Growing up in St. Louis was a world-and-a-half away from the culture I currently reside in. North Dakota is culturally diverse alright. You’ve got your Germans and your Norwegians, with a few Finns and Swedes thrown in for fun. It is just so incredibly WHITE here. I should clarify that it is quickly becoming more diverse for a variety of reasons, but by and large, Whitey rules.
My childhood was a bit more colorful.
I had a moment in the fifth grade that become something of a watershed moment for me. That frozen moment in time has helped shape my worldview and many a response from me.
I hope I never forget it.
The school that I attended was predominantly white, but we did have a few African American students (I’m sorry, but why is it politically incorrect to say black now? Any doctor’s office patient form lists me as white, so what’s the problem with saying black? These are the thoughts that roll around in my head. Just wondering…)
ANYWAY, I had a friend in the fifth grade whom I liked very much. We’ll call her Esther. Esther was her real name, so it fits perfectly… Esther and I sat next to each other in the classroom. We had no problem connecting on a friendly level, even though she commuted from downtown every day and I hailed from the safe confines of the ‘burbs.
One day as we sat next to the sunny window of Mr. Meyer’s fifth grade room, she asked (seemingly) out of the blue, “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be black?” I was a little taken aback by her serious tone. I didn’t have to think about my response long. “No,” I answered bluntly. I couldn’t really define why, but I was embarrassed at my answer. I irrationally felt as if I should have been pondering that question at great length. I turned the tables. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be white?” It was the intensity of her answer that arrested my conscience and made an indelible impression in my life. “All the time,” she said with quiet emphasis.
I could not know the full basis of her longing, nor had I ever had to walk in her shoes. It is the sudden awareness of seeing life through another’s eyes that morphs your life into something other than you had been before. It leaves one a little breathless to be jerked into new light. Such was this moment.
It is a life lesson that is essential in the classroom.
I have a student who is a foster child. I have mentioned her before. Big, serious eyes and a body that houses an old soul. She had a very hard day yesterday. It was difficult to watch.
I will not go into great detail here, but behavior issues have been an ongoing thing with her. I have felt they are attention-getting behaviors. She gives a funny little smile when she is being corrected. It is as though she feels some sort of triumphant win when her misdeeds are noticed and exposed. She has had an extraordinary amount of winning lately.
I caught her cheating on a test. This is not new. We have circled this block before. It has been dealt with on a variety of levels. Mrs. Dahl takes cheating very seriously. Yes, even in the first grade. Why? Because first graders grow up to be seventh graders and then tenth graders and some will go on to be college sophomores. If I can stem the tide of "the easy way out" now, then their odds for being successful students down the pike increase dramatically.
I sighed heavily and looked at her for a very long moment. Why, Angel? Why did you do this AGAIN? She shrugged and stared at the floor. I asked her to go the hallway just outside our door and wait for me. This action tells the child two things: 1. Whatever I have just done must be BIG. 2. This can’t end well…
My “hallway chats” are reserved for the serious stuff only in that it affords a small measure of privacy for the offender. There is no other place to go. I gave hurried instructions to the rest of the suddenly quiet crew as they watched their comrade move to the hall with the heavy steps of the condemned.
When the rest were busy doing something (I do not even remember what), I moved to the hall and found her on a tiny chair, eyes downcast. I began my lecture with all the usual and predictable platitudes. She never looked up. She gave no sign at all that she was even listening. I asked her to look me in the eye. She shook her head no. At least she was listening!
It took a fair degree of coaxing to get her head to move in any upwards direction. But as she did finally obey, the tears began to flow. Great, racking sobs that shook her tiny frame and caused gasps of breath. Without warning she blurted, “I took your markers too!” Ah. So there was more to the story. There usually is. I put my arms around her and thanked her for her honesty. Her sobbing only intensified. My stern heart crumbled.
I tried to pull her close, but she resisted. Her little body was rigid and the sobs that poured out came from some well deep within her heart and soul. She suddenly pulled away from me and nearly shouted, “Just send me away! I don’t care!” I froze at the intensity of this outburst and quickly tried to process where this had come from. She has been shuffled from foster home to foster home. This I knew. Something along the lines of four in her very brief life.
I reached into her once more and pulled her head towards me as the storm kept its pace. “Oh, sweetheart. I would never send you away! I am so GLAD you are here with us. I love having you in our classroom. You are learning how to be a good student and how to make good choices. That’s all. It takes time to learn all of those things. I am trying to help you learn. It does not mean I love you any less.”
With head still nearly resting on her little chest, I thought the tears had quieted a little. “I love you and I forgive you. There will be consequences for what you have done, but be brave and accept them and we will work together to help you make good choices in the future.”
