Rowan

I have written up Rowan a million times this year. I sent a note on his last office referral saying, "These referrals are not working. Do you want me to keep writing him up? Or should we try something else?"

The grade-level principal asked if -- for his most recent display of ridiculousness -- I wanted to give him 3 days of in-school-suspension or try a restorative conversation.

I voted for the latter and came to her office a few minutes before our scheduled meeting with him.

"End goals," she said. "Ideally, what do you want to happen from this?"

"I don't even know anymore," I said. "I just feel like I've completely failed him."

"How so?"

"Because he cared so much about wanting to be a good student at the beginning of the year. And now look at him! I feel like maybe I didn't encourage him enough, or... something."

"Love the self-reflection, but I don't think you can take ownership of all this behavior," she said. "He's got a LOT going on at home right now. I don't know how much he told you..."

"Nothing. But I can tell things are bad because his hair is full of all this strange stuff that shouldn't be there, like he's not taking care of himself."

Then Rowan walked in.

"Rowan," said the principal, "We are here because Miss T is extremely concerned about you. And because you should not have cussed her out in front of the class."

"I know!" Rowan said. "I told you before that I didn't mean to! But she accused me of blasting my music and I didn't even have it on!"

"And I apologized several times," I replied. "I should not have assumed it was you just because it was you the last 3 times. I would have torn up your referral if you had not then cussed me out and played on your phone the whole rest of the hour."

Rowan smiled sheepishly. "But you know I have a temper."

"I do. But you still cannot do that. And if I let you do it without consequences then everyone else will be mad that they cannot also do that."

"Miss T feels like she has failed you, Rowan, because you are not experiencing success in her class. I know you like her because you eat lunch with her. So why is it that you are causing problems in her class?"

"I don't know. I just gave up. I tried at first. But no one cares about me anymore. My mom completely gave up on me, she's not even home anymore."

The principal and Rowan went around this line of reasoning several times while I listened.

"My mom gave up on me, okay!?" Rowan reiterated.

"My folks gave up on me, too," I finally said. "I know it's awful. When I was 17, we were at dinner one night and they told me they were giving up on me because I obviously was not becoming who they wanted me to be. That is a terrible feeling."

The principal looked at me. "What did you do? How did you respond to that?"

"I decided I was going to prove them wrong. Just because they were giving up on me didn't mean I had to give up on myself."

"Do you hear that, Rowan?" Mrs. P asked. "You have a choice just like Miss T not to give up on yourself."

"But you don't know the kinds of things my mom says to me!" Rowan insisted.

"I can imagine," I said. "My mom used to say absolutely horrible things, too. She was raised in foster care. She has a lot of trauma. She used to say things so awful that I would black out and not remember her words seconds after she said them. I know it’s terrible. But you still cannot give up on yourself. WE are not giving up on you."

Rowan looked up. "Okay."

Mrs. P told Rowan she would try to get him set up with a licensed therapist. She told him if he continued to misbehave, he would go straight to ISS, but if he improved after this conversation, we would consider the matter settled.

She emailed me later that night. "How was he this afternoon in class?"

"Rowan was a prince," I wrote back. "At the end of the school day, he asked me if I was proud of him."

She said, “It was by far because of your vulnerability,” which is weird to me, because that’s the same type of thing I was written up for in Hazelwood. Maybe that’s why Hazelwood is hemorrhaging teachers; like, maybe I didn’t actually do anything all that bad there. After all, they’ve asked me to come back at least 7 times.

I think this is where everyone says, "Look! You helped one teenager this year! That makes the whole year all worth it."

But I don't know that it's fair for anyone but me to decide that. I love Rowan, but I don't know that he makes this entire stressful year and new job search "worth it." Especially because I spent the rest of the night fighting off tears, knowing that I won’t get to watch Rowan grow over the next two years because I’ve lost my job. 

A big part of my reason for wanting to teach high school was so that I could help kids and watch them grow. Now I can’t. I’m losing that.

Ivan, the kid I had to write up on week 1 for sexual harassment, was a disaster on Friday. 

“I’m really disappointed in you, Ivan,” I said. “You didn’t do anything you were supposed to during class today.” Ivan and I have formed a very solid relationship in the past seven months.

“I know,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not even gonna be here next year.”