The lesson underneath the lesson

Sometimes the most important lessons are the ones not covered in the curriculum.

How many times have I stood before a class intent on getting them to stay on task and complete my lesson plan? How many times have I had to discipline a student for failing to do his or her work, for acting out inappropriately in class, or for not coming on time or not coming at all? How many times, despite my professional facade, have I secretly entertained favoritism towards the “good” students while harboring dislike for the one more challenging? Yet, how many times must I be brought to my knees when, in the odd teachable moment that seems to occur at a time least expected, happenstance affords me the opportunity to peer beyond the exterior and obvious, and gaze upon the greater tragedy that encompasses the life of one of my more challenging students as it exists outside of the classroom? At those moments, as my presumptuous and short-sighted self-righteousness beats a hasty retreat (along with the undue importance I had attached to my lesson on calculating the surface area of a cube), I am brought face-to-face with what is so easily misplaced during each day’s tyranny of the urgent—the precious human life lurking underneath.

I have a student named Janice (not her real name) and boy does she have a temper! And to top it off, she cannot get to school on time, she runs with a fast crowd, and her grades are poor. In the beginning of the semester, I tried to talk with her but she just would not listen. “She has a capital B.A.,” I said to myself, “a Bad Attitude!” What can I do? “She’s not gonna make it,” I sadly predicted to myself.

One day Janice was late again, but this time something was different. Another student, who was also late, came running up the stairs, “Mister, there’s a fight in the parking lot!” I hustled down the stairs, hoping not to see a gun, and there was Janice engaged in a wrestling match with a man whom I later found out was her cousin’s boyfriend. One thing led to another and Janice ended up sprawled on the asphalt as the boyfriend got into his car to drive away. Before I could even attempt to try to attend to her, she jumped up in a rage and chased after the car. Without any regard for her personal safety, she dashed into traffic and, with a brick in hand, heaved it at the car as it sped away.

For about 30 minutes after that, Janice was inconsolable…the tears would not stop flowing. Later, as I was able to piece together her story, I learned that she and her siblings do not have a stable home. They bounce back and forth between her mother (who works nights), her grandmother, and her aunt. Furthermore, Janice is the parent-figure to her younger siblings. She has to get them up in the morning; she has to dress them; she has to make them breakfast and get them to school; and then she has to get her own self to school. When she goes “home,” the whole routine begins again. Was it any wonder she didn’t always get to school on time? Was it any wonder that her attitude was on edge? The untold story was sitting before me in class week after week, but I was too occupied to read between the lines.

That day I resolved to try to reach out more to help Janice; I was determined to see her “make it.” One Saturday morning I took a van and went to pick-up Janice and a couple of other students. There was an orientation for a job for teens as peer health counselors. When we got to Janice’s aunt’s house, out came Janice with a trio of younger siblings trailing behind her. Her aunt wasn’t home and her mother was still at work, and she couldn’t leave the children unattended. So we loaded them all into the van and it was off to Grandma’s house. I pulled up to the curb, they unloaded, and trudged on into the house. But less than a minute later, out of the house streamed Janice followed by Grandma. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying but I could hear snippets of, “Uh uh, you better not leave them here at my house!” and so forth. The children looked like bewildered ping pong balls. Grandma stormed up to my van. “Don’t you bring her by here no more,” she scolded me, “I don’t want them in my house!” All I could manage was a weak, “Sorry, Ma’am.” Now Grandma was crying, Janice was crying, and the children were crying; I wanted to cry, too. We loaded the children back into the van. Janice was inconsolable again. I didn’t really know what to do. I finally decided, the heck with it, I’m taking ‘em ALL to the job interview.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Janice got the job…but she couldn’t keep it for long. You see, she couldn’t seem to make it on time consistently, she had too many absences, and she had an “anger problem,” her employer said. She was just a bad employee…but I knew better. I had seen the truer, fuller picture. And I knew that my mission was not to just teach about the thirteen colonies or how to convert an improper fraction to a mixed number, my job was much larger than that. My mission was to create a stable environment where all my students are loved unconditionally, where safety abounds, where a family-away-from-the-family and a community-away-from-the-community can flourish in peace and health. The most important lessons I can teach Janice are that she is valuable and loved, that positive relationships without violence and betrayal can exist, and that she has a future full of abundance and hope, and we are here to help her reach this destination.