There are few things in my life that I regret because I believe in the philosophy that life is a journey with unchartered paths and detours. However, I had one encounter with a student during my first official year as a teacher that keeps me wondering to this day. What happened to that student?
It was early one weekday morning. The school had not yet opened for students and I had just completed my morning ritual of washing my blackboard. Although the whiteboard was being used across the country, they had yet to make their way to the underserved communities at that time. Even still, the chalk boards in this school, which could have been easily painted over, were so worn that once you wrote on them, erasing anything made it almost impossible to rewrite something legible in the same spot. So, I washed my board everyday to try and give it as fresh a look as possible.
This was a middle school consisting of grades five through eight, with each grade encompassing one entire floor. Fifth grade was located on the first floor and each successive grade on a higher floor. Since I taught seventh grade my classroom was on the third floor. I normally arrived earlier than my colleagues because I relished the quiet time. It enabled me to mentally prepare for the rambunctious energy of twelve and thirteen year old students.
I had dumped the dirty blackboard water in the bathroom sink and was headed back to my classroom when a student appeared in the hall. I do not know whether she slipped into the building prior to security arriving or if she came in early for breakfast and slipped through the cafeteria door when no one was looking. At any rate, she was unauthorized to be on the floor at that time. This was only my second month teaching, and I was not sure how to address the situation. Before I could open my mouth to speak, the student addressed me as if she had been looking for me.
“Excuse me, are you a teacher?”
“Yes, how can I help you?”
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
I could see worry across her face and her posture was meek with a sullen disposition. I began to get nervous and searched the halls to see if another teacher had come in to work so that I could tag team them into the conversation. It was still early and to my dismay, we were the only souls on the floor.
“What’s wrong,” I asked.
“I am having some problems and I really need someone to talk to.”
I did not know if I was being tested or what. Let me reiterate that this was my first year with the official administrative title “teacher.” Although I was not a stranger to the classroom, my previous title was “long-term substitute,” I just filled in where the assigned teacher left off. It was not required of me to become instinctively attached to the needs of the students outside of the classroom.
At this point, I was in the beginning stages of teacher training and the official title brought new ethical burdens. I could not fake ignorance. Although I was fully pledged to the task with my heart, I still had not grasped the fact that along with the title “teacher,” often comes counselor, dietician, nurse, doctor, psychologist, good will provider, and parent amongst other things. To be more specific, you are the unofficial fixer of all things required of your students. Without this experience I tried to shift responsibility to the specialist on site and referred the girl. I gave her the name and location of the guidance counselor and stressed to the student that she needed to take her issues there and not with me. Basically, I feared screwing up more than I cared about the well being of that child.
Although she looked disappointed, she appeared to have understood. Then she walked away and descended the stairs out of eyesight just as easily as she appeared. Later that day and for the remainder of the week, I questioned the guidance counselor to see if the student showed up to her office. She never did. To this day I am not even sure if she was a student because I never saw her prior to that moment, and she never appeared again. I considered the fact that she may have been in another grade, so whenever I walked the halls and cafeteria, I would search for her face, but to no avail.
Maybe that little girl was an apparition, an angel of sorts, trying to show me it was okay to counsel my students as my fears prevented me from vocalizing my opinions during my first year. And trust, there were many times I should have been vocal about various issues, but I let them slide thinking it was not my place. It was because of this incident that I decided that I would never again stand by and allow something unjust to occur to one of my students without taking a stand. At a minimum, I could at least make inquiry with the administration to put them on notice. From that point on, I always opted to hear a child’s plea for help before making a final assessment.
That encounter haunts me to this day. I always wonder if everything worked out for that little girl or if my decision not to get involved resulted into something catastrophic. I will never know.
A Paige from my Book 