It's Not My Job to Care

In June I married a wonderful man. He’s an attorney. I am a teacher. He works his tail off to get people, many times kids, out of trouble or at least minimize it. I work my tail off to prevent kids from getting into trouble, or at least minimize it and help them learn how to do better. I see kids when their potential is at its highest. He gets them when society, friends, family, or even they themselves have taken that potential to its lowest. Under our one roof, there could not be a more common, yet polar-opposite cause. My cause, to save them at all cost while making a modest income doing so. His cause, to save them at all cost while making a handsome income doing so. Same cause but for different reasons, at different times in life, and with drastically different outcomes.

               I often find myself wondering about my husband’s teachers. Who made an impact on him while he was going through elementary, middle, and high-school? I often find myself wondering what sacrifices they made that may have affected the man he has become. I wonder how many of his teachers funded their own supplies. How many of his teachers spoke on his behalf to someone who had the power to move him into a better direction? How many of his teachers cared to not write him up? How many stayed up late to grade his paper? How many spoke highly of him in staff meetings? How many smiled at him even when all they wanted to do, for personal reasons, was cry? How many spoke kind words to him although one or more of his peers, or maybe even a parent, spoke harshly to them? How many cared before they proceeded to teach? The odd thing is he will most likely never know just how much of an impact the small actions of the quietest teachers had on who he became. On the converse, he can probably tell you a few stories of big impacts from outspoken teachers that he remembers to this day and always will. Yet and still, here he is, a successful attorney with the influence and impact of at least 12 educators who taught him both education and life while most definitely learning from him as well. Together they all kept him from getting in trouble.

This has also been my goal as an educator, to try to make an impact on my students, to try to keep them out of trouble. To try to make a lasting impression. To try to be a peaceful place for many of them that have no such thing. Last week was not good. Last week I failed. 

  On March 1, 2017, one of my students was taken into custody. That is not uncommon for the demographic population that I serve. My school is a Title One school and we serve a population that struggles financially. Our families struggle to maintain appropriate living conditions – as compared to the rest of our school zones. Our families struggle to maintain consistency with their living arrangements, often renting one place for a short period of time, just to find another place for another short period of time, or move in with family members, or move out of our attendance zone only to return after a failed attempt to escape to “better.”

              On March 1, 2017, my student was arrested on charges of murder. This is the same student who took a picture of my rear and posted it to social media when he was a freshman. This is the same student who fathered a child by the age of 16 and attempted to care for that child’s sibling, who has a different father. This is the same student who dropped out of school in his 10th grade year, only to return and ask me to help him graduate after his grandmother passed away. This is the same student who used to have more than five referrals a month but now had no behavior referrals for more than four months. This is the same student who would come to me and tell me that he was doing better and he was going to make it. This is that student and now he won’t. He won’t make it and I know that. Facing a murder charge and needing $25,000.00 for an attorney, he won’t make it.

On Saturday morning I went to visit him. He seemed shocked. As he picked up the phone and looked into the monitor he seemed genuinely shocked to see me. We talked and talked, the entire 30 minutes that was granted to us, we talked, and I asked him,

               “Do you know your rights.”

               “No. . . I mean, I don’t know.”

               “Don’t talk. No matter what you do, don’t talk to anyone.”

               “I know.”

“No matter how hard it gets. You may get threatened. You may be scared. You may be promised things. But under no circumstances do you talk to anyone other than a lawyer. Do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am. I mean, I have a Bible, I’m going to read that. I’m going to read the words I do know. I don’t know all of them. Some of the words are big. But I’m gon read that. Man I don’t know.”

As I drove back home I couldn’t help but think about a conversation I had with my husband as I told him that I was going to go visit my student. I remember sharing with him that I don’t know how to do this anymore with the tools I have. I don’t know how to reach them anymore when I can’t relate to where they are from, what they are going through, what they value, what they don’t. I remember sharing with him how tiring it is and what a struggle it has become to care. And it was in that moment that he said the most legal thing I’d ever heard and I realized he put into six words what a number of people who don’t work in education feel.

               “It’s not your job to care. It’s your job to teach.”

               I think back over the past four years that I have known my student and I try my best to find that moment that I didn’t care. It wasn’t when I learned he’d posted a picture of my rear end on to a social media page and made fun of the way I was dressed. It wasn’t that time because that time he and I talked about it and put it behind us.

               It wasn’t the time he was expelled for an avoidable confrontation. He and I talked about that too and he seemed at peace with the consequence handed to him.

               It wasn’t the time when he came back after having been gone for over a year, asking me to help him finish and graduate.

               It was none of those times. There was not a time that I didn’t care. So what happen? 

Then I thought about my husband. I thought about his parents. I thought about his mother the educator and administrator and his father the Postman who held three jobs and taught at the community college. I thought about all they did for him, to instill in him the importance of education, the importance of character, the importance of morals and values, the importance of living for more than just that moment. I thought about how he speaks of them, for they are both gone, but what they left behind is nothing short of expectations fulfilled.

               Then I thought about myself. How my father didn’t complete middle school and never set foot in high school. I thought about my mother and how she finished high school but never found the courage to go further. I thought about how much I needed my teachers and how some did great, but I more strongly remember the wrong done by those that weren’t so great.

               I thought about us both, my husband and I, and I realized that I was on my way to being that student who would not make it. But somebody cared. Somewhere the perfect combination of caring took place. Whether it was in elementary school or middle school, it may have even been high school, somewhere, a teacher cared. Somewhere a teacher knew it was her job to save me.

               I will never know what moment that was or which teacher met the call; I will never truly know whether it was my mom, my teachers, or a combination of the two at different times that saved me. However, I will always know this, aside from the English, Math, Science and Social Studies, aside from the electives and extra-curricular activities, at the core of it all is our one fundamental responsibility, to care. We can’t educate students without assuming that one skill.

               That Saturday evening I sat on my sofa thinking, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t continue to care and hurt. I can’t continue to be powerless and not help in the ways that are really needed. I can’t be their mom and dad and teacher. Something has got to give. Then I slept on it.

               As Monday came around, I entered the building through a different door. As soon as I arrived at the staircase, there was a student sitting on the first step. He had an ear bud in one ear and a book on his lap. He had papers on the step next to him and a pen in his hand. He looked up and smiled and said,

               “Good Morning Ms.”

               I responded, with a smile in return.

"Good Morning Sir." I give them all a title, they deserve that.

I thought, as I continued up the stairs, maybe I can care just a little bit longer, even if it comes with some hurt. In the end, they’re all worth it.