Thank You, Lord, for the cussing chair…part 1
As I looked at my third period class, I saw the slumped figure sitting near the front of one of my students who rarely came to class. His black hood was pulled over his head, his schedule wasn’t even started, and his pencil lay next to his schedule with that “unused” look.
Noe was that student… Being a teacher with six years of teaching experience at the high school level, he was one of those students that I just knew I would never reach. That student who, after taking the class out during the fire drill, never came back. That student who would ask to go get water, and not return for 20 minutes. His mood was always dark, and school was the last thing he cared about. Unfortunately, but expectedly, he failed my class.
Roll forward to third trimester… Guess who shows up on my roster for the additional American Lit class for students who needed another chance at getting their English credit? You guessed it… Noe…
I thought, “Here we go again…”
God had different things in mind, thankfully. In fact, Noe became one of my dearest students who came to class daily and passed that class with flying colors. Unbeknownst to me and to him, he was an excellent writer with the ability to put voice to his very painful, unfair journey that spanned his entire life. The request to leave the class for water turned into a personalized red solo cup with his name hand-designed onto the side. This cup sat on top of my personal water dispenser, and only Noe got to use that source of refreshment. And yes, I told him he got this special privilege because I didn’t want him “escaping” my class.
Because this class was full of students who didn’t love English, hated the state testing, and really bordered on “hating” school, another approach to teaching was needed. Test prep, quizzes, essay writing simply wasn’t going to work. Teaching from the heart was a number one mandate. Did you know that students can detect insincerity like it’s their superpower? Thus, I took those students on a journey with me through the pages of one of my favorite novels. A novel about a young boy’s hero who was the “real deal”. Yes, we talked about real life stuff… We identified our “hero”... There were many heart conversations, tears at times, and my heart was blessed to the point of catching in my chest as I shared some of my journey with this class of “non-traditional” students. We ended the class with each of the students writing a narrative for a student in an elementary class across town. Not one single student was late in turning in their illustrated narrative. Not one…. That class of students who didn’t care about school, hated state testing, and despised English all passed my class and excitedly watched as I shared the video with them of their little fourth graders reading the narrative that they had carefully written and illustrated. They got to become a “hero” to these younger students. We even had a time in class where we all brought snacks and read our stories to each other. Yes, Noe was right there in the middle of all of this reading his story to his class of peers, proud of what he had created. His journey had a “voice” now…
There was a knock at my door during 5th period one day in June. I go to the door and see this precious young man standing at the door with tears in his eyes. This tough kid, with a hate for school that was tangible, with the black sweatshirt bunched up on his frame…stood at my door with tears.
As it turns out, life kicked him another hardball. He was moving away, losing his home, and carrying a whole backpack full of legitimate fear, worries, and disappointments. He wept, I wept, and we used a whole bunch of paper towels to wipe the tears from our faces. I made sure that he had a way to keep in contact with me so that I could be assured he had a house to live in and was safe. He only reached out once, and then disappeared. As you can well imagine, I thought of him so very often, held onto that red solo cup with his name on it, and whispered prayers on his behalf. I had no way of finding out what had happened to him.
Roll forward three years later…
