#memorablemomentsineducation #9: I’m off to a department meeting, so I’m inclined to talk about moments of collegiality.
In my first teaching job, I worked with three other teachers and a principal who came to see us intermittently as he traveled between two schools. As a team of teachers we made all the important decisions from what curriculum to teach or which technology to purchase to whether a student had violated our community expectations and needed to be placed on a leave of absence for one quarter. We sat in hundreds of those “leave” meetings, but one moment jumps out at me.
I recall a special, charming, smart young man who’d been in our school for a while; I believe he was pretty close to graduation, which was the penultimate goal for all our students at this alternative high school. He was called into a meeting because he had violated either a behavior or attendance contract. I had spent a lot of time working with this student, so I was invested in the outcome for his sake. After much wrangling and a few tears, we decided to place him on leave. A leave meant he’d need to retake his classes AND he would graduate a quarter later than planned. He was devastated (and if you don’t know, hurt always looks like anger in a kid) to say the least. He left the room in a fit of rage, flinging an almost-full Coke can at the door on his way out. This marks one of those moments when I was truly scared, not just for myself or my colleagues but for my student.
I remember that moment not just because of the smashed can but also because we knew he knew he’d made a mistake. We also knew he cared enough about his mistake to make some changes. Fortunately, he also knew we cared about him and his education enough to ensure he followed through on the promises he made to himself, his classmates, and his teachers. He did return to school the next quarter, he did finish out his high school career, he even apologized for the can, and I suspect he’s out there in the world doing good things to show for the opportunities he had.