Visiting educator touched souls

I had the pleasure of listening to educator and writer Erin Gruwell speak last week. Like most of us in the room, I was touched by her honesty and forthrightness. At times, she seemed to be speaking directly to me, prodding me to have the courage to unearth a situation I had worked diligently to put behind me. And so it is for her, and for Sam, that I finally sat down and wrote. Thank you, Erin, for your inspiration and your open heart. Your courage has helped me find a voice.

The story of Sam

Sam was a square peg in my round-hole classroom. He wanted nothing more than to be seen, and he would stop at nothing to get attention.

“He really is the student from hell,” had been my first introduction to Sam. His former teacher had blown into my classroom before school had even begun, listing his faults and detailing each instance Sam had willingly destroyed her first year of teaching. She made no attempt to veil her distaste for this child as she spelled out his numerous failures at making the mark as a “normal” 10-year-old kid. “If you need any help with him, just let me know. Good luck.”

I am the teacher who doesn’t really want to know what the others before me have to say about my students. I prefer to know them myself, forging bonds, building relationships and creating memories in our own time. So when Sam came through that same classroom door, I pushed his former teacher’s comments out of my mind and we began. We started out slowly, as most school years will, with sharing the rules, sizing up, checking boundaries and sizing up again. Sam was no stranger to any of this. He could articulate each expectation, re-enact each behavior and in those first few weeks he was agreeable, polite, engaging and witty.

By mid-November, though, Sam was struggling with old behaviors and a deep need for attention. Inappropriate jokes, lewd comments, kicking of chairs as he walked through the room, overly loud protests when he felt cornered or was put on the spot, all had become more common. His classmates found him obnoxious and disgusting. I found him exasperating and tiring. He had no social graces, no idea of how to make friends, and as evidence Sam had nobody. He had nobody to lean on, to cry to, to giggle with or to swing with at recess. He had never been invited to a birthday party or a sleep-over, and he had already been suspended several times for inappropriate behavior in school. He was utterly, completely and absolutely alone.

My heart broke for Sam. He had not asked to be dealt the hand he was given, and as his teacher I knew that his behavior was a reflection of his life outside the classroom — tragic. At times he was annoying and difficult to deal with, but that didn’t stop me from holding out hope that I would be the one to change it all for him, to help him to succeed where others had not.

That same month, I assigned a descriptive paragraph to my students. Write about someone you admire. While shuffling through the essays after school, I lingered at Sam’s paper.

“Mrs. Powell is very caring and she always understands when you have a problem. That is why she is my favorite teacher.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I let out a huge sigh. Not because Sam had chosen to write about me, but because I knew I was one of the only constants in his life. I thought I had been doing a pretty clean job of checking my heart at the door, but clearly Sam had seen through that. He knew I cared about him.

Sam was removed from my classroom before the school year ended. His behavior had begun to threaten the safety and well-being of the other students in my class and a decision had been made. The news was delivered to me quickly.

“Sam will be moved to another classroom for the duration of the school year.”

Relief mixed with sorrow and fear, and I felt like I’d been gut punched. Everything I’d begun with him, all the conversations, the hugs when he just couldn’t go on, all the frustration and anger. It was over. I had failed him.

Sam was sitting outside the office the morning I was given the news and as I slowly walked by, his eyes flickered in my direction.

“I’m going to miss you Mrs. Powell,” he muttered. I crouched down. Searching through his dirty glasses and lowered gaze I found him,

“If you ever need me Sam, you know where I am.”

He hugged me suddenly and with such ferocity that I forgot about checking my heart at the door. Tears welled up in my eyes and as we pulled apart I tried to see Sam for who he was. Not a square peg, not the student from hell, but a lost child whose hand I held for a little while.

Vanessa Powell is a National Board Certified fifth-grade teacher at Snowshoe Elementary School in Wasilla.