Friday, June 3, 2011

Good(s) Friday

I should warn you, this is the longest post I’ve ever written.


It’s Friday. Fridays are always met with a gigantic sigh of relief at the Ponderosa (in case you’ve missed it before, that’s what we call our house because of its “waterfront” view of a pond). This Friday, however, was special. We took our kids who passed both EOGs to Busch Gardens, and it was a blast. Look for a post about the trip soon. Unfortuantely, the topic for this post is a little bit gloomier than a recap of a day at the amusement park with 100+ middle schoolers. Brace yourselves.


The harsh reality of the achievement gap and its effects on my students really hit me yesterday as I choked back tears in my living room while recounting the latest 7th grade news to my roommate: Bobby is up for retention. (I wish I could use his last name, because it has a certain ring to it, but for his privacy and the sake of my job, I won't. Just know it's why this post has the title it does.) Bobby’s time in my class is just a blip on his teenage radar, but to me, it is the pinnacle of my first year of teaching; Bobby has my heart.


As I scanned my homeroom roster on August 25th, I was so relieved to see Bobby’s name. It was the first name I felt confident that I could pronounce, and I imagined that a kid with such a simple name would be as unobtrusive as those two syllables.


Boy, was I mistaken.


From day one, Bobby proved to be the biggest handful in my homeroom class. I spent weeks trying to get him to just sit down, and even longer convincing him to pick up a pencil (that I provided), much less do anything productive. He is a “cool kid” from the projects of Scotland Neck, and his confidence is as unwavering as his stare. Thus, Bobby was more of a leader in the classroom than I was in those first dark days, although he never used his influence for anything productive. But as much as I should have wanted to kill the kid, with each passing day I loved him more and more. I have no idea why—I guess this is a lesson in love.


Bobby became a constant topic of conversation in our seventh grade team meetings, and never in a good way. He was disruptive, defiant, playful, and unmotivated, and the other teachers had had enough already. From the beginning, there seemed to be no hope for Bobby—he was destined to be a failure. But I couldn’t give up on him. Here was the perfect example of how the achievement gap was widening in Enfield, NC. Because of his circumstances, his environment, and his socioeconomic status, Bobby’s future has been written for him, and it is not a bright one.


I remember coming home in those first months of school proudly claiming that Bobby was going to be my “project”; I was going to get him where he needed to be, and he was going to appreciate school by the time he left my class. He was going to see the discrepancy between the life that was dictated for him and the life he had the potential to live. If I was going to change one kid this year, it would be Bobby.


There were some big obstacles in the way of Bobby’s success. He loved to play in class, and he wasn’t making the connection that his behavior was affecting his grades. I took the liberty of keeping a list for one whole week of all of his misbehaviors and held him after class one Friday to read him the list. He was shocked at how many times he was off task, out of his seat, and talking to friends in that period of time, and even seemed a bit embarrassed to see it in black and white. Not to mention he had created a following in his class, and it would be hard to make a change so drastic without feeling some backlash from his friends. I promised him that I would do whatever it took to help him be successful, if he could commit to coming in to class ready to work every day. It ended in a deal: six muffins if he could give me three good days in a row.


Slowly but surely, I started to see progress in both Bobby’s behavior and his academics. I nagged him like he was my own child and hovered over him while he completed assignments. He was never prepared, so I supplied him with paper and pencil on a daily basis. I eventually made him give me his lunch money and used it to buy him a box of pencils, which he kept up with for a whole month (!!). I was amazed at how academically capable he was when he finally put himself to work, and it only strengthened my faith in him. Those three good days didn’t come right away, but a little over a week later I delivered his six blueberry muffins to the cafeteria during breakfast. If only I could have captured the look on his face—part surprise that I actually came through with the treats, part excitement for the deliciousness that awaited him, and what I’d like to believe was part pride for his achievement.


