Inspiration in the Strangest Form

Today, I was bolstered by two separate events.

First, I had each of my students grade their DCA benchmark exams while we await the official scores to come back. These initial numbers could be a little off here and there, but stay pretty true to the actual score, traditionally speaking (and by traditionally, I mean the one time I've administered a DCA previously).

On the first Science benchmark exam, my students had an overall mean of 57%, with only 12 students receiving a passing grade. Abysmal; utterly and unabashedly.

On this past Science benchmark exam, our scores went up! Our overall mean was a 64%, now with 23 students passing! Though this falls still short of our goal of 80%, my students are showing gains and we are slowly closing the gap between where we are and where we want to be.

I can't wait to share the news with my students. I know that they will be so very excited to see their class thermometers move upwards toward 80%. The first class that gets there gets a pizza party and I can just taste that pepperoni!

The second thing that happened today was extremely alarming and extremely heartening, all at the same time.

I've written about Jeremy before. He is the kid who is on his third set of teachers this year at Miller, having been moved twice for making terroristic threats to both "blacks" and "all the sixth-grade teachers."

The past two weeks, the district psychologist has been observing and meeting with Jeremy, trying to pinpoint a reason for his eccentric behavior and comments. Whatever he said to the psychologist is confidential and as such is unable to be shared with his teachers. What I do know is that today our counseling staff went into an emergency-mode in dealing with Jeremy. They had the psychologist call his mother and discuss her assessment - apparently Jeremy is "suicidal without ideation," which I take to mean he wants to kill himself but doesn't know how he will do it.

Jeremy is searched (practically strip-searched) each morning by a member of the administration to ensure he has no weapons and all three of his teachers watch him like a hawk to ensure he is not threatening other students. However, now I anticipate he'll be watched even more closely. As to what that means for instruction in my classroom, I yet to know.

The other thing the counselor shared with us, I found strange. She said that Jeremy stated he "wanted to kill himself but liked Mr. Wilson." The counselor said that if he were to make verbal any suicidal threats they would probably be verbalized to me.

Huh? I barely speak to this kid other than to give him instructions for class and now he's going to confide in me suicidal threats?!

Somewhere hidden deep beneath the seriousness of the situation is a compliment. Something that I have done has meant so much to Jeremy that he told the counselor that he hated everything around him but me.

Hearing this, I couldn't help but think of Taylor and how, even though he is the worst behaved student I have and I ride his case more than any other, he tells his mother that I am the only teacher he likes. To be honest, I think Taylor and Jeremy both serve to illustrate how much positive male influence is missing in the lives of my students.

If I do nothing else while I am at Miller, I hope my presence serves to show students like Taylor and Jeremy that they are loved by people who have never known them and that it is possible for them to become strong, positive male figures.