matching tracksuits

Many of my students expose their emotional buttons and switches freely and openly. Within a few minutes of meeting some of them, I can tell what their sensitivities are.

"How many administrative referrals did you get last year?" I ask some of them, with a smile that I hope says, "I'm not trying to size you up -- I'm just curious."

"A lot," a girl -- call her Ann -- responds.

"Did you notice my question?" I query. "I didn't ask, 'Did you receive any referrals?' but rather 'How many did you get?' I'll bet you got several of those referrals because you simply walked away from a teacher who was saying something you didn't want to hear."

I have her attention: she's curious, and that's always a good thing.

"How could you tell?" Ann asks.

With their posture, gait, tone and volume of voice, many of these kids speak loads without saying a word. Yet they're totally unaware of it. Of more concern is that they're unaware that others are aware of it and can use it against them.

"When you advertise what 'makes' you lose control," I explain, "You provide others with ammunition. The teacher who doesn't like you at that moment knows: 'All I have to do is push a little harder and she'll definitely give me something to write up.' You let others know your weakness and they might use them against you." I pause for a moment, deciding to use a bit of vernacular: "Then who got played? Who got owned?"

"Me," she says meekly.

I have these little conversations after class with the kids that would be labeled "at risk" because they are at risk: they're in danger of becoming slaves to their own impulses and the people who can pick up on those signals and use them.

Occasionally, there are moments that illustrate that they are indeed beginning to pick up on the signals they give off. They are aware that others can only "make them" mad if they allow it by advertising their sensitivities and reacting predictably.

This afternoon, while students were waiting for their buses, I was joking with a young man that I could probably get him in a state that would end in a disciplinary referral for him. We'd been joking with each other all class about such things, and he stridently denied that I could "push his buttons."

"How about you," I ask the boy's neighbor. "Do you think you have advertised what gets you hot? Do you think I could push your buttons and get you furious in just a few moments in class" He shrugs his shoulders.

I turn to Ann, always one of the last students waiting for her bus. "I'll bet I could get you." I know I can: I already have, inadvertently. The question -- the hope -- appears in my mind: "Will she own up to it?"

"You already have, Mr. S." Her grin is an odd combination of devilish delight and sheepish vulnerability.

I smile. "Do you think I could do it again if I tried? I won't ever try, but if I were to try, what do you think?"

She shrugs her shoulders and looks away. For just a moment, though, her eyes say, "I don't think so. At least I hope not." A first step -- an admission of ownership and of personal responsibility.

"One small step for man..." I think, as the students leave for the bus. I glance down at the roll book and see four more names that need to have such a brief moment of self-confidence in their ability to control their lives.

"I'll start on him next week," I mumble.

It's all part of the growing realization I'm having about working with these "tough" kids. The cliche is spot on: they don't care what I know until they know that I care. And they're beginning to know that I care because with me, it's not business as usual in the discipline department. The etymology of "discipline" includes notions of teaching, not notions of punishing, and I try to put that into practice in the classroom.

It’s a famous riddle: You stand at a fork in the road. One road leads to happiness; the other leads to sorrow. You don’t know which is which. At the fork stand two men. One always tells the truth; the other always lies. You don’t know which is which. You’re allowed one question to determine which road to choose. What do you ask?

The intricacies of the riddle concern me less than the general theme: a life-changing moment, with two, diametrically opposite outcomes.

As a middle school teacher, I often encounter kids standing at just such an intersection. Generally, they don’t realize this, and the ones who do will probably ask the right questions in life.

Of the ones who haven’t yet realized that every moment offers decisions that can change the outcome of the rest of their lives, there are three varieties.

The first give every indication that all will be well with them. This is not to say they’re all studious and hard working. Indeed, many are not–as many of us were at thirteen. Still, there’s something about how they carry themselves that speaks to their future success.

The second group is a mystery. Truth be told, they usually turn out alright too, but they’re just not giving the clear signs yet. They’re not giving any signs yet, and that’s fine. They’re thirteen.

