Sunday, January 16, 2011

Where Did the Bad Kids Go?

Do you know about "Alternative Education"?  Perhaps you are like I was--a general ed teacher who had a vague sense that there were several other "educational options" for the students who couldn't cut it in the "real" high school.  These places were undoubtedly easier, probably just passing students without making them do any "real" work.  Said students were the "bad" kids---behavior problems, attendance problems, attitude problems.  I and other regular ed teachers would just shake our heads sadly or smirk knowingly when we found "that kid" ended up switching to alternative ed.  My own district has several alternative sites.  I didn't know the differences among them.  They were all the same.  Those "bad" kids were all the same. 

Now, don't get me wrong.  I am not now, nor have I ever been a heartless teacher.  I worked hard to reach all of my students, to differentiate instruction, to reach out to parents and try to help whoever struggled.  However, as I've said in another blog, the kid who desperately wants to learn and might be successful, but has immense personal struggles to overcome, often looks just like the jerk who doesn't care.  My new job in alternative education has made me begin to realize, there actually isn't any jerk who doesn't care.  That kid doesn't exist.  I just thought he did.  I thought he was the one who ended up going away to alternative ed, and I couldn't be bothered with worrying about it.  I worked at the main campus. 

Well, the good Lord has a way of opening our eyes, even when we think we have nothing else to learn on any given subject.  After fourteen years of success as a secondary teacher, I'm pretty smart.  What am I missing?  What could I possibly have to learn aside from some tinkering with my practice here and there?  One layoff, six terrifying months, and one blessed, beautiful rehire later, I realize I'm an idiot thank you very much. 

I now work in alternative ed.  In fact, that "general ed" term I just threw around like an old vocabulary shoe, is a relatively new term for me.  I was just a teacher before; now I realize the distinction.  I have come to undertsand the differences among each of my district's several alternative sites.  I am beginning to see the tensions between the main campus and alternative ed. with new eyes.  Most importantly, I see with glaring clarity the arrogance I possessed toward these places and these students...now my students.  I know where the bad kids went.  They came to me, and they were never "bad" to begin with. 

That kid who was pugnacious every morning?  He has never had one positive adult role model.  More to the point, no one has said anything helpful or loving to him...in years...maybe ever.  Does that excuse his behavior?  Nope.  Does that mean he isn't my problem?  Double nope.

The girl who sleeps with everything on campus and sees every female as a threat and every sexual encounter as some twisted kind of love?  She was abused and has never been loved the right way, so the wrong way has become a sad replacement for the real thing.  Does this excuse spreading STDs and ugly rumors?  Nope, but I can't just roll my eyes back at her either. 

The girl who never came to class?  She's living in a car. 

The boy who always fell asleep in first period?  He works nights to feed his family..really he does.  He's not working to pay for car insurance, but oatmeal and diapers for his baby brother. 

The kids who can't focus?  They're hungry.  Ask them; they'll tell you, and people who are really hungry don't lie about it. 

The one who does brilliant work but is on the verge of dropping out because of attendance has chronic migraines. 

The other one is taking care of his disabled mom. 

Still another has been smoking pot since age ten because his Dad thought it would be okay, and the other one who's an alcoholic started drinking because she was so sad about her mom's addiction. 

Really?  Yeah, really.

I thought it was just ABC after school specials.  Wait, no, those were tame by comparison.  I think in my former job there were a lot of valid reasons for my being less empathetic and more cynical about the kids who now make up my entire day. 

The main reason is that I had to be.  Self-preservation dictated that when I had to serve almost two hundred students per day, I didn't have the luxury of getting to know each one's story.  I saw so many that I had to insulate myself from the knowledge of how bad some of their lives could get.  Plus, there seemed to be very little I could do when considering how few minutes of one-on-one contact I actually had. 

Beyond self preservation, I also knew I wasn't the last option for students.  When a student began slipping through the cracks, I would contact the counselor and eventually, if the student was unsuccessful enough, he or she would just disappear from my roll sheet and end up somewhere else.  I could be safe in the knowledge that the system had somewhere for that kid to be.  I didn't know if it was the best place, but it was another place after I failed, after the "main," "regular," school failed. After the students fail here, they can still perhaps succeed somewhere else. 

Today I now work in that mystical "somewhere else."   I am the place the "bad kids" went.  I am the last stop, or close to it.  There are a few options in alternative ed, but really we're the last line of educational defense before dropping out, giving up, moving on without a diploma.  There is nowhere else to go; we're it.  As a result I spend a lot more time on the phone coaxing my students to come in when they are absent.  I know more parents by their first names than I ever have before.  I know where most of my students physically live and with whom they live.  I'm learning to read subtle clues about what they aren't telling me, about whether contacting the parent will be helpful or end up in abuse. 

