Failure Story

FAILURE STORY:



Anyone that has been reading my blog might recall a post titled Breakfast Club, which started off with the question, “What can I do for BG?” – well, more than two months later and with sufficient time for reflection that answer is a resounding, “not enough”. For the sake of this assignment, I’ll call him “Billy”.
I’ve had countless failures this past year, some minor and others I would consider major. I failed myself, my students, my school and the corps on more than one occasion. There were days I didn’t lesson plan, days that I found time-fillers to help the periods pass more quickly, times when I didn’t help a student because I was too busy, or too tired. Every one of my dropouts I consider a failure – no, not them; me. A few I was able to keep from dropping out by becoming more involved in their lives, going to their homes and calling them on a regular basis. And there were a few I managed to convince to come back after they had already dropped out. Those aren’t my failures. My failures are the ones that I let go. The ones that I didn’t have the motivation, the energy or, I guess, the compassion to care enough to do everything in my power to convince them that what they’re doing is not a good idea. Some were behavior problems, and I allowed myself to feel relief at their permanent absence. Then there was the guilt – all that extra work involved with getting a student who is so far behind in school that their own child is close to the same reading level as they are can become overwhelming, like the behavior problems, and you are almost glad to see them leave. Until you let yourself remember that the price for their academic apathy is far more costly than a little larger dose of stress in your life.
I can rattle of a number of my dropouts, but Billy is the one that hits closest to home and what I would consider my greatest failure this past year. And he hasn’t even dropped out – yet. I met Billy the first period of the first day of school. He seemed shy, had a nervous laugh and he veiled the transition between assumed nonchalance and humbled obedience when it came to class-work less noticeably than most. Coaching football, I quickly found out who my players were, and was surprised to find out this tough, athletic-looking kid wasn’t on the team. It didn’t take much convincing, just a five minute conversation after class one day, to get him out there in pads. Apparently he had played up until this year, but wasn’t sure if he wanted to or not. Much later in the year, I found out it was because he had to “work” most nights, the non-legitimate kind of work, and that kind of work conflicted with football in several ways. He was talented, but arriving late he naturally had to prove himself to earn a position. In addition, he played safety behind arguably the two best athletes on the team. Slowly, I saw the other side to this shy guy. Bobby would sulk at practice, often scowling at anyone who caught his eye, openly ridiculing and questioning coaches and other players on the team, taking his pads off and refusing to practice at times or simply sitting on the sidelines and refusing to talk or move at all other times. This all stemmed from his perception that he should be starting. One day he even threw a trash can and his helmet onto the field. In his defense, the head coach put up with this act – from Billy and others. Needless to say, the season didn’t go very well, and eventually Billy quit (as did many others) – despite my protestations.
With more time after football season, I began offering myself before and after school for extra help. By then I had noticed Billy was far behind academically. He could barely read, and his writing was what I would guess a first grader could produce. He was relatively polite in class most of the time, aside from the occasionally storm-out-of-the-room temper tantrum when he would quickly get discouraged or frustrated due to something in class or in his life that was on his mind. Some days, many days, I think he got very little out of class because he couldn’t understand what we were doing and I was busy helping out the rest of the students. I think I considered it a minor victory that he even came to my class, seeing as how he skipped most of his others. After Christmas, Billy started coming to school less frequently and often late. Soon he was skipping first period completely so I would only see him in the halls. I would constantly corner him and explain how important it is he, of all people, should be in class every day … and he would nod, and agree, and promise to start coming. He didn’t. So I made another offer, to pick Billy up every morning before school (along with another studentwho was also on the football team and a terrible reader) and have them read for a while, out loud to me and to themselves, before school starts. This is where I failed Billy.
He was immediately interested, even enthusiastic, and I could tell he really did want to learn how to read better. More importantly, I had shown an interest in his well-being that he may not have seen from anyone else - certainly not from a teacher. For the first week I was at his apartment every morning and we would get to school with plenty of time to read children’s books, so much more on his level but wounding to his pride to read in front of his classmates. Then I had him for class, so he was there, and making up his missed work while staying on top of new work. It also helped me to get to know him much better, to learn things like his mother’s encouragement of selling drugs to pay bills, his two kids (he’s only 17), his father (whom he has never met) in prison, and the fact that he has nobody in his life who expresses what I would call warmth or love. From what I’ve seen of his mother, she is abusive, neglectful, disinterested and on drugs herself. There were many days that I wanted to adopt Billy, picking him up in the morning and hearing his mother's berating first hand, thinking that getting him out of this environment as his only viable way of “succeeding”. Getting so involved, waiting in his living room in the morning and driving around with him before school started, helped me to put in such incredible context why, or how, he has gotten to where he is now ... or perhaps more clearly, not gotten.
Then things started to fall apart. I missed a lot of days of school, so he had nobody to pick him up and would be late for school if he even went. There were other days that I myself was running late, squeezing in those last few moments of sleep or preparation, and didn’t have time to pick up Billy if I didn’t want to be late myself. I started getting no rely at times when I would show up at his apartment and nobody would answer the door. His phone numbers changed often that I could never get a hold of him. I tried to engage him in the classroom, when he was there which was less and less frequently, but it seemed he had given up. Whatever spark he had when I first agreed to pick him up because I cared that much that he have time to focus on reading was now slowly fading away. He started getting into fights, getting suspended, and developing a very negative reputation around the school. This hurt me, because I knew what Billy was capable of and what he wanted to do. But I wasn't helping him any longer, at least not as much as I could have been. I had let the window of opportunity to pass. My own school work, lesson planning, personal life and other students had taken my attention away from him. Instead of bailing water out and trying to keep his boat afloat, I let Billy sink. I would always have good intentions of doing more for Billy but never quite getting around to it. And so, in the end, I was doing to Billy what so many others have done to him, what life itself has done to him; shown him that nobody cares about him, that he is a lost cause. I had, in his eyes at least, given up on him. We had talked about working with Habitat for Humanity together when I discovered he was interested in carpentry – Habitat has a worn place on my to-do lists, permanently putting it off every weekend. Its gotten to the point where we both became uncomfortable with each other, perhaps for different reasons, and almost had an unwritten agreement not too look into the others’ eyes, to keep conversation impersonal and only offer the standard words of encouragement or guidance. He stopped coming to class completely the last month of school, and I stopped chasing him to keep on track. I let him go.
It kills me now to know with pretty good certainty that he won’t be back to school next year. He had spoken of Job Corps, which may be a decent option if he does pursue it. He won’t go to summer school, even if he could afford it, and he already is old for his grade. Like so many others, his potential is staggering. The question is, am I going to do what it takes to get them to see this potential without allowing his world consume mine and burning myself out? II've often thought that if I had hoards of money, I might have adopted Billy, and a few others, and some more next year, too. They need so much, and I can give them so much. Opportunity. Attention. I just get tired, and overwhelmed. There are so many Billys. And now, this Billy is out in the streets and finding the support there that cut him loose from the classroom.