A small nod greeted this last statement. I had her attention. When there were no more tears and she was finally quiet, I stepped back into the classroom to check on the damage to an unsupervised class, leaving my little Lost One under the watchful, loving eye of our foster grandparent. My broken-hearted girl asked if she could sit there for awhile in order to gather herself. Of course, dear.
In four or five minutes, she suddenly appeared at my side, as noiseless as a cat. She held two red markers in her tiny hands. I received them gratefully and thanked her again for her honesty. “What do you think your punishment should be?” She shrugged. She didn’t much care. She had heard it all and experienced it all before. This would be just another tally in the column of Poor Choices. I told her I wanted to think about it before I said anymore. She nodded in a resigned fashion.
It was time to line up for lunch. As my Line Leader rallied the troops like MacArther in the Korean War, I felt suddenly compelled to completely change my strategy with her. I wanted to take the lunch break to ponder this new thought, and so we headed to the delicious smells of the kitchen. Taco Day AND banana cake will fix just about anything.
By the time lunch was over, I knew I had settled on a course of action and waited to walk with my subdued charge. Letting her peers go on ahead, I pulled her into a hallway corner. This time she bravely looked me square in the eye. The moment of her repentant brokenness had passed. She now waited silently for her sentence.
I asked yet one more time, “What do you think would be a fair punishment for your actions this morning?” She shrugged and said without thought, “stay in three days from recess.” An obvious answer – she had done this hard time before.
“That is a possibility.” I confirmed. “And of course, your foster parents should be called.” She looked at the floor, but her head bobbed up and down. I then asked her to look me in the eye. I called her softly by name. “Do you know what the word ‘grace’ means?” She shook her head in the negative. “Grace,” I went on, “is receiving forgiveness and mercy when you do not deserve it. You cannot earn it. It is offered just because.” I looked intently into her face. “I want to teach you about Grace today. You deserve everything you mentioned, and more.” She nodded. “None of that will happen this time. You are forgiven.”
She wasn’t sure what to do with this information. It was foreign to her thought processes. She was not only familiar with punishment; she actively sought it. I wish I had answers as to why this was. I do not.
“Sooo,” she began hesitantly. “I don’t have to stay in for recess??” “No you don’t. You are free to go outside. I will not mention this to the principal and I will not call home. Not this time. BUT, if it happens again, there will be consequences.” She nodded solemnly, aware that she had been given the governor’s reprieve.
As I watched her skip happily down the hall towards the door and unexpected recess, I hoped I had done the right thing. Frankly, my own actions had not made much sense to me. I should have thrown the book at her. But I am guessing that is about all she has ever known. Maybe a simple lesson in doing the opposite of what is expected got her attention. I fervently hope so.
When she sailed in from the playground with the rest of the bunch, she hurried over to me and threw happy arms around my waist. She said with quiet fervor, “I hope I never do that again!” I hold the same hope, Little Princess…
It would be so easy for me to react with frustration that she and I keep having the same conversations about the same things. I get a little self-consumed in those moments and wonder what in the world I am doing wrong. But then I think of my fifth grade friend, Esther, and I remind myself that I need to make an attempt to see this child through different eyes. Through her own eyes. If I had been bounced from home to home, and routine to routine, what might my perspective be like? It would probably be very similar to hers, I am guessing.
She is a survivor. She does things that make no sense even to her. She just knows that a little rule-breaking gets her some one-on-one with people who are forced to “see” her, if only for a few moments.
When you have never been afforded the chance to put roots down, you seek the next best thing… a little warmth in the sunshine of adults who have children of their own and have given those children the security of a loving home and unwavering stability. The first six years of life are incredibly formative. Life long perspectives are formed in the cocoon of those early years. To be denied secure predictability is to risk warping those perspectives and perceptions. It stinks.
There is no eloquent way to say it. Kids should be with mom and dad, period. Anything less is hard, even when it is the best possible Plan B. But this is not always possible, obviously, and there are heroic grandparents and foster parents and adoptive parents who step up to the plate and give it their best shot. Bravo to each one!!
So here’s what I hope:
I hope that my student finds that sunny patch of warm earth that will give her a sense of belonging.
I hope that for whatever time she is with me, I make a positive difference in her life.
I hope that seeds of understanding that were dropped onto the dry soil of her heart find nourishment and take root into the deepest part of her heart and mind.
I hope she can take ownership of the fact that she is precious and priceless simply because she is God’s child.
I hope she begins to understand that Grace and Mercy come even to tempest tossed souls like hers.
I hope…
Thank you, Esther, for giving me your eyes for a brief moment.
May your heart find its home, Little One…
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