Ups and Downs of Teaching

Tuesday and Thursday were parent conferences at my school this week, nice bookends to a day of testing (Wednesday) and our "last hurrah" before fall  break.  It isn't super busy around here tonight--quite a few parents, but no lines that I can see from my little Special Ed corner.  Needless to say, we do a lot of chatting amongst ourselves on these nights, grade some papers, work on IEP's, check email...and so on.

One of the discussions tonight has made me very thoughtful.  Apparently, one of our former students was arrested last weekend in an incident that was just big enough to make a local small town paper Now, I'll preface this with the statement that I work with good people.  But...some of the reactions to the arrest make me sick, for lack of an alternative description.

There was a picture included and the young person looks nothing like they did when they attended my school.  They look worn out beyond their 18 years.  The student's hair was messy, clearly the result of a tussle. The reaction by some of my co-workers has been to laugh and to joke that "well, we did good work there".  Here's the problem...I think we did do good work.  Yes, this young person is responsible for their choices, and clearly poor choices have been made...but if I rejoice in my students' success, how can I not grieve for their failures?

Since I was in a pensive mood, I did something I do about every six months...I looked up one of my favorite former students (I'm not joking, he was one of my favorites) on the State Corrections Website to see if he had a successful parole hearing this time.  Turns out he did, and a quick google search turned up his facebook page (no, I didn't friend him), stating that he is working as a nurse's aide and filled with notes about his activities with his church.  While all is certainly not right with the world...this certainly makes me feel a little better about the seeds I planted there and makes me hopeful that the recently arrested student will also turn things around someday.