The Faith of a Teacher

When you’re an elementary teacher, each year is a new panorama of people and personalities. You have students who walk in confident and students who walk in unsure. You have students who walk in dressed to the nines and students who walk in wearing rags. However, on the first day, almost everyone walks in quiet and a little reserved.

Not so for Gary.

Gary spent the first six weeks of this year in the district’s alternative school for kids with behavior problems. When he returned to school and came into my class he was loud, mad at the world, and he let everyone know it. I instinctively sprang into Drill Sergeant mode.

“Son! You are NOT going to walk in my class like that ever again…is that clear?”

“Yea…”

“I said, is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“What was that?”

“Yes sir.”

And that was how our mornings began for the next 12 weeks.

Drill Sergeant is not a role that I enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, I play it well, but it’s very out of character for me. And one of my biggest fears is getting lost in that role. If you get lost in Drill Sergeant mode your teaching effectiveness and joy fly right out the window.

Because I needed my Drill Sergeant role to keep Gary in line, I started getting lost. Luckily I had enough students who didn’t need Drill Sergeant Hugh to help me see what was happening. I made a conscious effort to let go of that role and fight anger with kindness and acceptance.

It was sometime in late November when I got my first peek into Gary’s personality. He had been in my class about 10 weeks and I had never seen anything resembling a smile on his face. I walked up behind him, patted him on the back and made some kind of goofy remark. A huge grin spread across his face and he even laughed a little.

Over the next several months Gary and I bonded. I learned that if I used a calm voice and expressed my disappointment with his behavior, then drill sergeant Hugh usually wasn’t needed.

Gary is smart…really smart. However, his behavior usually gets in the way of his learning, so I don’t believe his previous teachers had been able to see it.

And changes were happening in me too. This boy who took every ounce of my strength and patience was chipping away at my heart. I learned that you can’t fight anger with kindness and acceptance without opening up your heart. When your heart is open - I mean wide open - you don’t get to choose the people you’re going to let in. If the door is open, all kinds of people - good and bad alike - come shuffling in.

One day, after a problem in the hallway, I pulled Gary aside and said, “Pal, I thought we had gotten past this kind of behavior. When you first came to my class this is how you acted. I want the new Gary back. New Gary has become one of my favorite students.”

I don’t think Gary had ever heard anything like that from a teacher. He sat down in the hallway and cried. He tried to talk, but his blubbering lips couldn’t form words. I put my arm around him and told him to walk to the restroom and pull himself together.

I walked back to class wiping tears from my eyes.

Gary was actually an overflow student from another school in my district. A few days later Gary’s mother formally requested a transfer to our school for his fifth grade year. She talked about all the positive changes she had seen in Gary and how happy both she and Gary were about finally having a good school year. I told the principal it would be a mistake not to give Gary the transfer.

Yep, when you’re an elementary teacher each year is a new panorama of people and personalities. You have students who walk in confident and students who walk in unsure. You have students who walk in dressed to the nines and students who walk in wearing rags.

And sometimes the most unexpected students can change your life.

Image by What Marty Sees. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr. Post by Hugh Atkinson.