As the year went on, I continued to push Bobby as I learned more about his home life. He lives in the projects with his mother and has an older brother who is an honor roll student at the high school. I loved calling home to tell his mother how great he was doing in class, because I knew how many negative phone calls she had received in the past. Bobby was a fighter, and he had already found himself in several scuffles this year. But as he began to grow in the classroom, his delinquencies declined. Other teachers noticed a change and commented on his progress, and I was beaming. He truly felt like my baby, and I knew that pouring into this kid was so worth all the hard work and energy it took.


Fast forward to this spring, when a fight took place right after dismissal at the bus ramp. My heart sank when I heard Bobby’s name on everyone’s lips, and I immediately ran to the office to find him. I knew, in that instant, that he was slipping away. That this was the beginning of the end of all that we had worked for, together and separately. I held back tears as I calmly told him how disappointed I was, and watched him stare at me with what I thought were remorseful eyes. I left that office feeling scared and sad for him. This won’t be the last time Bobby’s pride and confidence will get in the way; if only he knew how high the price to pay will be.


Things went downhill from there. Bobby came back from his suspension five days behind everyone else, and his desire to fight or talk about fighting outweighed his desire to work. We weren’t completely back to square one, but we had certainly taken many steps backwards. I started walking him to the bus after school everyday to ensure that he didn’t cause any problems, trying to convince him to take care of his business in the streets rather than at school. I tried with all I had to prepare him in those final weeks before the EOG, but I was starting to worry. It felt like he had given up, and there was nothing more I could do.


During EOG week, he assured me that he was going to pass, and I had high hopes for him despite the last few weeks in the classroom. High hopes that those few months of glory that we had would be enough to get him through the standardized tests. I spent much of the testing periods waking him up from his naps, though, and my hopes soon began to fade.


EOG scores came back the next week, and his was the first name I checked. To my complete and utter dismay, Bobby failed both of his EOGs. But what was most heartbreaking was that he was only one point from passing his math EOG. He was so close. If only he had given me just two more good weeks. It might have been enough to get him over that hump, to show the state that Bobby is worth fighting for, that he was going to write his own future.


Instead, I’ll spend this Monday holed up in the assistant principal’s office, poring over a stack of files of students who have been suggested for retention. In that pile is a folder filled with incomplete work samples from Bobby’s first and last weeks in my class, documentation of all his instances of misbehavior, and his failing scores. And in that folder is a paper that requests that Bobby be retained in the 7th grade, with my signature at the bottom. There is no evidence in that folder of our glory days, when Bobby was on his “A-game”, as I call it in my class. No one remembers anything but the Bobby they see now, the same one that refused to sit in his desk on the first day of school and didn’t turn any work in for weeks. I tear up even thinking about it.


I have mixed feelings about this business. On the one hand, I want Bobby to learn his lesson. I want him to see that he cannot get away with behavior, and I want him to realize that it takes so much more to be a successful student—because he has so much more to give. And to be honest, I think that if I have him for one more year I may be able to really transform him. On the other hand, I am fuming. There are plenty of other 7th graders that are not nearly as bright as Bobby that are getting passed on simply because they “try hard”, they have extenuating circumstances (medical issues), or are too old to remain in the 7th grade. I am fuming because I know they are using Bobby as an example, and you never want to see someone you care about put on the spot. And lastly, my heart is breaking because I know that statistically speaking, Bobby’s chances of making it to his high school graduation would dropped significantly.


Bobby has no idea how much his life is about to change if our request for his retention is approved.


This, my friends, is the achievement gap. A product of his environment, a slave to his circumstances, Bobby may never truly know freedom, all because of this vicious cycle. My heart breaks for him, and all of the kids who are facing similar fates.


There is a silver lining to this story. I think Bobby has finally realized that all my nagging came straight from the heart, and was only meant to encourage success. Check out his response to my end-of-year survey on Thursday:


"Ms.Hiltunen is a very good teacher and pushes everyone to do their best in her class she want stop until you do your best and work at your full patential she loves to see you suceed."


I'm praying that despite what may happen in these next few days, that somehow Bobby will still succeed.

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