The third group is the group that haunts me. I see them and it’s difficult for me to imagine them making many good choices in life because it’s hard to see them making choices, period.

And not to choose in this case is a choice.

It’s not that they lack intelligence or even vigor. They simply don’t see the choice. They don’t see choice at all in their lives.

They are victims, eternally, and of everything. Adults don’t seem like them and they don’t know why–and they think there’s nothing they can do about it. They speak with loud voices that echo through the hallways and it’s just the way they are: “I’m a loud talker–it’s just the way I am.” They get referrals because teachers are picking on them and out to get them. Only with great difficulty can the make eye contact with anyone at all. They are subject to the whims and silliness of others: people are constantly “making” them do something. They react violently when they feel they’ve been disrespected, and often no disrespect was meant. They consistently show self-destructive views that make it all but certain that the cycles of dysfunction that they have obviously experienced in their lives will continue to haunt them, and their children, and their grandchildren.

Working with them is like working with a blind girl who’s always been blind and who doesn’t even realize she’s blind. Talking to them, trying to present any view that differs from the calcified reality of their first thirteen years is like speaking Finish to an Egyptian.

There are those that wake up and make the changes they have to, that realize they’re actually in control of a great deal of their lives. I know several such people. But the odds are against them, and the fact that I can do very little to change those odds is sometimes the most depressing aspect of teaching.

"I didn't do that! I'll put it on my mother!"

"Well, you see, what happened..."

"Didn't you see all those others doing it to?"

"But she was talking to me!"

"But he tried to trip me!"

"Well, he knocked my books off the desk."

"No. No -- that is not what I did."

"What?!"

Sometimes, the excuses pile up. When they all come from one individual, someone who is always in the middle of things but always innocent, we see a life stretching out in front of this him that is so frustrating because he has such a warped perception of everything going on around him. We hope he can begin to look around and start taking some of the responsibility for the negative consequences he faces almost every day, but sometimes it seems the odds are against him.

I’d just finished a tough second period. Most classes with second period are tough — it’s just that kind of class. I was a little down about how much of a disaster that period could be when I decided to walk down to the cafeteria for a cookie.

The next-door social studies teacher emerged as I was walking by and told me about an unexpected exchange he’d had with a student.

“Latonya was talking in class,” he began, “And I told her to be quiet.”

Latonya (not her real name, of course) is a bright young lady in my related arts class. I’m teaching “Self-Advocacy,” which is basically social skills. And while Latonya is a very sweet young lady when she wants to be, she has a reputation for being tough on teachers.

In fact, the first time I met her was when I was calling her down for inappropriate behavior in the hallway and she began telling me how stupid my judgment was. When she first found out that I was teacher her third quarter related arts class, she said, “No way I’m staying in that class.” But by and by, talking very occasionally in the hallway or while outside before lunch, she came to change her opinion of me, and I of her. Before long, she was asking me when she’d be in my class, saying, “Mr. S, I can’t wait to be in your class.”

Now she’s in my class, and she’s one of the few who genuinely wants to learn how to make their school days more successful. She listens; she participates; she behaves wonderfully. But it’s not an academically challenging class, and I was curious how she was doing in other, “real” classes.

It seemed I was about to find out.

“You told her to be quiet, and…?”

“And she said, ‘Okay.’ And did it.”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Mr. W. continued: “I was so surprised that I just looked at her and said, ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Mr. S. teaches us to just say “okay” whenever a teacher asks us to do something,’ she explained.”

It’s hard to explain the odd elation I felt. Part of it was for me — “Hey, I taught someone something!” It was important to feel positive after having had such a negative lesson. Most of the elation I felt was for Latonya. For someone whose auto-pilot sends her into fits of denial and aggression when confronted by a teacher like that, she accomplished something ineffably significant in just saying, “Okay.”

When I saw her in the hall during the next break, I told her how proud I was of her.

I wish I had a picture of her expression.

I walked back down the hallway, thinking, “These are the moments that keep me going in this job…”