It was my 2nd year teaching when I met C. He wasn’t supposed to be in my class, but through his parent’s request, he was placed in my class. I had been hired on after the start of the year to lessen the teaching load and lower class numbers. I believe that they had 37+ students/ class and that isn’t allowed in ELA or Math classes. Once mom found out that there was another ELA teacher, she moved her child into my classroom.
C was a bright and gifted student. Because of this, he often finished his work quickly or he ended up bored in class. The teacher he had before me stated that she asked mom if the child had worms or had been checked for worms because he was super skinny, but he was always asking other kids in the lunchroom for their breakfast or lunch. I ignored that and focused on teaching the child.
Soon, I began to notice he would often visit my classroom during his activity class in the afternoon. He would request to go to the bathroom (which was next door to my classroom) and stop in my room when I was eating my lunch. Always he’d ask, “Are you going to eat that?” Sometimes, if I had extra, I would give him what he requested.
It was a little later, when the Math teacher who was hired at the same time came to me to discuss C. She found out after talking to him that he wasn’t eating at home. We did report it, but nothing was really done about it. Instead, we would bring non-perishable food that he could take with him (he would either store what we gave him in his book bag to take home, or put them in his locker) and perishable food he could consume right then. See, what we found out is that he was being made to eat a bug before he was allowed to have dinner.
If what he was going through food-wise wasn’t enough to break my heart, the rest was. His parents fought over custody, not to mention the fact that mom didn’t want to give up her check. She loved on his sibling and talked down to him. It was heart breaking to hear how she talked about him with him in the same room.
He was highly medicated to the point that the medication caused him hallucinations. The day I had to write him up for “mooning” his classmates pained me. The episode was brought on by the medication and not the behavior the meds were supposed to treat.
Before long, mom decided to put him in a behavior camp. I cried the day he left for camp, but my assistant principal said the one thing that I knew to be true: At least he will be away from her. We all knew. We knew that he was better off, but we just hoped that the people at the camp would see what we saw: A broken boy in need of love.
The lesson I learned in my 2nd year of teaching is that no matter what, I had to show my students love. I had to be their cheerleader and support even if they were the worst student in the class. Doing so, I realized that some of my worst students managed to become my best. It may have been difficult with some students. Especially the students who had built up walls to protect themselves. Those were the ones that I had to break through piece-by-piece to find the vulnerable student underneath. But had I not had C to show me what students needed, I wouldn’t have known to stick with the challenge.
After my encounter with C, I kept snacks in my room, had praise ready on my lips, and always found a way to find the good in my students. He may have been a challenging student, but once he allowed himself to become vulnerable in front of me, it allowed me an opportunity to teach him and be the teacher he needed. It was a lesson that I still remember to this day.
Subscribe to our newsletter!
