My Second First-Year of Teaching

I realized last week that this is my second first-year teaching. With a second language, two new grade levels and the ELD/Phonics curriculum, there is little familiar territory in my lesson plans. Last year was a crash course in classroom management and re-directing disruptive student behaviors. This year is a crash course in exceptional needs and academic interventions. Illiteracy, processing disorders, visual impairments and possibly petite mal seizures are aspects my students bring to class on a daily basis.

Possibly the most difficult and painful impediments are those which we have the least control over: emotional and physical neglect outside of school. One of my students, CR, has not seen his mother in over three months. He lives with his grandparents. This child has no physical obstacles to learning, aside from a minor vision problem. Ironically, it would be easier for him to have a tangible physical difficulty than to be abandoned; the education system could compensate for the physical need with intervention. Yet his problem is in a realm we cannot influence. He is doing his best, but I have watched the mounting toll abandonment has taken on his ability to concentrate.

In a handful of instances CR has cried in my presence. His tears are not merely a natural result of being corrected or of feeling embarassed. His sobs come from a deeper place. On a certain level, he has begun to believe there is something wrong with him, that he is "bad" and somehow defective. This "defect" is the reason his mother does not want him. On two occasions he acted out in class and I addressed the behavior. He thought that I saw the "defect" in him and, like his mother, I did not want him to be in my presence. C began to cry, and so many emotions came to the surface: Anger, frustration with himself, sadness, and fear of rejection.

"Why doesn't my Mom come back?" is a question he wonders. The frightening thing is the answer he is beginning to construct in the void her absence creates. He has begun to believe he is the reason his mother doesn't come back. Something is wrong with him, something so wrong she doesn't want to be around him. I know it's not true, but he has begun to think it is.

CR is very eager to please - most of the time. I am trying to acknowledge all the things he does well: Getting out his book, turning to the correct page, or being part of the first team to clean up math manipulatives. However, it is not enough. We're losing this child to something more powerful than politics or mandates. We're losing him to the vacuum of a fatherless, motherless existence. NCLB, further legislation, and the standards cannot change that. This child would be at the top of the class, particularly in math, if he had the parental support he deserves. He would rock the CST.

Yet for all this, as a teacher, I have stopped asking myself, "What would his CST score be like if he could concentrate?" I no longer believe the lie that success is measured in terms of numbers. Success is measured in terms of healthy relationships, their length and depth of experience, the laughter and tears they hold. I have laughed with this child, and been there when he cried. In my book, this child is a success. He is a success because he somehow holds it together in the midst of a swirling chaos that should be a family.

I don't worry about his CST score. Perhaps I should, but I think more about how to get him to see that he's not "defective." I worry about what will happen to him next year if his teacher is too busy to listen to him. I wonder how he will manage high school, how he will make it to and through college, and what he will be when he grows up. He was the only third grader in our class who didn't have any idea what he wanted to be when he became an adult. He's so smart - I've told him he could get a college scholarship for sports (he loves football) and become an engineer or software designer. He seemed to like the idea, but changed his mind next week. He said he wanted to build a home to help elderly people. That was entirely his idea.

I provide a stable routine and daily encouragement for him. It is not enough, but hopefully he can see he is worth my time. I tell him as much, but I don't know how much he hears. At the end of this year, for whoever reads this, just know that this child's scores are a byproduct of his story; they are not the story itself. The real story is the one he told two months ago in Math. There was no words; the story was contained in the warm, salty water that filled CR's sweatshirt sleeves as he covered his eyes in front of his peers and wept for a mother who has no idea what an incredible human being her son is.