Somebody Has to Care

I read the other day that Danish doctors have found that patients with the thinnest thighs die sooner than those with larger thighs. This has absolutely nothing to do with what I want to talk about today, but if there is anyone out there who is obsessing about fat thighs, think about it again. Ask the Doc from Denmark. This one is right up there with the studies that show that a little red wine every day is good for you. Here's to therapeutic wine and fat thighs.

I was prepared to put forth a little rant about how the public schools create these college preparatory high schools and siphon off all the bright kids and leave the lower achievers in the neighborhood schools. Then they blame the teachers in those neighborhood schools for not producing stellar results. You get kids coming into high school reading on a fifth grade level and surprise surprise, they don't do well on the ACT. They don't take AP classes.

Well all of that is true, but there is another side of that. I once thought that I wanted to work in a school where every kid was in the 99th percentile and wonderful things could be accomplished. I even went and got a Master's degree in Education of the Gifted and Talented. Then I discovered that there is a lot of politics involved in getting into one of those schools and I don't have the connections to get there. I also discovered that I'm pretty good at dealing with kids who are on the other end of the spectrum.

The real surprise was that there are a lot of wonderful kids in the neighborhood schools and a lot of people don't want to deal with them and if you give them a little bit of attention and show them that you care, they will work their hearts out for you. You have kids who come from miserable circumstances and end up in schools that are full of other kids from miserable circumstances. The schools full of these kids become recognized at large as a school that is a miserable circumstance.

Yet, as a teacher, if you go in day after day with a love for your subject and a love for kids you have some wonderful moments. Kids you never expected to see blossom do. Kids who hate you one year come back at a later date and thank you for being the hard-ass and making them work, for not letting them behave like total dolts. You have moments when you realize that you're getting through, at least to some of them. You realize that your own passion rubs off, that a little humor can suck in kids to ideas they wouldn't ordinarily consider.

This year I have been teaching for exactly 4 days and I have already had a couple of great experiences in this respect. Last year there was a freshman student, who shall remain nameless, who endlessly wandered the halls, refused to attend class, and cursed and threatened teachers who dared to call him to task. This student, who we shall call Student A, obviously wasn't the brightest bulb in the lot and appeared headed nowhere fast. I was one of the teachers who took him to task.

This year Student A is in one of my classes. He is still a freshman. He was a wee bit late each of the first two days and while I let him know I was displeased with the tardiness, I showed him that I cared, I included him in class discussion, I made him feel like a genuine student. Today he was the first student to arrive in his designated period. He reads at a very low level, but because I include him, because I help him when he needs it, because I'm willing to help him out, he has begun to try like many of the students of higher ability do not. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction and he apparently is learning to like social science and that guy that constantly sent him to the discipline office last year.

There are a lot of stories like this. There are a lot of kids like this. They too are citizens of the U.S. They too need preparation for the future. They have felt like discards for much of their lives. They really love it when someone actually cares and does their level best to help them. That takes a lot of work sometimes, a lot more than it takes to point an academically gifted student in the right direction and letting them discover the wonders of learning for themselves. Everybody cares about those academically gifted kids, though. They are touted as the future of our nation and of our world.

Well guess what? The Student A's of this world are also our future and they deserve an appropriate education as well. Too often they are cast aside on the scrap heap and unless we want them to grow up as a burden on society we better help them out. Somebody has to care for them too. It's just amazing that when you make a connection, what a beautiful thing it is to see that connection blossom into something constructive. You start to realize that it's not really caring because it's the job you're paid for, it's caring because these are really good kids who deserve the best. Student A, you're alright kid. We're going to get you through this thing.