable. Like the programs they complain we
do not have, they are seeking prepackaged, neat little students who obey
every command the very moment that it is given.
Students who require extra work, reflection and problem solving, and patience
from their teachers are "trouble" and should be removed from the
school immediately. Their actions and thinly veiled words proclaim, "I
will only teach the ones who make it easy for me."
Some of these people are excellent teachers. In fact, until this year, I
shared some of their views. I believed in zero-tolerance, adhering to the
district discipline handbook explicitly, and transferring students out of
Turner Middle if they did not become compliant after a few suspensions and
had the nerve not to care.
I still believe there are some rare cases when students should be removed
from our setting, but those are extreme cases where we do not have the capability
or resources to adequately deal with the student's particular problems.
However, those cases are, indeed, rare. We do not have the problem with
violence that some other schools have, but we do have a multitude of low-achieving
students who occasionally act out to mask their fear of not knowing, of
failing, or being made a fool of by the teacher.
Darren suspended again
Last Wednesday Darren was suspended-again -- for five days. A permanent
substitute on our team said he cursed at her in the hallway, and because
Darren has a reputation as a troublemaker, he was immediately suspended,
no questions asked. Her word is questionable, as she does not even know
the students' names after two months with them, and she lost all of my homeroom's
work, so they are currently failing her class. Still, I know he may have
done what she said.
When the assistant principal came to our team meeting, he told us he was
going to tell Darren's mother to move him to a different school. If not,
we would be making a request for his transfer to the school board ourselves.
The likelihood that the board would remove him is slim, but many times parents
who are tired of being hassled by unsupportive schools will voluntarily
remove their children, saving us the trouble of our dirty work.
The rest of the team fairly cheered. I cannot really blame them; I know
how he can act because he has pulled everything on me that he has
on them. I know he is difficult, high-maintenance, and hard to take when
he is at his worst. Worst of all, I remember cheering with glee when other
students like Darren were transferred or withdrew. Yet this time, it was
different.
Or, I should say, I was different.
He is our responsibility
Keeping this journal has forced me to look closer at what I do and why I
do it. It has pushed me to really examine the possibilities with Darren
and other difficult students in my classroom, and I know that we have not
done everything we can to help Darren succeed. The rest of the team has
given up on him, and his behavior gets worse in their classrooms while it
gets better in mine. Somehow my teammates are failing to admit or see that
they have the responsibility to look closer, to see what they are doing
that might be creating some of their problems with students.
Yes, Darren still has to take responsibility for his actions; I do not excuse
him from that. Yet I know his behavior is a response to the way he is treated,
and he knows how and what his teachers feel about him.
If Darren leaves the school, he will attend another middle school in the
neighborhood. Fighting is the norm at that school, and academics are nonexistent.
The assistant principal says we are not helping him learn at our school,
yet how can that other environment be better for him? If he were being transferred
to a school with smaller classes, intensive counseling, or other support
services, I could agree. However, we are tossing him aside like so much
trash, glad to be rid of the clutter. He is being set up to fail not just
in school but in life.
By any means necessary
I have decided I will use any means necessary to keep him at Turner. I have
already talked with the principal, and she agrees that he needs to remain
with us. She has observed him in my room, and she said, "There's something
different about him when he's with you." He even requested to be transferred
to my homeroom, and if that is agreeable to everyone else, I am going to
make the switch.
I am also going to contact his mother and urge her not to remove Darren
from Turner. I think if I approach her in the right way, explaining his
progress and some strategies I want to try with him, she will agree. My
teammates may be unhappy with me, but I cannot let Darren suffer from their
own lack of understanding. He cannot wait for them to see.
In Listening
to Urban Kids by Bruce L. Wilson and H. Dickson Corbett, the authors
interviewed urban kids about what they wanted from their teachers. Students
overwhelmingly wanted teachers who cared, not in that fuzzy, fake,
oh-you're-so-wonderful way, but in the truest sense of the word. They write,
"Were they important enough to be pushed, disciplined, helped, taught,
and respected? If so, then teachers valued them; if not, then teachers had
given up on them." Students do not want us to let them slide or misbehave,
and if we do, we are doing them a grave disservice, for if we do not care,
why should they?
Because of Darren and this journal, I will not look at my troublemakers
in quite the same way. I have discovered two truths in my short years of
teaching that will forever guide me in my dealings with children. First,
there is always a reason for whatever behavior students show us; the behavior
is just a symptom. Second, lasting change takes time. Students do not suddenly
become well behaved, perfect little students overnight. It takes time, patience,
and the reworking of our strategies to help them -- and us -- get it right.
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