You Don't Have to Undersand Crazy

Our vice principal learned this rule of life in middle school years ago and is doing her best to instill it in those around her. The sign above her door says "Chaos Manager." I'm beginning to wonder if we don't all need one of those signs. I don't want to say that this was a rough week but it was certainly a rough ending that I am still trying to process. I don't want to understand crazy but I do want to find a place to put it in my brain so I can move forward. I have clearly seen things in middle school this year because of my reading intervention class that it might have taken me another 5 years to experience in my bubble world of regular education. One of those things is attempting to educate our most challenging student from 6th grade. I am now calling this, witnessing the evolution of a delinquent. Last year teachers said all sorts of "crazy" things about him to us - don't waste your energy, just send him to the office, he'll drop out, he'll go to Gateway in high school. None of that made any sense to me. This was a kid who loved derailing any lesson he could but mostly didn't want to try and fail and loved to take anyone else out with him that he could. His power was in his charisma. Well we have gone from a kid who didn't do his work to a kid that doesn't come to school. Instead of taking kids out of the lesson, he takes kids with him out of school. It feels like a train that is careening out of control off the tracks and down a mountaintop. It simply can't be stopped. I am slowly finding a place to understand this. As teachers, we must sometimes just admit that we are powerless. But the clincher for me this week has been a parent that after a serious of letters to teachers and phone calls from the principal has taken her son out of school to home school him. This is definitely a first for me and my partner teacher. She and I have both been accused of targeting her son and publicly humiliating him. The mother refused to meet with the teachers, the vice principal and finally the principal. She believes that her child is the perfect son and is not capable of doing any of the things he has been accused of and freely admitted to the teachers and principal that he did do. I've heard parents threaten to rip their kids our of school in the middle of the year because of teachers but I've never actually seen it done. It leaves a very bitter taste in your mouth that I can't seem to shake. It's not a sense of failing a student because there is nothing that could have been done by any of us to stop this, it is more my worry of what will become of this boy. Who will he grow up thinking he is and how will he find his place in the world? His mother believes he is perfect, yes really perfect! She had no understanding of why all these people were saying such "horrible" things about her son. Now this boy is a performer; he loves an audience. I try to imagine him writing and sharing his amazing stories or learning the Greek myths with no one but his family to appreciate his accomplishments. Maybe that's what's keeping me stuck. He is smart, bright and has so much to bring to the world. And this mom has chosen to keep those gift hidden away. As mothers and as teachers we don't have that right. Our children and students are given to us to ready for the world so that we will all live in a better place. It's why we do what we do. The glory of this job is to model and guide and support and then stand back and be amazed while these children take flight in the world. So to this student I say, I wish you well, my son, and pray that some day you will find your voice and we will all be better because you shared your gifts with the world. Be well and grow up strong.