For two years I taught students ages 16 to 21 at a dropout recovery school in Canton City. If you’re unfamiliar with drop out recovery schools, it just means that students who attended Canton Harbor may have struggled with traditional school and dropped out at one point, or were falling behind in their classes.
I will be the first to admit, when I recieved my phone call from the Principal that I was being offered the position of Social Studies teacher, I was not in the least bit excited. Teaching inner-city kids at a charter school was not how I invisioned starting year two, and I certainly had zero intentions of being there longer than a school year. But goodness, those kids grow on you. I leared a thing or two with my time at Harbor.
- Patiences
Ask my mother, my husband, my closest friends, having a lack of patiences is one of, it not, my greatest weakness. When I want something done, I want it done now. Not later, now. And man, I want it done MY way. I taught students who didn’t operate that way. I taught students who hated school so they dragged their feet, and often times complained about the work they were assigned to do. But being a nag didn’t work with these kids. The more I nagged, the more time they spent on their phones. So I had to learn patiences.
- Flexibility
Oh learning patiences certainly led me to learn how to be flexibable. When I first started, the average attendence rate for a student was 50%. Which meant out of 10 school days, i’d only see them five times. I had to not only learn to be flexibable in my personality, but also my lesson plans. I had to learn that due dates were nonexistant, and accept the school policy that there was no such thing as a zero for a late assignment. Even if that late assignment was six months past due. But I also had to learn to be flexiable with my student’s personalities. If the student is having a bad day, that was a day to be the caring teacher and show my softer side, instead of the hard teacher with a chip on my shoulder.
- Caring and Understanding
I’m am a caring person, and when someone is down, i’m always the first person to ask how I can help. But teaching at Harbor taught me a whole new level of caring and being understanding. I taught students who had difficulties in life that some may think only happen in Hollywood movies. But I promise you, those situations really do happen. Some students were homeless, hungry, sexually abused, gang members, robbers, drug dealers. You ask, and I could probably tell you a student in that situation. But you know what, 99% of my kids in crappy situations were still coming to school, and they were still trying. So on their bad days, I would be extra soft with them and more understanding than I would be in different circumstances. After all, when my kids slept in class, I didn’t automatically think that they were lazy. I wondered if they were up all night dealing with real life nightmares.
- Consistency
Two things really helped my success in the classroom with my students. Consistency was the first. I had to be consistent with my rules and how I treated students. My consistency in rulees was so spot on, whenever I would have a sub in my room, behavior issues were almost nonexistant. (PS. I know this because the English teacher would tell me when I got back. She was in the classroom beside mine)
- High Expectations are for EVERYONE
The second key to my success was having high expectations for all my students. Students were expected to behave a certain way in my classroom, and they did. They knew that I would be respected in my classroom, or there would be problems. That’s not to say I didn’t have problems with this. There were many problems , but the students knew respect came before fun in my classroom. A day I will probably never forget was a day that a student told a new classmate that “Mrs. Jackson is mean. But man she’s cool. You want to be on her good side”. I can’t tell you how happy that made my heart! That particular student was a problem child in the beginning of the year. But with patiences, flexibility, caring, understanding, consistency, and high expectations, that was a student who EXCELLED for me.
- Grateful
There are many things I’m grateful after my time at Harbor. In the beginning I was grateful for the simple things – food in the fidge, water in my pipes, heat from my furnance, electricity for my lights. I was grateful for everything I had that my students went without. At the end, I became grateful for the students I had the pleasure of teaching (whether or not I thought it was a pleasure then). I’m grateful for getting to know those students, and being their teacher. I’m going to miss those kids dearly.
