The Well Appeared Dry but Thirst was Quenched
By, Michael Earnshaw
February 27, 2019
@mearnshaw158
It is never too late to change the path for a student, but the longer you wait the more that window closes.
I’ve never been a fan of getting info on students from their previous year’s teachers. More often than not, it turns into hearing what a particular student didn’t, can’t, and won’t do. There’s warnings about their parents, attitudes, and frustrations that teacher has experienced. I always made sure that if I heard any negative feedback about one of my students I either shut it down immediately or did my hardest to forget what was said.
All of my colleagues knew that I never wanted to partake in these meaningless conversations. I wanted to give every student a fresh shot in my class, not just at the beginning of the school year, but every day. As adults we make mistakes and ask for forgiveness, so how in the world can we expect youth to be perfect every single day?
There was one student I was getting as an 8th grader, Colt. Everyone in our school knew Colt, and it wasn’t because he was Mr. Popularity. Colt sported all black, every day. Piercings, check. Long, shaggy hair covering his face, check. Death metal fan, check. Refusal to do anything in class, check. I knew Colt, and from the moment I found out I would be teaching him 8th grade ELA I began planning on how I would hook him in my classroom.
Colt was one student that many of our staff couldn’t keep quiet about. One of my teammates had Colt the previous year and approached me in the hallway over the summer and stated with a “Glad it isn’t me sigh, “You know, he’s not going to do anything. Just let him sleep in the back, it’s not worth it.” Are you serious? Did you just tell me that a “student was not worth it!” This was just fuel to my fire to prove everyone wrong.
The start of our school year was rough. I tried to relate to Colt with stories about growing up punk rock, skateboarding, and standing out from the crowd. He seemed like he could care less and just rolled his eyes with each story as if I was just making it up to try and reach him. He’s heard it all before and I was no different than any other adult in his life.
I kept at it, day in and day out, but I was taking 0 steps forward and 3 back. I’d get the sarcastic, “I told you so” questions and statements from colleagues, but I ignored them and kept pushing forward. I was not going to give up on this kid. How could I when everyone else has?
Quarter 2 began which meant our bell ringer journal prompt was changing from instead of a random question each day, students would be responding to prompts that built off of each other daily. This quarter I chose the theme of being trapped inside of a school while a zombie apocalypse was happening outside of our four walls. Each day students would get a question asking them to assemble a team of 4, picking a room in the school for a “Safe House”, and assembling defensive items to equip themselves with.
Quarter 2 something changed. Colt began writing. Each day he was the first student seated in class, the first one to begin writing, and the last to stop. Once the prompt was over and we shared, which Colt always shared his with eagerness, he would go back to zoning me out. A few weeks into Quarter 2 he would start talking to me outsdie the hall, stalling his arrival to his next subject. He would begin asking me about those punk rock shows I told him about. Or how I skateboarded my entire life, or why I chose to be an ELA teacher. This transformed into small snippets of participation in class. A little more each day that passed.
Eventually Colt was not only an active participant during our period, he was standing out! Discussions of our novel studies reached a deeper level with his input. He expressed himself through his writing. For our narrative essay unit, Colt handed me a 17 page story about a zombie takeover. His essay was near flawless!
At the end of 8th grade our team would hand out the traditional EOY awards. I created a special award this year, one for the most creative writer. Colt was my inaugural recipient. I received a lot of flack from Colt’s other teachers, he still hadn’t changed much in their rooms. They saw small improvements, but it wasn’t good enough for them. They couldn’t find victory in the small wins and didn’t want to put in the effort connecting with him as I did. I didn’t care what they thought. This young writer deserved the award and it was an honor to present it to him.
I met Colt’s mother at 8th grade graduation. This was the first time I had ever really had any contact with her. She approached me after all the students had walked the stage and received their diplomas. She had tears in her eyes and just said, “Thank you.” I responded by placing a soft hand on her shoulder, shook my head, and said, “Of course.”
This evening will always stick with me. No matter what other teachers said about Colt or his family not caring, that was not true. This mother wanted nothing more than to see her child succeed, she just didn’t know how to bring it out of him. Colt had so much talent, it just took someone to believe in him. This reinforced to me that as an educator, as a human, I can never give up on a student.
The last I heard Colt was working at a tattoo parlor as a professional pierce. I wonder where else he may have ended up if I hadn’t gone against the grain and believed in him?
