Your Hand in Mine

Now that we've reached the end of first semester, I get asked the question from my coworkers a lot-- how was your first semester? Are you going to be sticking with us for next year? And while it's still early to make any concrete decisions, I can already see why a lot of people leave urban teaching within the first few years. Sometimes it can just be too much for one heart to hold.

One of my kids was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.. and has landed himself in custody this week. He's missing all of his finals. The judge won't even let us send our exams to him to take in the detention center. This poor kid is a perfect example of a student who has become a product of his environment. He came to our school two years ago, smart as a whip and very academically talented.. but he fell in with the wrong crowd and has been very touch and go with his schooling these days. He's brilliant, there's no doubt in my mind about that. He's one of these kids who can not do a lick of work all quarter but then miraculously pull a 95% on a unit test. When he's on, he's on, I've seen it.

But now he's gotten into some real trouble. I fear for him, because I'm afraid he's at a turning point in his life now. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but I feel like if this is it for him, if he gets sentenced and does time.. he's not coming back from this. He wants so much to be in school and at least finish up his exams, but if he doesn't get to and ends up failing out of this semester.. I just don't know. His case is getting a final hearing tomorrow morning at 9.

I had a lovely chat with the senior class counselor today about my seniors who are failing or on the verge of failing the semester. Almost every kid who I know has so much potential but isn't succeeding at school has a unique story about just why school doesn't quite matter that much to them.

One of my girls had been pretty much MIA for the first half of the semester. Finally she came in with the counselor and her mom. She's a senior who's taking almost no academic classes and basically just needs credit for my class to graduate. She promised to turn in all the work she was missing and be on her game for the rest of the semester. She was one of those kids who was able to pull good grades on tests and do the work on her own, so I made a deal with her. I'd accept late work--even from past quarters, if she kept it up and pulled her grade up by the end of the semester. She was doing really well until right around Christmas break. I stopped seeing or hearing from her for a while. Today the counselor told me that her father passed away. What do I do? Do I pass her on effort? The work is not there.. but I know she could have done it if circumstances were different.

I found out why another one of my students has horrible attendance but does well in my class when he is there. His really good friend was a student at our school, but then got into some trouble and dropped out. After dropping out he lived on the streets for a while and his family lost track of him. Finally his mother decided to check different morgues in the city and found him in October. The really sad thing is that the tag on his body said he had been dead since February. Can you imagine? Eight months, eight months? A mother not knowing what happened to her son for eight months? A child laying in a morgue for eight months without being identified? I almost cried when my kid didn't show for his final exam today.. but I was so relieved when he walked in about a half hour later. I wanted to give him a big hug I was so happy he made it.

Urban teaching, this is why we don't last. It's just too much for one heart to hold.