I made an English muffin with peanut butter this week because my student announced when she arrived that she was hungry.  Students used to say that all the time, but it wasn't really my problem.  Today, we had extra English muffins in the kitchen, and we always have some peanut butter, so she munched on breakfast while we discussed quadratic equations.  Later, we took a "field trip" outside to get some fresh air and walk up and down the lawn as a physical representation of adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers.  Those signs are just directions, and passing over zero is a magical journey where addition becomes subtraction sometimes. 

Nevermind the strange miracle that I'm teaching algebra.  My new position allows me to teach algebra for an entire hour if I need to, and my student will not be spacing out from lack of breakfast because I made it for her.  How is this possibly the sad "continuation" place I used to think it was?  How can this be anything but a wonderful place where students are saved, one by one, hour by hour? 

It seems to me the mission of my new alternative universe is to undo all the damage high school has done to my students, and to be there for them in ways that all good teachers long to be and try to be, but are prevented from being because of the factory-like necessities of a comprehensive high school.  When you have 200 and the school has 900 students, they somehow cease to be students in the same way that I cease to be a human being to the lady at the DMV.  They are units, ADA,  or test scores.  He's "below basic," she's "an AP kid,"he's "ELL" and has an "IEP", and on and on.  I know most teachers in my former place don't feel this way, but for every general ed teacher "the system" can generate an insidious callousness that is hard to ignore.

Lest this blog become a simplistic endeavor that champions the miracle workers in alternative ed and condescends to the comprehensive site I used to occupy, let me reassure you:  my revelations are about me, not everyone.  This epiphany was personal.  My new position has reminded me why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place.  The small, crucial moments so hard to find and celebrate as a general ed teacher (see my attempts to teach rhetorical devices in A Problem Like Maria) are much more frequent when you teach one student at a time.  The drug problems, or relationship crises that I used to try to push beyond my classroom doors cannot be pushed aside here; they are the glaring reasons why my students are here in the first place.  I have to work with my students' disabilties, their poverty, their crumbling families, and their poor attendance.  It's messy work, often sad work, and always exhausting work. Yet it's still one of the most important jobs in our society. 

I like my new job in ways I could never have imagined.  When my former colleagues seem surprised by this, I remember how I used to feel about "alternative ed," and am reminded of how little I knew even after fourteen years of teaching.  One of the reasons for choosing teaching as a career was that I wanted to be a lifelong learner.  Teaching in alternative education has uprooted all I thought I knew and reminded me of how much I do not know.  Not just math or how metamorphic rock is formed.  Not just why Newton is important or why the acronym FOIL is my best friend when factoring.  I am learning again how much power my profession can generate in a student's life.  Unfortunately I am also learning how much more need and sadness and injustice exists in the world around me, than I thought there was, even in my small, beautiful mountain place.  I learn everyday at work.  I laugh everyday at work.  I think deeply everyday at work. I am challenged and victorious and a miserable failure everyday at work.  So my new place in education is challenging and scary and a miraculous temblor that has shaken me up and made me so glad to be a

Teacher Not Teaching Now Teaching

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said, Amy!I found myself saying, "yes, yes, yes..." all the way through it and remembering my first years in alt. ed. Such an eye-opener! We need to make sure the school board reads this. I am so glad you are now one of the few, the chosen!
Mary Beth

Queen of the Nook said...

Beautiful, Amy. Thanks for sharing.

Mrs. Pierce-Cummings Teaches said...

During my year at Foothill there is one particular day that will always stay with me. I brought in several hoola hoops from home. I let the day students (those who attended all day) play with them during lunch. It was amazing to see the transformation from "thugs" to children. They weren't reticent or argumentative. They weren't dishonest or defiant. They were beautiful, wonderful, laughing children. For a few glorious moments I saw them as God sees them. Every time I encounter a kid who seems like the jerk you mentioned, I remind myself of that day.

Anonymous said...

Amen sister!! Unfortunately there are so many kids that need an even alternative ed doesn't work for some of these kids because they need vocational ed. English, History, etc. is also not what some of these students need.

Anonymous said...

I love your essay and I totally get it! Thank you for so eloquently expressing the pain, joy, rewards and realities of alternative education.

Regret

Asking teenagers to write about what they regret will not elicit much depth. It is not, as you might imagine, because they have not lived lo...